Death in Entertainment. Need examples

[Lady Freedom]

Need seven examples of Death in entrainment, as in music, video games, movies, Pc game, etc.

Full assignment if you want to know the whole deal:
Death in the Media: Discuss the ways that death is a part of the media's entertainment ( include the array of software computer games too). There are many forms of expression (in entertainment) that utilize death as subject and situation. Describe, briefly, any seven of these. then discuss why death is used. What is happening here regarding perceptions of death?

[Lady Freedom]

1. Kick

[Lady Freedom]

2. Ah come on guys!!!

Please

[vixengrl]

3. Last week's CSI (Oh hell, any week's CSI)

but last week's was a collection of stories introducd by the corpses themselves, who set up the scene--the tagline in the end, from Grisson, was that he spoke for the dead because they could not speak for themselves. Popular music had a love/hate relationship with death-you are told at once "Don't Fear the Reaper"

(Don't forget Shakespeare)

Romeo and Juliet
Are together in eternity...Romeo and Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday...Like Romeo and Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday...Redefine happiness
Another 40,000 coming everyday...We can be like they are
Come on baby...don't fear the reaper
Baby take my hand...don't fear the reaper
We'll be able to fly...don't fear the reaper
Baby I'm your man...


But also that Death is ambiguous--not glamourous:

cause you feel like you're living a lie
Such a shame whos to blame and youre wondering why
Then you ask from your cask us there life after birth
What you sow can mean hell on this earth


And then there's poetry--the most famous is probably John Donne:

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.


And also--more recently, Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Also, in movies--the whole horror genre suggests death--what is to die, the senselessness and horror, or in the case of vampires, what it is not to die--see "Dracula" (any version) or "Interview with a Vampire." Also, so does war movies--"The Brothers Sullivan"--think about all the sons in one family dying in one mission, or "Saving Private Ryan"--dying to save just one man --shoot, watch those together.

I hope these suggestions help.

[Deja Q]

4. Family Guy

All it does is make fart jokes while doing lame parodies of 80s pop culture shows. It's too esoteric for its own good.

Grand Theft Auto is an example of the lack of creativity in gaming. Who cares about the political slant; if nobody could come up with anything better than THAT, including easter egg bonus sex game...

Music is an easy one, what with Brit Spears, jessica simpson, hillary duff, and all the other bleached boobjobs out there that strangely enough tend to look alike once made up in all the mascara...

It's lack of originality or daringness, and the induction of the public to criticize anything new just for the sake of it not being the 'same' that's the problem.

[Lavender Brown]

5. Law & Order

Every episode starts with the discovery of a death, but it's never really about the person who died, it's about who did it.

For movies, the first one that came to mind was The Sixth Sense.

[Lady Freedom]

6. Thanks guys!! That got the mind thinking again!!

Had a Comparative Religion test today and my mind is still thinking about Jainism and Taoism (Now spelled with a "D").

[XemaSab]

7. The Matrix

Or some other film where death is entertainment.

[hfojvt]

20. death is entertainment in the Matrix?

It is typically hero vs. anti-hero with alot of cannon fodder biting the dust.

Maybe death is entertainment in "The Terminator"

"Listen, and understand
that Terminator is out there
it can't be bargained with
it can't be reasoned with
it doesn't know pity, or fear, or remorse
and it absolutely WILL NOT STOP - EVER!!
until you are dead."

In a sense, death is the Terminator, which cannot be reasoned with, and which is coming for all of us. Meet Joe Black. I think death is a major factor in most of the movies in my collection - Flatliners, Taps (one crazy summer, The sure thing, Career Opportunities, The Breakfast Club - less so) Beverly Hills Ninja, The Last Starfighter, The Princess Bride, Better Off Dead, The Abyss, Superman, War Games, John Q, Real Genius, Cocoon, Thelma and Louise, etc. Either somebody is trying to kill the heroes, or everybody, and typically death is thwarted, although sometimes embraced ala Thelma and Louise.

[XemaSab]

22. A lot of people are treated as totally worthless cannon fodder

in the matrix.

You don't think that says something about our society, that people can get picked off left and right and it's no big deal?

[hfojvt]

25. But it is a big deal

It is only the bad guy (the Matrix) which uses people so (not counting the later Matrix movies). The same thing could be said of Star Wars which had a considerable body count (an entire planet, and then all of the soldiers on the Death Star) but the same would be true in an actual battle (beginning of "Saving Private Ryan" for example). In the Matrix most of the killing happens during the rescue of Morpheus, which happened in order to save his life and to prevent the city of Zion from being wiped out or enslaved.

[mark414]

8. what about the passion of the christ?

one long snuff flick, that was

[mzteris]

9. This is a poem a teacher read to our class in highschool....

I went to the library, checked it out, and copied it (in purple ink)... I think I still have it somewhere. I still remember the first few lines.



The Equilibrists (John Crowe Ransom)

Full of her long white arms and milky skin
He had a thousand times remembered sin.
Alone in the press of people traveled he,
Minding her jacinth, and myrrh, and ivory.

Mouth he remembered: the quaint orifice
From which came heat that flamed upon the kiss,
Till cold words came down spiral from the head.
Grey doves from the officious tower illsped.

Body: it was a white field ready for love,
On her body's field, with the gaunt tower above,
The lilies grew, beseeching him to take,
If he would pluck and wear them, bruise and break.

Eyes talking: Never mind the cruel words,
Embrace my flowers, but not embrace the swords.
But what they said, the doves came straightway flying
And unsaid: Honor, Honor, they came crying.

Importunate her doves. Too pure, too wise,
Clambering on his shoulder, saying, Arise,
Leave me now, and never let us meet,
Eternal distance now command thy feet.

Predicament indeed, which thus discovers
Honor among thieves, Honor between lovers.
O such a little word is Honor, they feel!
But the grey word is between them cold as steel.

At length I saw these lovers fully were come
Into their torture of equilibrium;
Dreadfully had forsworn each other, and yet
They were bound each to each, and they did not forget.

And rigid as two painful stars, and twirled
About the clustered night their prison world,
They burned with fierce love always to come near,
But honor beat them back and kept them clear
.
Ah, the strict lovers, they are ruined now!
I cried in anger. But with puddled brow
Devising for those gibbeted and brave
Came I descanting: Man, what would you have?

For spin your period out, and draw your breath,
A kinder saeculum begins with Death.
Would you ascend to Heaven and bodiless dwell?
Or take your bodies honorless to Hell ?

In Heaven you have heard no marriage is,
No white flesh tinder to your lecheries,
Your male and female tissue sweetly shaped
Sublimed away, and furious blood escaped.

Great lovers lie in Hell, the stubborn ones
Infatuate of the flesh upon the bones;
Stuprate, they rend each other when they kiss,
The pieces kiss again, no end to this.

But still I watched them spinning, orbited nice.
Their flames were not more radiant than their ice.
I dug in the quiet earth and wrought the tomb
And made these lines to memorize their doom:—

EPITAPH

Equilibrists lie here; stranger, tread light;
Close, but untouching in each other's sight;
Mouldered the lips arid ashy the tall skull.
Let them lie perilous and beautiful.

John Crowe Ransom

[kiahzero]

10. Death of the Endless

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, he portrayed Death as a sentient entity, the eldest sister in a family of personified concepts (Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, Delight / Delirium). Her role is to help bring people in to this world, and to help them leave when it's their time to go. She's depicted as being nuturing, caring, and remarkably perky.

If you have time, go to your local library, and find the first chapter of The Sandman, and read the final installment, "The Sound of Her Wings." It encapsulates Gaiman's depiction of Death throughout his work. It's not as full of a sense as reading the entire series, but if you're just writing a paper on it, I doubt you want to invest that much time in it.

If you can't do that, here's a quote for you, from the perspective of Dream:
"I find myself wondering about humanity. Their attitude to my sister's gift is so strange. Why do they fear the sunless lands? It is as natural to die as it is to be born. But they fear her. Dread her. Feebly they attempt to placate her. They do not love her. Many thousands of years ago I heard a song in a dream, a mortal song that celebrated her gift. I still remember it. 'Death is before me today: Like the recovery of a sick man, like going forth into a garden after sickness. Death is before me today: Like the odor of myrrh, like sitting, under a sail in a good wind. Death is before me today: Like the course of a stream, like the return of a man from the war-galley to his house. Death is before me today: Like the home that a man longs to see, after years spent as a captive.' That forgotten poet understood her gifts. My sister has a function to perform, even as I do. The Endless have their responsibilities. I walk by her side, and the darkness lifts from my soul. I walk with her, and I hear the gentle beating of mighty wings."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_%28DC_Comics%29

[philosophie_en_rose]

11. Some uses for death in media

1. Grief circus - the media loves to create a circus around someone's death. Not to honor that person, but to puff up their broadcasts with phony expressions of grief. --> see the shooting of the Amish girls.

2. News - the flip side --> media passes information about life and death. --> see obituaries

3. Desensitization --> Death is used to get people used to death or killing. ---> see violent computer games

4. Entertainment --> People can vicariously 'kill' their problems through deaths in entertainment ---> Id.

5. Scare Tactic - is bacteria in ____ going to eat your ____? are terrorists lurking in your bushes? Are you going to hell, when you die? ---> see news; televangelists.

6. Education - it can show us the consequences of our actions. Do not wiz on the electric fence. Stop eating crisco. You can learn a lot from a dummy.

7. Humor/ Release - we're all mortal. Death in the media helps us to deal with our own mortality. --> See Addams family-type things; jokes about death; Darwin Awards, etc.

[Kali]

12. thinking of those movies like Ghost, and wasn't there one more recently?

Video games mechanical part of killing, blowing bodies up - the graphics and special efects - very common to those games.

Lots of old rock and roll songs - country too, having to do with death.

[hfojvt]

21. it is hard for me to think of alot of songs involving death

although "Two Hangmen" was one back in the early 80s. Not a huge hit. I think it is more prevalent in rap with bullets flying, and I just saw a band on TV called "The killers".
Leader of the Pack
but unlike my movie collection as I read through my songs, most of them do not feature or include alot of death
Love Hurts, Carrie, Every Rose has its thorn, Alone, (Roll On, Danny Boy kinda do) The End of the world, Proud Mary, Fortunate Son, Did I shave my legs for this, We danced anyway, In a week or two, You were mine (American Pie), etc.

As I look through my first hundred titles, death seems to be the exception, unlike in movies where it is more like the rule, and in books too, with entire genres like action, horror, western, mystery, where death is a central theme, or not very far away.

[jobycom]

13. Unforgiven

Complex mix of criticism of glorification of violence while at the same time glorifying it.

[mark414]

15. the same could be said of Natural Born Killers

[jobycom]

26. True. Both brilliant films. nt

[TheBaldyMan]

14. Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, The Seventh Seal or Terry Pratchett novels...

Death makes an appearance in all of them in anthropomorphic form.

[ghostsofgiants]

16. Going back over a decade here, but...

Mortal Kombat.

[tuvor]

17. Country Death Song by the Violent Femmes

I had me a wife, I had me some daughters.
I tried so hard, I never knew still waters.
Nothing to eat and nothing to drink.
Nothing for a man to do but sit around and think.
Nothing for a man to do but sit around and think.

Well, Im thinkin' and thinkin', 'til there's nothin' I ain't thunk.
Breathing in the stink, till finally I stunk.
It was at that time, I swear I lost my mind.
I started making plans to kill my own kind.
I started making plans to kill my own kind.

Come little daughter, I said to the youngest one,
Put your coat on, we'll have some fun.
We'll go out to mountains, the one to explore.
Her face then lit up, I was standing by the door.
Her face then lit up, I was standing by the door.

Come little daughter, I will carry the lanterns.
We'll go out tonight, we'll go to the caverns.
We'll go out tonight, we'll go to the caves.
Kiss your mother goodnight and remember that God saves.
Kiss your mother goodnight and remember that God saves.

I led her to a hole, a deep black well.
I said make a wish, make sure and not tell
And close youre eyes dear, and count to seven.
You know your papa loves you, good children go to heaven.
You know your papa loves you, good children go to heaven.

I gave her a push, I gave her a shove.
I pushed with all my might, I pushed with all my love.
I threw my child into a bottomless pit.
She was screaming as she fell, but I never heard her hit.
She was screaming as she fell, but I never heard her hit.

Gather 'round boys to this tale that I tell.
You wanna know how to take a short trip to hell?
Its guaranteed you'll get your own place in hell.
Just take your lovely daughter and push her in the well.
Take your lovely daughter and throw her in the well.

Dont speak to me of lovers with a broken heart.
You wanna know what can really tear you apart?
Im going out to the barn, with a never-stoppin' pain.
Im going out to the barn, to hang myself in shame.

(Edited for some atrocious punctuation and spelling.)

[mykpart]

18. What about "Celebrity Death Match"?

Agatha Christie novels?
That Robin Williams movie, "What Dreams May Come"?, or Albert Brooks, "Defending Your Life"?
Old movies like "The Robe" about early Christian martyrs.
"Somewhere in Time", Christopher Reeve.

[Bossy Monkey]

19. Doom, Saving Private Ryan, The Deerhunter, Schindler's List

The Friday the 13th, Hallowe'en and Nightmare on Elm Street movies...

Or if you want to be a smartbutt, Death of a Salesman, Death of the Hired Man, Death in the Afternoon, Death and the Maiden, Death of a Swan (Swan Lake), Love & Death...

"I Don't Like Mondays" and death metal, whatever the latter is (hell, I'm 44 years old, what do I know?)

[Richard Steele]

23. Howbout the series "Dead like Me"?

http://www.deadlikeme.tv/theshow.php

Synopsis:
Georgia "George" Lass (ELLEN MUTH) is a young college drop-out who has no job skills and seems unable to take an interest in anything, including her own life. She cultivates an air of cynicism that infuriates her mother, baffles her father, and isolates her younger sister. George is about to get a wake-up call.

With her mother Joy (CYNTHIA STEVENSON) insisting that she get a job, George applies to a temp agency that sends her out as a file clerk. Her lunch break - and her life - are cut short when a toilet seat from the MIR space station drives her into the pavement. George does not realize that she is dead until Rube (MANDY PATINKIN), the kindly leader of a team of grim reapers, points out her remains. Rube takes George under his wing and introduces her to the other members of his undead group: Mason (CALLUM BLUE), Roxy (JASMINE GUY) and Betty (REBECCA GAYHEART).

The members of Rube's team of reapers are all, like George, people who died with unresolved issues. They still have lessons to learn that - for one reason or another - they failed to learn in life. They move about the Pacific Northwest in the full light of day. They walk the city streets and eat at all-night diners, just like anyone else. They have to find somewhere to live, cook, eat and do their laundry. They look just like everyone else but as grim reapers they appear physically different to the living than they did when they were alive.

What George experiences beyond death is the focus of this darkly comedic series. It takes a slightly twisted look at life and at one possible version of life in the after life. What if death is not the end? What if it is not even an escape from the issues that plagued us? What if it is not a way to avoid accountability, but an opportunity to accept responsibility? What if it is a wake-up call?

[Oeditpus Rex]

24. How many times did Wile E. Coyote 'die'?

How many times did Daffy Duck get his bill blown off?

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Death — or a reasonable facsimile — was once a staple of cartoons. What effect, if any, did this have on those who were raised on them?

[idgiehkt]

27. doesn't someone die in that stupid walking backwards Cold Play video?

or something?

[jmowreader]

28. You could do your whole paper on Full Metal Jacket

Many more than seven people died in that movie, so we'll call it death explanations...

Death for Bragging Rights: Private Joker (did anyone ever get this guy's real name?) said he joined the Marines "to kill" and "to be the first kid on his block to get a confirmed kill." He wrote "Born To Kill" on his helmet. (He also wore a peace symbol into combat, which caused the Marine leadership to question his patriotism. "Joker, how's it gonna look if you get killed wearing a peace button?")

Admiration of Death: Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann gave a lecture to the recruits in which he discussed Charles Whitman (mass murder at the University of Texas) and Lee Harvey Oswald (credited with killing President Kennedy). He gave glowing accounts of their marksmanship prowess, explained that Whitman and Oswald learned to shoot in the Marines, then informed the recruits that "before you ladies leave my island, you will all be able to do the same thing."

Preparation to Create Death: During another lecture, Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann explained that the recruits had to develop a "killer instinct" to survive in combat. He told them that if their killer instinct was not clean and strong, "you will hesitate at the moment of truth. You will not kill. You will become dead Marines, and then you will be in a world of shit because Marines are not allowed to die without permission."

Death as Payback: Private "Gomer Pyle" Lawrence kills Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann with rounds he stole from a rifle range the night before the recruits were scheduled to leave Parris Island.

Death as Remorse: Private Lawrence then kills himself.

Death as a Routine Part of Life: During the press interviews, Animal Mother explained that to protect the tanks that accompanied them from being destroyed by B-40 rockets, their squad would go in first and blow the hell out of the place.

Death in Defense: During the first night of the Tet Offensive, the Marines of Da Nang killed most of the Viet Cong troops who overran their position.

Death for Pleasure: The doorgunner on the helicopter that took Joker and Rafterman to Phu Bai reveled in death, bragging that he'd killed well over a hundred Vietnamese, including women and children. When asked how he could kill women and children, the doorgunner said "you just don't lead 'em so much."

Death for Ideological Purity: Soon after Joker and Rafterman arrived in the Phu Bai area, they were directed to a site where the Viet Cong gathered people they considered hostile to the Communist regime, murdered them, laid them in a ditch and sprinkled lime over them.

Death as Duty: The second half of this movie was full of firefights, and both sides' personnel were killed, sometimes graphically.

Death as an Act of Mercy: During the final firefight, someone shot but wounded the sniper that killed Doc J and 8-Ball. Animal Mother allowed Joker to kill her rather than leave her to suffer in her wounds.

[sakabatou]

29. Kenny from South Park

Death as comedy.

[terrya]

30. "Six Feet Under" would be a perfect example, I think.

Hell, a whole show about death.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

31. Gladiator: "Are you not entertained?!"

[sarge43]

32. Re death on tv

You might want to prowl through some Twilight Zone episodes. Sterling did several excellent riffs on the theme.

[Deep13]

33. Hamlet

big body count