Ann Hornaday on the Isla Vista tragedy

[gturner]

They may have caused his narcissism while trying to cope with his Asperger's and other issues by giving him too much reassurance and praise. I had a house mate with profound narcissistic personality disorder who was raised under a stream of parental worship and adoration about how pretty she was, how perfect she was, how smart she was, blah blah blah. After she grew up, anyone who failed to sufficiently praise every aspect of her being, or who tried to talk about any subject other than her, often caused her to feel seething rage. There is no cure for it, and psychologists just try to teach the afflicted to pretend to care about other people and listen to what they talk about. The amount of money is irrelevant, as she drove a cheap tiny car to her job as a hair dresser. No matter what their station, the universe is supposed to revolve around them and they get very angry when it stubbornly doesn't.

ETA: narcissistic personality disorder wiki. The symptom section is worth a look.

 

[Miss Chicken]

They may have caused his narcissism while trying to cope with his Asperger's and other issues by giving him too much reassurance and praise. I had a house mate with profound narcissistic personality disorder who was raised under a stream of parental worship and adoration about how pretty she was, how perfect she was, how smart she was, blah blah blah. After she grew up, anyone who failed to sufficiently praise every aspect of her being, or who tried to talk about any subject other than her, often caused her to feel seething rage. There is no cure for it, and psychologists just try to teach the afflicted to pretend to care about other people and listen to what they talk about. The amount of money is irrelevant, as she drove a cheap tiny car to her job as a hair dresser. No matter what their station, the universe is supposed to revolve around them and they get very angry when it stubbornly doesn't.

ETA: narcissistic personality disorder wiki. The symptom section is worth a look.

As a mother of two disabled son I think it would be a very hard task to determine where the line between neccessary reassurance and too much reassurance lies. If a child is far behind other children than it is quite natural for parents to maybe over emphasise a child positive points. I have no doubt that Rodger's parents most likely handled Elliot's disappointment over his height compared to other children with praise about how handsome he was. If they did it was a natural thing for them to do and they had no idea where it would lead and i don't think that should be blamed for that.

It would be more interesting to work out just where the racism and misogny came from, neither seem to have come from his parents. Even though half-Asian himself that doesn't seem to have prevented him from hating males who were full Asian (who he thought shouldn't be getting white girls when he couldn't).

I think the person who will be able to shed the most light on the mind of Elliot Rodger will be his best friend James. They were best friends for 14 years - from the age of 7 to the age of 21. It seems that James ended the friendship because James, who seems to have been a gentle boy, couldn't cope with the violent ideas Elliot was expressing. James's father is keeping him away from the press but I have no doubt that the police will talk to him.

 

[dansigal]

There are a lot of good points in this thread. It seems to me that Hornaday's biggest mistake was singling out Apatow and Rogan who, while they may make "gross out" films, are actually fairly respectful towards women in those movies, especially compared to a lot of the Hollywood output.

I think that's a really good counterpoint. It's not so much that Apatow and Rogan aren't (likely unwittingly) offenders for what Hornaday is pointing out, but you're right, why single those people out when it's so prevalent and they aren't the worst offenders by far.

 

[Forbin]

I don't think that his parents are the ones to blame him for feeling entitled.

They don't seem to have spoiled him. They weren't wealthy, despite what some people seem to think. The mother earns about $40,000 a year and the father income is variable and he has been greatly in debt. If you look at his mainifesto you can tell his parents didn't spend an outrageous amount on him. When he started to get interested in skateboarding his parents did buy him all he needed but this seems to be because they thought he had found an interest in something that would help in to interact with other children.

His Playstation was bought as a Christmas present and he was told that it was a joint present with his younger sister. Computer games were birthday and Christmas presents and he had to use them on his parents' laptops and it seems he was about 15 years old before he had his own computer.

His first car was a hand-down from his mother when she got a new car. When he started college his father paid his tuition and gave him a $500 a month allowance, his mother paid his rent. His clothes were usually bought with gift card sent as presents by his grandmother, mother and aunts. The $300 sunglasses were given to him by his mother but they were the only pair he had.

The only extravagant present he ever received was his BMW and maybe that was a 21st birthday present.

When he damaged his computer while throwing a temper tantrum he had to lie saying it had broken down and begging her to get him a new one telling her he needed it for study.

Also Rodger seem to have very different values from his parents. Elliot was extremely racist yet his father had married firstly a Malaysian woman and then a Moroccan woman and he seems to have had friends from various ethnic groups. Elliot's sister had a half-Hispanic boyfriend which angered Elliot greatly though the boyfriend was totally accepted by his parents.

I think that his parents parented him as good as anyone could have. What went wrong was not their fault, their child was wired wrongly from birth.

Very good points. Sometimes there IS no reason for evil; it just happens.

 

[Gaith]

It's not so much that Apatow and Rogan aren't (likely unwittingly) offenders for what Hornaday is pointing out, but you're right, why single those people out when it's so prevalent and they aren't the worst offenders by far.

She lambasted Rogen because he has a brand-new movie out, and her arbitrary linking of these two topical incidents is worse than hacky. I say worse because in writing "how many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which the schlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl", she comes very close to saying that schlubby guys should have less of a shot with beautiful women than more dashing dudes. While it's true that good looks are and no doubt always will be a definite advantage, and no newspaper column could ever change that, it's still a pathetically superficial message to send when she's trying to express a moral position of her own. Also, the shooter (out of respect for the victims, I don't like to name him) was pretty darn externally handsome, even if on the shorter side, so it doesn't even apply to the overall context.

Ergo, I agree with Locutus: the fact that women are severely under-represented in entertainment sucks on its face. Hyperbolic insinuations that The Forty-Year-Old Virgin might inspire a horrific massacre should be beneath the dignity of a Post writer and critic.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

There are a lot of good points in this thread. It seems to me that Hornaday's biggest mistake was singling out Apatow and Rogen who, while they may make "gross out" films, are actually fairly respectful towards women in those movies, especially compared to a lot of the Hollywood output.

What she did was a gross miscaculation on her part; for one, Rodger wasn't influenced by those movies, I don't think; for two, she took a tragedy and derailed it with something that had nothing to do with it except in her own mind. The guy was crazy, was not attended to in time, and erupted with tragic results. What we have here is the age-old story of people not being able to deal with the fact that tragic things happen, and that people have to deal with it. Instead, we get schoolgirl howlers like this one from the likes of Hornaday due to her anger at not being able to see the stories that she wants to see on the big (and small) screen, and linking this grievance to the tragedy.

This commentary reminds me of this SCTV skit from the second season (11/18/78) in which Earl Cammbert (Eugene Levy) uses editorial time to grouse about his neighbor, pissing off Floyd Robertson (Joe Flahrety); you'll understand what the similarity is after you watch it.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f048BS1BUxQ[/yt]

The mental health system has been a disaster in this country since probably the late '70s. And its something for which both liberals and conservatives deserve blame: liberals for putting people on the street in the name of civil liberties and conservatives for cutting funding for MH services. Each side contributed to a perfect storm of inadequately treated mental health issues.

Agreed, except that most of it was started in the late '60s, and many believe that the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is partly to blame for all of this. What gets me is that advances in psychiatry done by people like François Tosquelles in France and his student Franz Fanon in Algeria never seem to really have been adapted or studied by most psychiatrists in North America during the revolution in deinstitutionalizing, so as a result, we've now got the problems we've got.

 

[publiusr]

Deinstitutionalization they called it.

What worries me is this: Another young man feels excluded, then gets called out by the typical means girls who might use Ms Hornaday's observations as just another cudgel to hit him with--and so it goes.

Do men objectify women? Yes they do. And we have Chippendales too.

One of my favorite comics is Bill Maher--and here is one of his best quotes

Every time in America some guy gets caught cheating, every media outlet does the same story: "Why Do Men Cheat?" they're looking for...sex. And not just sex; they want new sex. The way women want new shoes. Right? You have shoes, they're perfectly good shoes, you don't want those shoes, you want new shoes. We want a person, you want a shoe and somehow you're morally superior.

 

[Gaith]

Oh, and another stupid point in Hornaday's piece:

How many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which the schlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl, find that those happy endings constantly elude them and conclude, "It's not fair"?

One could just as easily argue, and with as little reference to the shooter's lengthy screed, that such comedies give troubled and discouraged men hope, and thus make them less likely to act out in violent ways. After all, the cultural norm in real, everyday life is that, in high school/college terms at least, the hunkiest, most athletic and popular guys stand the best chance of getting "the girl".

Instead of making a thoughtful and reasoned argument as to why a "steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies", she just threw them in with a horrific act of violence. Shoddy, shoddy work.

 

[publiusr]

If anything, the current trend is to portray women as very strong, where guys come across as clueless.

Some studio execs tried that with Bob Newhart--and he would have none of it.