Wed May 16, 2007 10:56 AM IST
TOKYO (Reuters) - A 17-year-old Japanese boy
suspected of killing and beheading his mother went to an Internet cafe with her
head in a bag and watched a music DVD before turning himself
in, media reports said on Wednesday.
The teenager, arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of murder, spent about
two hours at the cafe and watched a DVD of a hip-hop group in
his cubicle, and then took a taxi to a local police station, the reports
said.
Media quoted employees of the cafe as saying the youth, a student at a
local high school, was carrying a school bag and that one of his hands was
wrapped in bandage.
After several investigations, it has been revealed that the hiphop group refers to " Beastie Boys" . One morning show called "Asa-zuba!" on TBS hosted by a popular freelance anchorman or presenter Monta Mino even tried to relate some scenes from Bestie Boys' video, depicting images of a head taken off. Other media such as "Saturday Scrumble" on Asahi Television has found that this teenager listened to Marilyn Manson, as well as analayzing similar cases occured in Colombine. The media also tried to associate one video from Marilyn to the fact this teenager painted his mother's arm in white just like that . In Saturday Scrumble, they have successfully compiled Japanese subtitles of Beastie Boys's music video, intentionally combining phrases that refers to words such as "mother ""school", making it their priority to amuse the viewer as if the video had motivated him to kill his mother. One commentator stated in the show. " one of their video include scences a man beheaded..."
Most media seems to focus on "insane" side of this incident , ignoring the enviroment that stemmed his psychology. Only through this logic can they evade responsibility of grown-ups. They say adults cannot understand the younger generation and that they are scared of them.
Such nonsense accusation towards third person, in this case Beastie Boys and Marilyn Manson, had been the case with the mass media and people affected by false rumor or propaganda. Islamic people in the United States had been called "terrorist" after 9/11. Japanese people accused Koreans for no reason blaming them for the earthquake in 1923. The media consistantly illustrate the sensational side of the story and never give us chance to calm down to think about how it all happened.
The media is the very money-maker of this whole thing. I certainly do not believe any of these music videos had directly motivated him to the act of killing and it's certainly Not! however if it WERE to be blamed, who makes profit by selling violent images ? Who is benefitted by not educating kids to be critical viewer and making them swallow the whole stories and fanscinating commercials on TV? and now you say that those videos and artists are to blame? What is your role on this? Who pressured him to go to good school that is so far from his home that he had to live away from his mother? What happens if he couldn't go to good school? he would have to be a construction worker and still wouldn't earn enough? and what is the system set fundamentally to make this tragedy happen?
I am not blaming the "society" and I don't mean to go like " don't trust anyone over 30". But this illustration of media , especially in case of such sensational news, lack so much its essencial role. Their stories are so shallow, so intentional. I am disappointed at TV news as I had always been, because they are influential , powerful but sadly, so selfish.
If they kept on reporting incidents in this way, the core of the problem will not be revealed there fore these killing and violence would happen forever.
