Jim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries: Fact Or Fiction?
The escalation of media coverage surrounding devastating events, created another form of television for society: unscripted, reality television. As images of devastating events occurred, the media coverage shaped society’s opinion, invoking fear from urban area to suburbia. Celebrity reputations were quickly altered by allegations of heinous events, whereas, terrorists and teens were escalating to infamy. Was the news the culprit for inciting fear and chaos in an already insecure environment? Did the structure of the media outlets so closely mimic that of the entertainment industry that society could no longer distinguish between celebrity news and news that created celebrities? By providing society with the excessive coverage of car chases,
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footage of brutal beatings, and vivid displays of terrorized cities and communities, the media made strong contributions to the public’s fear of domestic terrorism and violence. After the taping of the Rodney King beating by Los Angeles law enforcement and the death of Princess Diana by paparazzi, the line between tabloid news and journalism became indistinguishable. Local resident, George Holliday, video taped the 81 second beating of Rodney King. After being dismissed by the local authorities, Holliday sold the tape to the local media, which circulated throughout news stations around the nation. The rising racial tensions among various ethnic groups led to the death of “23 people dead, 2,300 injured” and caused about one billion dollars in property damage, during the riots thereby invoking fear in society by offering a realtime account of the events occurring thousands of miles away or in one’s backyard. David Altheide argues that “the mass media in general, and especially the electronic news media, are part of a ‘problem-generating machine’ geared to entertainment, voyeurism,and the ‘quick fix’” The overlapping of media and entertainment is exemplified when Altheide’s research found that many Americans believed the reenactments portrayed in America’s Most Wanted were actually news broadcast. Movie production had already begun before the media events of Waco fully developed. Within three weeks, a television movie was being aired on tv stations; “David Koresh was a household name.” Extremism was being displayed with infamy, much like Charles Manson. Altheide suggests that the media is the cause, rather than the effect, of the fear which Americans felt. Because violence, hate crimes, and devastation were being broadcast as news, but framed much like the entertainment industry, many viewers and readers of mass media believed life was “riskier” than it had been during the previous generation. Was society really more “risky” or did the media just portray the worst circumstances, most violent images, thereby invoking fear in society? “Most domestic news carries…a despairing message. We have a system of news media that tells people constantly that the world is out of control, that they will always be governed by crooks, that their fellow citizens are about to kill them.” By 1994, the focus on Los Angeles’s riots and gangs turned to a media spectacle which involved celebrities, domestic violence, and a white Bronco. Former awarding-winning NFL running back, O.J. Simpson was arrested for the murder of his wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. For almost an entire year, much of society was focused on the celebrity, thereby overshadowing events such as the Oklahoma City bombing. Was Simpson’s court trial really more newsworthy than the terroristic killing of 138 people and injuring at least 680 more? Derek Alderman presents statistical data of news segments aired on ABC Breaking News between June 17, 1994 and May 23, 1995. His results revealed that the widely televised Simpson trial was included in 23 news segments, while the Oklahoma City bombing was only addressed 17 times. However the “hyper coverage” of the Simpson trial did provoke more recognition of the domestic violence which occurs everyday. ABC anchor, Peter Jennings, offered another facet to the ongoing media frenzy. “There is one aspect to the Simpson case that inevitably does seem to be having a positive effect. It is focusing public attention on the problems of domestic abuse and on the telephone hotlines and shelters where spouses in trouble can turn for help.” Rebecca Chase reported in increase in calls to hotlines for for abused women had increased after the brutal murder of Nicole Brown, fearing that they, too, may suffer the same fate. Although the coverage of the infamous Simpson trial engulfed society’s intrigue with celebrity status, it also provided many women with an alternative to living in fear of domestic abuse. Unfortunately, with the increase in technology, media sources, and the entertainment industry had become tightly intertwined. School shootings soon took over front pages of newspapers, breaking news segments, and daytime broadcasts. October 1, 1997, a 16 year old killed his mother then shot nine students. One of the two which died was his girlfriend. 14 year Michael Carneal shocked the town of Paducah, Kentucky when he shot eights girls in a school prayer circle, killing three. In March of 1998, four students and a teacher were killed in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Two young boys, 11 and 13, opened fire of students and teachers exiting the school after the boys pulled the fire arm. Fifteen year old, Kip Kinkel fired a gun indiscriminately into an Oregon school cafeteria, killing two and wounding about 20 more. April 20, 1999, Columbine High School showed the world that there there must be a reason for the mass onset of school shootings in the latter part of the nineties. Give me back the Berlin wall, give me Stalin and St. Paul, I’ve seen the future, brother: it is murder.
The mass news frenzy quickly invaded the suburban, middle class town of Littleton, Colorado. The public wanted an answer: Why? The media attempted to provide answers, while simultaneously inciting fear and concern in society. As theories and rumors spread about Columbine, reporters were focusing on the faces, stories, traumatized students and terrorized community. Had the nineties media created fear and intrigue for its audience by publicizing events which should be outside realm of the public eye or was this the creation of the media’s need to entertain its audience? News reports and theories brought the entertainment industry under immense scrutiny, relating the previous crimes of Michael Carneal and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebolds’s rampages. Movies, music, and internet activity played central roles in providing society with an explanation for the heinous events which had inflicted America’s youth. Brought under the microscope by the society created, the judicial system was unable to place blame on the entertainment business, but ratings would soon emerge at the insist of the fearful public opinion. Natural Born Killers, although scrutinized by society, written in the Tarantinoesque style and directed by Oliver Stone, challenged the media’s affiliation and cause of the the recent tragedies, a foreshadowing events to come. In the diner scene, Mickey Knox is holding a newspaper of the Albuquerque Journal, on which the Knox’s murderous rampage graced the front page. Wayne Gayle, a reporter comparable to John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted, was persistent in pursuing the Mickey and Mallory down their “candy lane of murder and mayhem.” After the drug induced murder spree was brought to an end, Gayle insisted on a live interview with Mickey which would air immediately following the Super Bowl, promoting it during the game. Mickey overtly expresses his opinion of the media by stating “you’re not even and ape, you’re a media person.” Marilyn Manson referred to society and the media as “disgusting vultures looking for corpses, exploiting, fucking, filming and serving it up for our hungry appetites in a gluttonous display of endless human stupidity.” The movie adaptation on Jim Carroll’s The Basketball Diaries, was harshly criticized after Columbine based on one dream sequence in which Jim, (Leonardo DiCaprio), walks into his school, dressed in a trench coat and armed.
He shoots his teacher and several of his classmates before he is awoken. In an interview with Matt Lauer, Jim Carroll defends the artistic integrity of his work, although he claimed the film medium grossly misrepresented his original work, calling the slow motion fantasy scene “kinda corny.” Carroll’s original work included a fantasy description of is fantasy to “take a machine gun and start firing like mad toward my right side. Not at anyone or anything unless they got in my way but that wouldn’t matter much because I would aim fairly high….I guess it would just release some tension.” However, attorney for the Paducah families, Jack Thomson claims that Basketball Diaries should be held responsible for Michael Carneal’s “spiraling decent into depression” Carroll counters the attorney’s argument, claiming that answers are being looked for in the wrong places. Carroll claims that it would not have been “boyish” for him to tell anyone about his depression. Was society looking in the wrong place? Should someone have taken their eyes away from the media propaganda and instead focused on their
peers? After spring morning in 1999, school shootings instantly remind many contemporaries of Columbine. Two budding sociopaths, dredged their victims in an infamous hell, with images forever etched into the minds of everyone that turned on their television, opened a newspaper, on logged on to the internet. Fictional dramas had become reality television, broadcasting violence only witnessed on Hollywood’s big screen. Eight days prior to murderous spree killing at Columbine, Jack Thompson filed twenty-five lawsuits against entertainment companies, including the makers of Doom and The Basketball Diaries. One-person shooter games were a major feature of Thompson’s case. Although these games offer gamers a realistic experience of killing, rather than wounding as many would instinctively do, there are no consequences for their actions. Limited amounts of rounds are provided during a limited amount of time, therefore requiring games to become proficient at killing without hesitation. Marilyn Manson stated in Rolling Stone “From Jesse James to Charles Manson, the media, since their inception, have turned criminals into folk heroes. They just created two new ones when they plastered those dip-shits Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris' pictures on the front of every newspaper. Don't be surprised if every kid who gets pushed around has two new idols.” After extensive research, David Cullen debunks many of the myths which were created and circulated by the media, including the relationship between Marilyn Manson and the massacre. However, he praises the first story to hit the press, before the extent of the destruction had been uncovered. He claims that it was the “most extraordinary piece of journalism….two ruthless killers picking off students indiscriminately.” He states that it was the fist news story to produce accurate details, “and one of the last.” Bibliography
footage of brutal beatings, and vivid displays of terrorized cities and communities, the media made strong contributions to the public’s fear of domestic terrorism and violence. After the taping of the Rodney King beating by Los Angeles law enforcement and the death of Princess Diana by paparazzi, the line between tabloid news and journalism became indistinguishable. Local resident, George Holliday, video taped the 81 second beating of Rodney King. After being dismissed by the local authorities, Holliday sold the tape to the local media, which circulated throughout news stations around the nation. The rising racial tensions among various ethnic groups led to the death of “23 people dead, 2,300 injured” and caused about one billion dollars in property damage, during the riots thereby invoking fear in society by offering a realtime account of the events occurring thousands of miles away or in one’s backyard. David Altheide argues that “the mass media in general, and especially the electronic news media, are part of a ‘problem-generating machine’ geared to entertainment, voyeurism,and the ‘quick fix’” The overlapping of media and entertainment is exemplified when Altheide’s research found that many Americans believed the reenactments portrayed in America’s Most Wanted were actually news broadcast. Movie production had already begun before the media events of Waco fully developed. Within three weeks, a television movie was being aired on tv stations; “David Koresh was a household name.” Extremism was being displayed with infamy, much like Charles Manson. Altheide suggests that the media is the cause, rather than the effect, of the fear which Americans felt. Because violence, hate crimes, and devastation were being broadcast as news, but framed much like the entertainment industry, many viewers and readers of mass media believed life was “riskier” than it had been during the previous generation. Was society really more “risky” or did the media just portray the worst circumstances, most violent images, thereby invoking fear in society? “Most domestic news carries…a despairing message. We have a system of news media that tells people constantly that the world is out of control, that they will always be governed by crooks, that their fellow citizens are about to kill them.” By 1994, the focus on Los Angeles’s riots and gangs turned to a media spectacle which involved celebrities, domestic violence, and a white Bronco. Former awarding-winning NFL running back, O.J. Simpson was arrested for the murder of his wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. For almost an entire year, much of society was focused on the celebrity, thereby overshadowing events such as the Oklahoma City bombing. Was Simpson’s court trial really more newsworthy than the terroristic killing of 138 people and injuring at least 680 more? Derek Alderman presents statistical data of news segments aired on ABC Breaking News between June 17, 1994 and May 23, 1995. His results revealed that the widely televised Simpson trial was included in 23 news segments, while the Oklahoma City bombing was only addressed 17 times. However the “hyper coverage” of the Simpson trial did provoke more recognition of the domestic violence which occurs everyday. ABC anchor, Peter Jennings, offered another facet to the ongoing media frenzy. “There is one aspect to the Simpson case that inevitably does seem to be having a positive effect. It is focusing public attention on the problems of domestic abuse and on the telephone hotlines and shelters where spouses in trouble can turn for help.” Rebecca Chase reported in increase in calls to hotlines for for abused women had increased after the brutal murder of Nicole Brown, fearing that they, too, may suffer the same fate. Although the coverage of the infamous Simpson trial engulfed society’s intrigue with celebrity status, it also provided many women with an alternative to living in fear of domestic abuse. Unfortunately, with the increase in technology, media sources, and the entertainment industry had become tightly intertwined. School shootings soon took over front pages of newspapers, breaking news segments, and daytime broadcasts. October 1, 1997, a 16 year old killed his mother then shot nine students. One of the two which died was his girlfriend. 14 year Michael Carneal shocked the town of Paducah, Kentucky when he shot eights girls in a school prayer circle, killing three. In March of 1998, four students and a teacher were killed in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Two young boys, 11 and 13, opened fire of students and teachers exiting the school after the boys pulled the fire arm. Fifteen year old, Kip Kinkel fired a gun indiscriminately into an Oregon school cafeteria, killing two and wounding about 20 more. April 20, 1999, Columbine High School showed the world that there there must be a reason for the mass onset of school shootings in the latter part of the nineties. Give me back the Berlin wall, give me Stalin and St. Paul, I’ve seen the future, brother: it is murder.
The mass news frenzy quickly invaded the suburban, middle class town of Littleton, Colorado. The public wanted an answer: Why? The media attempted to provide answers, while simultaneously inciting fear and concern in society. As theories and rumors spread about Columbine, reporters were focusing on the faces, stories, traumatized students and terrorized community. Had the nineties media created fear and intrigue for its audience by publicizing events which should be outside realm of the public eye or was this the creation of the media’s need to entertain its audience? News reports and theories brought the entertainment industry under immense scrutiny, relating the previous crimes of Michael Carneal and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebolds’s rampages. Movies, music, and internet activity played central roles in providing society with an explanation for the heinous events which had inflicted America’s youth. Brought under the microscope by the society created, the judicial system was unable to place blame on the entertainment business, but ratings would soon emerge at the insist of the fearful public opinion. Natural Born Killers, although scrutinized by society, written in the Tarantinoesque style and directed by Oliver Stone, challenged the media’s affiliation and cause of the the recent tragedies, a foreshadowing events to come. In the diner scene, Mickey Knox is holding a newspaper of the Albuquerque Journal, on which the Knox’s murderous rampage graced the front page. Wayne Gayle, a reporter comparable to John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted, was persistent in pursuing the Mickey and Mallory down their “candy lane of murder and mayhem.” After the drug induced murder spree was brought to an end, Gayle insisted on a live interview with Mickey which would air immediately following the Super Bowl, promoting it during the game. Mickey overtly expresses his opinion of the media by stating “you’re not even and ape, you’re a media person.” Marilyn Manson referred to society and the media as “disgusting vultures looking for corpses, exploiting, fucking, filming and serving it up for our hungry appetites in a gluttonous display of endless human stupidity.” The movie adaptation on Jim Carroll’s The Basketball Diaries, was harshly criticized after Columbine based on one dream sequence in which Jim, (Leonardo DiCaprio), walks into his school, dressed in a trench coat and armed.
He shoots his teacher and several of his classmates before he is awoken. In an interview with Matt Lauer, Jim Carroll defends the artistic integrity of his work, although he claimed the film medium grossly misrepresented his original work, calling the slow motion fantasy scene “kinda corny.” Carroll’s original work included a fantasy description of is fantasy to “take a machine gun and start firing like mad toward my right side. Not at anyone or anything unless they got in my way but that wouldn’t matter much because I would aim fairly high….I guess it would just release some tension.” However, attorney for the Paducah families, Jack Thomson claims that Basketball Diaries should be held responsible for Michael Carneal’s “spiraling decent into depression” Carroll counters the attorney’s argument, claiming that answers are being looked for in the wrong places. Carroll claims that it would not have been “boyish” for him to tell anyone about his depression. Was society looking in the wrong place? Should someone have taken their eyes away from the media propaganda and instead focused on their
peers? After spring morning in 1999, school shootings instantly remind many contemporaries of Columbine. Two budding sociopaths, dredged their victims in an infamous hell, with images forever etched into the minds of everyone that turned on their television, opened a newspaper, on logged on to the internet. Fictional dramas had become reality television, broadcasting violence only witnessed on Hollywood’s big screen. Eight days prior to murderous spree killing at Columbine, Jack Thompson filed twenty-five lawsuits against entertainment companies, including the makers of Doom and The Basketball Diaries. One-person shooter games were a major feature of Thompson’s case. Although these games offer gamers a realistic experience of killing, rather than wounding as many would instinctively do, there are no consequences for their actions. Limited amounts of rounds are provided during a limited amount of time, therefore requiring games to become proficient at killing without hesitation. Marilyn Manson stated in Rolling Stone “From Jesse James to Charles Manson, the media, since their inception, have turned criminals into folk heroes. They just created two new ones when they plastered those dip-shits Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris' pictures on the front of every newspaper. Don't be surprised if every kid who gets pushed around has two new idols.” After extensive research, David Cullen debunks many of the myths which were created and circulated by the media, including the relationship between Marilyn Manson and the massacre. However, he praises the first story to hit the press, before the extent of the destruction had been uncovered. He claims that it was the “most extraordinary piece of journalism….two ruthless killers picking off students indiscriminately.” He states that it was the fist news story to produce accurate details, “and one of the last.” Bibliography