Nonsensor.

Absolutely ridiculous. Anyone who reads Joystiq knows that video gamers all over have been waiting anxiously for Jack Thompson to jump on the Virginia Tech shooting, but now we have a world of Internet parrots and cinematic philistines going after a great movie over what probably amounts to a coincidence.

Apparently one of the "publicity shots" sent to NBC was of Cho Seung-Hui brandishing a hammer in a way that sort of resembles a shot of the main character in Park Chanwook's OldBoy. I say resembles because, uh, he has a hammer. Let's leave out a few things and go straight to the obvious conclusion: this movie caused the shootings! Feel better? I know I do. Never mind the parents of all those students, I can sleep better at night. Now let's step back and check on a few of those things we left out:

1. Most of the other pictures and videos in the rambling "manifesto" involved guns, the weapon he actually used to murder all those people. That's not me being anti-gun, just pro-hammer. I used one to hang art earlier this week. I have never used my gun to hang art.
   
2. As mentioned here, (warning: liberal pinko commie talk behind link) let's leave out the plot of the (not real) movie, which is a story of a 5-day revenge spree on a mob kidnapper who imprisoned the titular character for 15 years. It's just not parallel to a mentally unstable and dangerously immature kid with real problems shooting 32 innocent bystanders.
3. By jumping to ridiculous (to sane thinking people) conclusions, we leave out the most important thing of all: you're selling short the victims. How dare Dr. Phil and his ilk suggest that the innocent victims of a horrible act suffered because of a video game or movie? That infuriates me to no end, and it reeks of using the tragedy to further your own censorship agenda.

The final rambling thing this makes me think of: there are two alternatives for why the connection could have been made in the first place, and I don't like either:

1. People like Governor Arnie, Bruce Willis, and hell even Charles Bronson were made famous brandishing as many guns as possible, but you latch on to one picture of a hammer? Oh yeah, Korean. Gotcha. Can't believe I failed to see that. I'm not a fan of playing that card, but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably a racist.
   
2. If you were going to blame a movie that you can't confirm Cho saw, why pick Park's movie? Oh yeah, it's ultra-violent, foreign, and most other people haven't seen it either. Capitalize on fear of the unknown.
   

Regardless, it's a great movie by a great director. And it was made in a country where presumably they make movies. Here it seems like we just make scapegoats.

Read more at Vidiocy, great little run through the history of this debacle. via Eliot