What’s with all the vampire shows?

Being bedridden isn’t as bad as I thought it would be, especially if one can enjoy the benefits of Korean cable TV, haha. But that’s another article that I’ll save for another time.

Today, I want to comment on other shows, and how shocking they have become. Most of all, this new trend of lionizing vampires, werewolves and all sorts of demons and monsters.

While the MTRCB is doing a fine job of airing advisories, they seem to be powerless against the airing of video plugs on the shows aired late at night. Thus, bloodied bodies ripped apart by fangs in snarling faces are aired even during daytime programming.

Given their theme and content, these TV series are only allowed to be aired late at night. However, the horrifying plugs are, unfortunately, not “plugged.”

So our youth is not just exposed, but conditioned to think all this is possible and acceptable. Falling in love with a vampire or having a lusty sex romp with a werewolf is thought of as cool and desirable. There was a time when some were outraged by “Friends” and how they jumped into sex with others (although quite frankly, my daughter and I spent many afternoons laughing at their hilarious antics).

To the extreme

Now it’s gone to the extreme—violence combined with sex. Blood and gore, body organs, limbs, splattered on the family screen for all to see.

Of course, there are those who comment that video games are as violent, but one knows they are cartoons or sketches, not real live persons.

Now we are treated to TV scenes of “The Walking Dead,” and viewers have taken this even further: They have zombie parades and street parties. In the US and the UK, people have actually been arrested not just for causing mayhem, but for actually biting and ripping flesh off bystanders.

Here is part of an article on this that was published online by spiritydaily.com:

“Natural disasters, as well as economic ones, follow and conjoin spiritual turbulence. So do societal issues. There is a Great Uneasiness that is translating into the Great Confrontation. Everyone is at each other’s throats. Everyone is taking umbrage. Sometimes, it’s all too literal. Now we have the phenomenon of “zombies.” In a disconcerting pattern, a bizarre attack on a homeless man in Miami was followed by similar assaults (excuse the graphic explanation: in which flesh was literally bitten off victims) in Toronto, Upstate New York, Lafayette, Louisiana, again in Florida, and again, in Waco, Texas (this time the victim was a dog), and even China.

‘Cannibal craze’

Noted a news outlet: “The summer’s ‘cannibal craze’ has reportedly spread to China. A drunken bus driver in eastern China tried to chew off a woman’s face during an attack on Tuesday afternoon, according to Chinese media. A man identified as ‘Dong’ ran into a road near a bus station at around 2 p.m. and jumped in front of a woman’s car, the Shanghai Daily’s website reported police saying. The man then hopped on the hood and started pounding on the woman’s windshield.”

Again, please excuse the graphic nature of that. It is unnerving. Is it “copycatting?” Is it just that these things occur as freakish crimes and the media is suddenly homing in on them, hyping them up? Or is it that a dark spirit is moving?”

What is so unnerving is that the general viewing public seems unfazed by all this. No outcry. What will become of us? Flesh-eaters? Halloween characters? Maybe celebrating All Saints, as bloody and gory as some of their stories are, may give our youth a fresh perspective of love over death?

Or, give me back “Everybody Loves Raymond” or “Friends” once again.

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