"Paintball As Combat Sport" / 295

Ever notice how many television shows have popped up in the past few years like Gladiators, bots, and WOW (women wrestling)? Then there are the movies, films like Rambo, Demolition Man, Commando, Braveheart, Glory, Saving Private Ryan, Top Gun, and Gladiator. These are stories emulating war, about boys becoming men, and girls becoming women. Many theorists like James Gibson have pointed out that in times of peace, more of these types of shows surface. Perhaps this is because there's a psychological need for mass destruction, for killing for the sake of some greater cause. This release for "killing rage," as bell hooks describes it, is the process of what the editors of WRA point out as "playing with killing, rather than engaging in actual war" (295). This is the subject of "Paintball As Combat Sport." Have you ever been paintballing (http://www.paintball.com/)? This website, http://www.warpig.com/paintball/resources/PorkLinks/index.shtml, will direct you to more information about this "sport," too.

Gibson's piece reflects his own research with Vietnam War veterans. He discovered, as the editors of WRA point out, that "soldiers saw war as a ritual transition from boyhood to manhood" (295). How do you see war? Recognizing your own views and how the media and cultural beliefs in some way shapes them, is very important. Read this piece with that in mind, as well as the companion critical readings.