Have You Read the Plays Written By Cho Seung-Hui?

[NashVegas]

http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/17/cho-seung-huis-plays/

Richard McBeef is the story of a 13 year old in an abusive home, who is eventually killed by his stepfather.

Mr. Brownstone tells of a teacher who screws over (literally, apparently) his students.

Both are pretty horribly written, even for a college freshman. Both are seething with rage towards authority figures.

Just sayin' ...

[bryant69]

1. Yeah but how many people don't hate authority

at some point between 15 and 25?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[NashVegas]

6. Many Do, But Not Like This

..

[knitter4democracy]

15. They're similar to things I read as a teacher.

I didn't find them a whole lot different than things I read when I taught high school English. The recurring theme of sexual abuse and rape of the male characters is interesting, though.

There's a fallacy in thinking that what someone has written tells us about their inner soul. Many times, people write things to explore parts of themselves or a story they find interesting. Stephen King isn't in jail, and he writes a lot of disturbing, scary stuff.

[NashVegas]

30. Good Lord, Where Do You Teach?

In my college, everything English students wrote was copied to the rest of the class for later criticism. In four semesters, I never saw anything quite this bad.

[knitter4democracy]

53. I taught high school.

I did my fields and student teaching in rural central Ohio and then taught for three years in two different Catholic schools in Cleveland. I saw stuff like that more in my fields and student teaching (I had a couple of kids in student teaching who played "Shock the Teacher" all the time and used their writings to vent).

I also had three students write suicide notes for in-class writings. We got each one the help he or she needed, but it was jarring, to say the least.

[Buzz Clik]

2. If they weren't featured on Oprah's book club, I didn't read them.

:sarcasm:

They're worth a peek. Many thanks.

[bryant69]

3. Ye Gods - I feel so guilty

That Richard McBeef play really really made me laugh. Even remembering the punchline I still found it hilarious.

Bryant

[Warpy]

4. I forgive you

It was AWFUL, stunningly, gut wrenchingly, breathlessly AWFUL.

The vocabulary was on a second grade level.

He did know how to spell what little he did write.

[blogslut]

5. I read the McBeef

I found the mother and the son to be villains in that story.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

7. Well McBeef does put his hand on the boy's lap

What I found interesting is that the boy had no consistent justification for his anger. At first, he accuses McBeef of being a pedophile and of trying to molest him, but all we have is one ambiguous action that might suggest that in that McBeef puts his hand in the boy's lap. Then the boy accuses McBeef of murdering his father and that becomes the reason for his anger. And towards the end the boy states that the real reason for his anger is that McBeef is a loser who can't support the boy's mother. The 13 year old boy is consumed with anger at McBeef but, as written, the character has no consistent motivation and he dies in the end. The boy in the play seems to be an angry character looking for a reason for his anger.

[blogslut]

9. That was my take as well

I will say the relationship and similarities of the boy and his mother are disturbing.

I suppose it's natural for outside observers to look to these writings as clues to Cho's personality. I don't know. Maybe he had a mother problem. Maybe he saw himself as the accused stepfather. Maybe he was like this story, a whole lot of anger with no discernible reason.

[BurtWorm]

12. "an angry character looking for a reason for his anger"

Very well analyzed and well put.

:toast:

[geardaddy]

8. I couldn't get past the first page

Seemed infantile.

[Rydz777]

10. Me too

I also couldn't get by the first page. Maybe it got better as it went on but I had other things to do. We are told now that the teachers gave him A's, because they were afraid of him. In any case, he is now a literary success of a sort, since people everywhere are reading his two plays.

[NashVegas]

11. LOL

he is now a literary success of a sort, since people everywhere are reading his two plays.

Not exactly John Kennedy Toole ...

[karlrschneider]

13. Actually, it got worse.

:eyes:

[Zookeeper]

14. Yes, I couldn't believe they were written by a 24 year old...

They were very juvenile and full of free-floating anger.

[Hubert Flottz]

16. I've seen CRAZY ASSED writings like that before!

Scooter’s Sex Shocker

Snip...

Like his predecessors, Libby does not shy from the scatological. The narrative makes generous mention of lice, snot, drunkenness, bad breath, torture, urine, “turds,” armpits, arm hair, neck hair, pubic hair, pus, boils, and blood (regular and menstrual). One passage goes, “At length he walked around to the deer’s head and, reaching into his pants, struggled for a moment and then pulled out his penis. He began to piss in the snow just in front of the deer’s nostrils.”

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/11/07/051107ta_talk_collins

Cheney's right hand man!

[InvisibleTouch]

17. Yes, read "McBeef" late last night.

It reads like a junior high schooler's writing.

That aside, it was hard to tell which character was more of an ass, the kid or the stepdad. And the mother was a nonentity who had her strings pulled and her buttons pushed by both.

[InvisibleTouch]

18. Okay, I just read the other one.

That was just sick and stupid.

I'd have kicked him out of class too, if I'd been his English teacher.

[WiseButAngrySara]

19. He has to have been abused. Has anyone interviewed the parents?

n/t

[blogslut]

23. Or maybe he was the abuser

Read McBeef again.

Or don't. As was said upthread, the story doesn't necessarily have to reflect the personality of the author.

[WiseButAngrySara]

25. I read both McBeef and Mr. Brownstone. There seemed to

be a common thread between the two of them, immature and amateurish as both of the plays were. Of course the obvious resentment at authority figures was apparent, but how many young adults write about 13 and 17 year olds who have been victims of abuse? McBeef might have been mis-accused, but we don't know that. All of the 17 year olds (including 'Jane') were anally raped in the other disturbing, disgusting play. What could motivate one to write such grotesqueness unless he/she had personal experience of it? I realize that it might have been an attempt of a poorly written critique on American Culture, like American Beauty was, but I don't know.

[blogslut]

26. You got me there

I didn't read the other story.

Frankly, at this point, I don't want to read it. At this point, I'm pissed that these types of killers always commit suicide, leaving everyone trying desperately to understand their motivations.

[WiseButAngrySara]

36. I wouldn't waste the time reading it. And you aren't the only

one who is frustrated by lack of answers, but his killing spree was cowardly enough, so why would we expect that he should have the courage to stay alive? I know though, that if I had done such a horrible deed(s) I would have to take my life.

I just responded to another post of yours in an entirely different thread! (elton john's youtube!)

[cwydro]

41. It seems odd

we have heard nothing about the parents or from the family.

[WiseButAngrySara]

50. See post #44. I'm just reading this link. Apparently they are in

the hospital for shock...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[cwydro]

51. Can't get the link to work.

Been having problems on the site all day for some reason. Poor folks...I was just afraid he killed them too. Didn't Whitman do that?

[RestoreGore]

20. Where are his parents?

Just curious as I haven't heard anything about them. Are they with him in this country?

[Virginia Dare]

33. Hospitalized, in "shock"...n/t

[WiseButAngrySara]

38. Is this true Virginia Dare? I presume it is, as I'm assuming

you are from Virginia.

[Virginia Dare]

44. Yes, I read it earlier, here's the link..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x686674

[WiseButAngrySara]

46. thank you! ....n/t

[cgrindley]

21. Nothing all that out of the ordinary

I've seen worse.

[malaise]

22. How do they differ from that aspen

Libby's book?

[Uzybone]

24. I read them

and my first thought was how was this guy not sent back to high school? The grammar was horrible. Yes the stories were twisted, but like I read somewhere, imagine reading the screenplay to a movie like Hostel or Saw. It would be almost as fucked up.

[NashVegas]

29. Yeah, the Grammar Was Frightening

that alone should have gotten him yanked out of class.

[KamaAina]

27. Yup. "Mr. Brownstone" in particular reads as though

Eric Cartman took a stab at writing plays. Eww ewwww ewwwwwww gross! :puke:

Then again, it is possible to have a sick, twisted mind without being a homicidal maniac (cf. yours truly). The stalking incidents we're hearing about now, in retrospect, were far better red flags.

[melissaf]

28. I also read these plays

and at the risk of repeating myself (from an earlier post in a different thread), I would say that one of the more interesting things about them (aside from the wretched quality of the writing) is that despite the fact that the teenaged main characters heap all kinds of ridiculous, juvenile abuse on the adults, in the end the teens are portrayed as victims. Of course, this could point to some sort of abuse in Cho's past bubbling to the surface, but it's also a major red flag of the mass murderer's mindset: I am the victim, everyone else is evil therefore everyone else must pay.

And I wouldn't have let this student stay in my class, either. Especially if he were handing in plays about plotting to kill teachers.

[NashVegas]

31. Interesting Point

About abusive teens portrayed as victims, in the end.

[melissaf]

43. thanks

It's sort of interesting, too, that "Mr. Brownstone" is set in a casino and features underage kids winning the lottery, and that the stepfather in "Richard McWhatever" is the only one of the three characters who sounds at all reasonable. But then, I'm not sure I want to give these "works" too in-depth a reading, since I wouldn't want to give any sort of legitimacy to them or the writer.

And it is indeed the ultimate irony that Cho's work is getting all kinds of exposure now that he's a dead mass murderer. Kinda reminds me of the movie "Art School Confidential."

[WiseButAngrySara]

37. See my post #25 above! ....n/t

[BurtWorm]

40. That is an interesting point.

I'd be careful, though, about assuming Cho was abused by his parents. Some people just wind up screwy, and the cause is not always easy to understand. Some people's brains just don't work the way they're supposed to.

[melissaf]

45. Absolutely

Honestly, when I started reading these plays, the first thought crossed my mind was that he may have been abused, but after a while I got the impression that Cho was just thinking of more and more things to add to his characters' continual verbal hate spew, and pedophilia and rape just seemed like easy shockers to throw in. So it could go either way. I wouldn't want to pin a diagnosis on him, either, just from his crappy, crappy writing.

[BurtWorm]

48. At least we can say for sure that he suffered from crappy writer syndrome.

;)

[orleans]

32. this may or may not be a bit of insight into his life

sometimes creative writing & fiction writing is simply that--creative fiction. (even if it's bad creative fiction)

[El Fuego]

34. The irony is that he got PUBLISHED.

[deutsey]

35. They reminded me of criticism I heard of Hitler's paintings

Devoid of any depth or humanity (however one might define "humanity").

[cwydro]

39. Yes.

Horrible. Disturbed kid. I feel certain he was mentally ill.

[theboss]

42. Plain Adder made a great point

Aside from the fact that they are terrible, the most interesting thing about the plays is the rage that appears in every single line. It's relentless. I was an English major in college; my mother is an English teacher. She would sometimes have me second-read her students' papers just for another opinion. And, yes, teenagers and young adults can write some freaky, disturbing stuff. But there is usually a break in even the most deranged writing. This is like some sort of wail.

[HamdenRice]

47. They read like "unfair persecution" stories to me

Ditto how bad they are.

But my take is that if you put aside age as the defining characteristics of the characters, then the "Dad" in McBeef is analogous to kid "John" in Brownstone. Each is punished for something he didn't do.

If I had to take a wild guess, I would say the shooter probably identified with the Dad (not the son) in McBeef -- an outsider to the cozy family, a loser, who is falsely accused, and ultimately kills out a sense of rage at the unfairness of his wrongly persecuted situation.

In the other story, the boy wins the slots, is unfairly accused of theft, has his winnings taken and is ejected from the casino.

Sounds like the shooter had a real persecution complex.

[BuyingThyme]

49. Hey, maybe those Pukes at Scholastic can publish these

for school kids.

[lectrobyte]

52. They are horribly written. For a college-level English major, I expected

more literate insanity or something.