E, I hardly ever watch television (I'm a newspaper/radio person), but your description of that interview sent me to the TV set. By chance, CNN was replaying what I think was a shortened version of the interview.
My own impression is that the boy expressed himself in a clumsy way, and that he really was not "proud" of his friends for having done something that would "live forever in the hearts and minds" of the community. I would guess that what he meant to say that the community would certainly never forget what the boys did. After all, his face crumpled up when he said it; he was on the verge of crying -- not from pride,I think, but from grief...
But who knows?
I nominate TV as the real villain in this story. Those boys surely knew that the TV cameramen would show up in full force. They always do. So what better way to impress everyone, than to do something really spectacular, and then go out in a blaze of flashbulbs, assured that you will have your Warholesque five minutes of fame before you die...
As for the mourning, the soul-searching ("where did we go wrong?"), the tears, the anger -- TV makes it all look so phony! Those two girls, hugging one another over there, don't they know that there are at least twenty cameras trained on them? How can you act natural when The Whole World Is Watching?
And the hushed voices of the TV reporters...Are we supposed to believe they really care? They are just covering what we in the business call a "helluva good story."
Gross...
Joan |
