Word: mayhem
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...right and shot Allen, who had turned to flee, in the back; he fired again, wounding Ramseur in the arm and chest; he then fired a fourth time, a shot that may have missed, at Cabey. Said Victor Flores, 47, a transit authority employee who witnessed the mayhem: "The kids were frightened, backing off, trying to get away. There was no reason to shoot them. They fell one after another. Bang! Bang! Bang!" By his own account, Goetz then walked over to Cabey, who was sprawled on the seat, perhaps playing possum. "You seem to be doing all right," Goetz...
Handl establishes the ground rules for this domestic mayhem almost entirely through dialogue interspersed with bits of indirect discourse and peeks into the minds of the characters who happen to be onstage at the moment. This method is undeniably exhilarating, the equivalent of being grabbed by the elbow and shoved into an especially deracinated cocktail party. But the fun grows a bit forced over the long haul; even the most bizarre conversations cannot forever hide the fact that not much of substance is happening. Handl's people are splendidly funny because they all, with the possible exception of Castleton...
Despite all this armament, He-Man's producers point out that on-screen mayhem is held to a minimum. When the show was being developed, Filmation's educational consultant, Stanford University Communications Professor Donald Roberts, urged that none of the characters should get killed or "really hurt." In the midst of warfare, He-Man usually deplores violence. Thus, says Roberts, battle scenes are "really antibattle scenes...
...toting terrorists bring murder and mayhem to a hijacked Kuwaiti Airbus...
Recently this argument has received support from some unlikely organs of the body politic. In Indianapolis the city council passed a law declaring that certain depictions of carnal mayhem were indeed civil rights violations. And psychologists at the University of Wisconsin released studies indicating that male subjects exposed to Friday the 13th, Swept Away and similar films did indeed assume the hostile attitudes of rapists. But now, leaping into the fray with the reckless assurance of kamikaze pilots, come two Hollywood films that confront the sexual-violence issue: Brian De Palma's Body Double and Ken Russell...