Guilt-Redemption Cycle

The guilt-redemption cycle is an underlying assumption within the theory of Dramatism. Dramatism focuses on why people do what they do and from that we are able to make judgment on those acts. In class we talked about the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999 where two students opened fire on entire classrooms throughout the high school building. I've always found this event extremely interesting because we always want to know why people do things such as killing masses of people unexpectedly especially at places that should be safe environments for students and teachers.

When we were talking about what people thought was the cause of this tragedy I automatically thought of the Bowling for Columbine documentary by Michael Moore and specifically the Marilyn Manson part. Of course, I stated in class that I'm a huge fan of Marilyn Manson so this particularly caught my attention the first time I saw the documentary. People often try to find people or ideas to blame whenever tragedies like school shootings and murders occur. In the case of Columbine, parents and other students used Marilyn Manson as a scapegoat. Marilyn Manson served as the perfect scapegoat not only because his appearance was similar to Eric and Dylan's appearances. Not only did his appearance make him the perfect scapegoat, but so did his music, more specifically the messages in his music. If you ask any random person on the street what they think of Marilyn Manson, they would probably tell you that he is a satanist, antichrist, violent, scary, etc..

Blaming Marilyn Manson as one of the causes of the shooting at Columbine is a perfect example of victimage. Blaming someone else besides yourself is always easier to do no matter what situation you're in. I think there has been a time when we were all small and we did something we weren't supposed to do. Our parents found out and we blamed someone else. On a larger scale, I think this is exactly what society did with Columbine. This idea of victimage in the case of Columbine is so deep that to this day, people are still blaming Marilyn Manson for influencing Eric and Dylan to do the shooting. When I went to his concert at Red Rocks last year, there were people with shirts saying "In memory of those lost in the shooting of Columbine High School 1999". Although they weren't in-your-face protestors, there was still some symbolic meaning behind wearing the shirts.