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ACT I: Vitriol, Hatred, and Shooting
The play opens with a mentally ill person, or extremists of one religion or another, one color or another, one country or another, spouting hate against another group. The shooters voice their hatred against their intended targets, explain why everyone should hate the group they hate, and they explain how that group is ruining the fabric of America, threatening our moral fiber, corrupting our children, sent by the devil, and so on. The reason this play has been so riveting for so many decades is because the actors, costumes, perpetrators and victims change slightly from one performance to the next. It's always the same, but just different enough to engage us. Today's tragedy is set in a gay nightclub in Orlando, FL. Exactly one year ago today the tragedy was set in a black church, where a white man entered a black church and opened-fire on several people in attendance at a Bible study. The possible scene/plot/character combinations are endless: suburban high school, movie theater, office building, Jewish Community Center, Luby's Cafeteria, Muslim shooter on Caucasian victims, Caucasian shooter on African-American victims, and the list goes on.
In the next scene we see a venue full of unsuspecting people our antagonist is about to kill.
The shooter kills as many people as he can before being apprehended or killed.
This is where we become viewers of the viewers. The viewers include people all over the world who turn on a television and see the story as it unfolds. First the viewers are presented with aerial views of a crime scene. Today's tragedy gives us a glimpse of the roof of Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. This aerial view has become an iconic and necessary part of every Mass Shooting tragedy, whether the viewer is looking at the roof of a high school, a movie theater, a cafeteria, and so on. During this part of the tragedy a news anchor tells viewers about a tragic BREAKING NEWS story. Once crews are at the site of the shooting she throws the story to the news reporter on the scene. The reporter can't get close to the scene because of police tape and potential for continued shooting, so they do their best to grab survivors or witnesses outside that perimeter. Depending on the varying setting, we may see screaming teens running from a school, or bloodied movie theater patrons sitting on concrete parking bumpers in the parking lot outside the theater where their friends were killed, or a mother crying because her son's boyfriend was shot and taken to the hospital, but she hasn't seen her son yet and thinks he's dead inside the nightclub. Also in this act are panic-stricken family members coming to the scene, hoping they'll be able to find and take home their children, spouses, friends, or loved ones. When the witness or survivor being interviewed, still in complete shock, becomes redundant or says something inappropriate for live television, the anchor interrupts the on-site team and brings coverage back to the studio.
During Act I everything -- from the attack to the rescue efforts to the reporting -- is frenetic, unscripted, haphazard, confusing, disorganized, and messy.
ACT II: We Can Now Confirm
During Act II the news anchor tells us what's happening, as far as she knows, while information continues to come in. During this part of the tragedy the messiness and chaos of Act I is replaced by gradually increasing clarity and understanding. Various "experts" from around the world are linked to the broadcast via satellite, to give their thoughts about the tragedy. The anchor adeptly shifts from the on-site reporter to the satellite expert to various podiums as they appear from one hour to the next. Whether the the person on screen is the news anchor, satellite-linked expert, witness, survivor, or law enforcement press agent, they share the screen with the crawler at the bottom that keeps telling us how many victims there are, who the shooter might be, when a press conference might happen, and other updates. The person on screen might also be sharing the screen with heart-breaking photos or video of the tragedy.
Most people on screen will be interrupted if someone finally steps up to a podium. A law enforcement public relations spokesperson addresses journalists about the specifics of the current tragedy. Reporters ask questions, and authorities respond with, "I am not at liberty to disclose that information at this time." or "This is an ongoing investigation, and those details aren't entirely clear at this time." The people at the podium know their lines, and at this point so do I, because I've seen this so many times.
From the time of the shooting until the identity of the shooter is confirmed there is a great deal of speculation. Viewers want to know who did this horrible thing, and why. The satellite-linked experts will speculate, and journalists at press conferences will ask leading questions like, "Is this a hate crime?" or "Is there a tie to Islamic extremism?" The person behind the podium won't be able to confirm or deny these leading questions, so all of these possibilities become topics of discussion during the hours and potentially days before the shooter is officially identified.
The cameras keep rolling, and news broadcasters need to keep talking, so expert after so-called expert will sit in front of the camera and just guess about who did it. It's good theater. It would be very unsatisfying if the news broadcasters just said, "We don't know anything else right now, so we'll just stop talking until we learn more." Viewers would stop watching during the empty space, so the news staff keeps guessing. The early speculation is frequently incorrect, and the consequences of their misinformation can lead to entirely new tragedies. While all of this guessing is going on, the scene splits. As one expert tells news viewers that the shooter may have been Muslim, the other side of the scene shows Americans attacking an innocent Muslim-American father, and others burn a mosque as worshipers who built that mosque watch in despair.
When the President steps to his podium he will tell us how tragic it is that Americans have been gunned down today. He'll ask us to pray for the victims and survivors of the massacre, as well as for the families of those killed or injured. This address from the president is a very consistent part of the tragedy, and it changes very little from one shooting to the next. After the presidential address we again see the news anchor, who will continue to rotate between satellite-linked expert guests who address everything from the type of weapon used, the efficiency of the police and medical response to the tragedy, the progress of the investigation, the likely profile of someone who would do something like this, and all the likely causes of gun violence -- from mental illness, hate crimes, terrorism, and outdated gun laws.
As this heart-wrenching act concludes, viewers finally learn the shooter's identity. They also see photos that have been taken from the shooter's online social media accounts. We haven't gotten any further than this in today's tragedy, but if you haven't seen this tragedy often enough I'll let you know what will happen next. The podiums in Act II will keep popping up, from the leaders of the city where the tragedy has occurred, to the spokesperson at the hospital where victims are still recovering, to the police station that is HQ for all levels of law enforcement, to the leaders representing the targeted group, to the White House.
ACT III: Vigil, Empty Promises, and Lack of Closure
While Acts I and II are dramatic, engaging, riveting, emotional, and spell-binding, Act III is just defeating and unsatisfying. In Act III viewers know what we've known since Act I -- the identity and motives of the shooter. Everyone despondently says, "I just can't believe this can happen here." No matter how many times we see this tragedy, the disbelief that "it can happen here" is a constant.
It is also in Act III that the vigils take place. We see portraits and other photos of smiling, happy people, now dead, and we learn more about them. Flowers and messages are laid at the site of the shooting, as well as at the homes and apartments of those killed. We'll find out that one victim was a mom, another a dad, another just graduated from college, another a star athlete, or stage performer, or community volunteer, or nurse, and so on.
Politicians will attend funerals. So will protesters. One of the weirdest constants from tragedy to tragedy -- whether or not the victims were gay -- are the protesters who hold signs that say "GOD HATES FAGS." These vocal protesters are the exception. Most of the haters who have consistently spewed hatred against the victim group will remain silent during Act III, because telling people the hated group is sent by Satan to tempt the righteous is not the same as actually shooting those people, so they don't feel any responsibility.
Another group that won't accept any responsibility in mass shootings is the National Rifle Association, which consistently and aggressively resists all forms of government limitations on firearms -- even fully automatic weapons with magazine clips full of dozens of armor-piercing bullets. Some politicians will urge legislation that would allow the Center for Disease Control -- the agency responsible for public health in our country -- to research gun violence. But even though gun violence is one of the leading causes of death in our country, and even though the CDC is tasked with researching and mitigating public health threats, Congress will not allow the CDC to research gun violence.
Toward the end of Act III the emergency vehicle lights have stopped flashing, yellow police tape has been cleared away, news crews have gone home, podiums have been rolled back to their conference rooms, funerals have concluded, and flowers and candles at vigil sites have been cleaned up. Cries for gun regulation by the survivors, family members of those gunned down, as well as those who don't want this American Mass Shooting tragedy coming to any more cities, will be replaced by debates centered on "big-government" and "over-regulation." Vocal members of the NRA, in opposition to the large majority of the gun owners they claim to represent, will block all meaningful steps toward even researching, let alone fixing this public health crisis.
In the final scene of this tragedy we will see a guy reading baseless anti-[insert target victim group] propaganda online. He closes that internet window to reveal a website that sells fully automatic machine guns online.
Curtains close.
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As I write this blog we are still very early in the deadliest mass shooting in America's history.
William Shakespeare wrote some of the most notable tragedies in literary history, In those tragedies Hamlet, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, or others always end up lying dead on stage at the end of the final scene. In some of Shakespeare's tragedies there might be as many as 7 or 8 people laying dead on stage at the end of the play, and the emotion we feel at the end is sickening despair. But this is not Shakespeare. It's America. The stage of this tragedy has 50 bodies and counting. But today's tragedy isn't a play. The victims won't stand up and bow at curtain call. The feeling of sick, overwhelming despair is enormous. And the worst part is that this is only the most recent in a national tour of The American Mass Shooting, which may be coming soon to a city near you.
