Edited for content

I'm a big fan of the Godfather I and II movies, not so much Godfather III. The first two have generally been recognized as classics and every time they're on television, I watch them. They portray a side of life most of us have never been exposed to and that is the unemotional killing of people for the purpose of 'business'. These two movies featured the top actors in Hollywood at the time including Marlon Brando, James Caan and a young Al Pacino and they all played their roles brilliantly. A significant portion of the population has long had an illicit love affair with mafia-themed movies and television productions like the Godfather trilogy, Goodfellas and the classic television series The Sopranos. The central message of all of these productions was that these were good people who loved their families, be it their families at home or their crime families, and they only killed people who deserved it.

I think that taps into a dark part of our psyches most of us don't like to admit we have. That is that at some point in most of our lives, we'll have a situation with a person or a situation where it goes through our minds that the only logical solution to the problem is to kill the other person. Thankfully most of us have sufficient self-control and a set of values imposed on us by our parents to only think about it briefly and never act on it but some people have neither self control OR a value system and so their choices are more often bad than good.

The Godfather trilogy was shown on AMC (American movie classics) this week and before each movie started, a message was shown on the screen that the movie had been edited for content. I knew what that meant before the first scene was shown. It meant that nudity and obvious sexual content would be edited out of the movie but violence wouldn't be. That has been the norm for the last generation when the censors decide for us what we should see and not see.

There were a total of 33 killings in the two Godfather movies; 17 in the first one and 16 in the second one and most of the killings were graphic. In the first movie, a movie big wig was not going to give a leading role in the movie he was about to direct to a singer supported by the Godfather (widely reputed to portray Frank Sinatra) so the Godfather 'made him an offer he couldn't refuse'. The director had just bought a very expensive thoroughbred horse he intended to put to stud. After showing the horse to the Godfather's lawyer, he turned down the request to give the singer the role in the upcoming war movie and woke up the next morning covered in blood. When he threw the blankets off his body, the head of his expensive horse was lying at his feet. The singer got the role.

The people killed were shot in the head at close range, in the eye and choked to death by a wire around their necks that literally caused their eyes to look like they were about to explode out of their sockets. One person being choked this way died so violently he kicked out the windows of the car he was in before he finally succumbed. The people that were shot came with copious amounts of blood splattered everywhere. These scenes were not edited.

On the other hand, the only nudity that occurred in the original Godfather movie happened when the Godfather's son, Michael Corleone, was sent to Sicily for protection after he shot and killed a rival mob boss and a police captain on the take at close range in a restaurant. While in Sicily, he fell in love with a native and married her. On their wedding night, they were standing in their bedroom and she was dressed in a slip. In the original movie, she dropped the slip to the floor, exposing her body from the waist up. This part was edited out of the television version.

So evidently it's OK and HAS been okay in our society to show every form of violence known to man WITHOUT editing but nudity is so forbidden that it's not allowed to be displayed even on a husband and wife's wedding night.

There's something very twisted about this logic that leads to us being the most violent country in the world when it comes to our homicide rate. We are what we learn. We feel guilty and giggle about sex because it is still, for the most part, a forbidden subject to discuss in mixed company. On the other hand, we are able to indulge our guilty pleasures by watching incredible scenes of violence on television, the movies and, especially today, video games.

I have always been a fairly good judge of character, just by observing people and paying attention to how they act and respond to others. My choices aren't always accurate, especially in my love life, because I become emotionally involved instead of academically detached. So when I don't have a personal interest in a person or a relationship, my conclusions are pretty accurate. I attended the final Hot Summer Nights concert in the park last night as did many other people from the area. It was a cool August night and most of the people were entertained by the music. But we sat right behind one of the sidewalks that cuts through the park and for two solid hours, kids on bicycles and skateboards came racing through, some at speeds that if they had hit someone, would have caused serious injury. I watched these kids as they went back and forth in front of us with no parental supervision and no intervention from the sponsors of the event and I saw some looks and mannerisms on some of those young people that predict trouble on down the line, if they're not ALREADY in trouble. I thought about the teachers next week that are going to have to deal with these kids on a daily basis; kids who don't want to be in school in the first place and only go because it's required by law. And some of those kids take the idea and attitude to class that if they're not going to learn anything today, nobody else is either.

We make our kids. We teach them by words, deeds and examples of living. So, with few exceptions, we become what we've been taught. That's why some families have a history of criminality and violence in them and others have none at all.

Teach your children well.