Pyat and the Rape of the Robot Santa

[pyat]

We live across from a elementary school yard. Last night, for a couple of hours, three boys were smashing a 5-foot tall animatronic Santa Claus to pieces. They pantsed it, spat on it, threw it from a low roof over and over again, and pretended to rape it. (EDIT: I think I may have used too strong a term - one of them pretended it "hump" it, which is just the sort of nasty thing 11 and 12 year old boys do to gross each other other.)


Then they scattered the broken pieces on the road.

Finally, the broke the springs from the legs and went off down the street, taking swings at each others heads. I took some photos when they were throwing bits of the school roof and in the road. I tend to ignore anything that happens in the school yard that doesn't involve something being set on fire, or someone bleeding.

For a little while I was telling myself that, hey, they were 11 year or 12 years old. They do these sort of things. I used to do that sort of thing, right? Then I reflected that, no, I didn't. Our destructive tendencies were limited to throwing empty bottles at a brick wall if we were sure no one was looking, and we generally felt sheepish about it afterward. Once, my friend Bill and I smashed up a Ouija board we found in a parking lot because it offended our rational sensibilities. And once I set fire to my bedroom carpet while experimenting with a candle and a glass jar.

Mayhem in the name of science is acceptable! Abusing a helpless human figure strikes me as incredibly disquieting on a deep level, and its not something I'd have ever done.

Ah, the happy laughter of innocent children, right?

Comments

[slwatson.livejournal.com]

If you took pictures, why didn't you call the police? It sounds like a little scare would do them well. Because chances are, their parents aren't raising them.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I called the police a dozen times in the first year we lived here, for various reaons. They either didn't show up, or showed up three hours too late. By the third year we lived here, that crop of bad kids had moved on to high school, and things were quiet for about five years. Hopefully, this is not a portent of another summer of fireworks being shot at houses and kids peeking in my front window.

I might take the pics to the school, though. Odds are the principal knows who they are.

[slwatson.livejournal.com]

Good idea.

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

Yes, the principal would likely be a better bet.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

That's very disturbing, that child's play could become so violent and sexualized.

Then again, it was Santa.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

The Easter Bunny could be next!

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

NO! I like the Easter Bunny.

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

I don't think its majorly concerning, but there are a few things there that give me pause. The spitting, the simulated rape... these things aren't just destructive or violent (I beat the hell out of manikins when I was their age), they show a deeper level of emotional violence that is probably worth keeping an eye on.

So yea, I wouldn't bother with cops, but giving the pictures to the principle (who hopefully can keep an eye on it without being reactionary) is a good plan.

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

Ditto. The simulated rape is what worries me most. If I had a daughter in that school, I would not feel that she was safe there.

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

The pretending to rape it makes me suspect some sort of sexual abuse, though maybe it's not the same if they're going through puberty (versus younger kids).

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I think I may have used too strong a term - one of them pretended it "hump" it, which is just the sort of nasty thing 11 and 12 year old boys do to gross each other other.

[bandersnitch.livejournal.com]

Perhaps Santa offended their rational sensibilities. They might have got poor gifts this year.

However, the sexualizing of the random acts of violence against this toy (which was likely stolen, from a neighbour or their own home) would be my concern.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Definitely, yeah.

[relee.livejournal.com]

I was kind of a dorky straight-arrow goody two shoes, but even the bad kids didn't pretend to rape santa claus.

Poor Pyat, to be a father in this dark and terrible age. ;.;

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not THAT bad. At least I'm not the father of an animatronic elf, or something.

[taluagel.livejournal.com]

Clearly the children have recently learned that their parents spent years lying to them trying to fool them into a false belief in Santa. Feeling betrayed the children have taken it on themselves to right the wrongs and injustice that these lies perpetrate. If it were anything other than a Santa I might have had an issue, but 11 yearold boys enacting destruction on a whole system of lies that adults pull, /support.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Yes, but were will it end? Simulted Tooth Fairy muggings? Jack O' Lantern torture? Think of the pumpkins!

[taluagel.livejournal.com]

next christmas baby jesus is going down!

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid, they showed no mercy to pumpkins.

SMASH!

[taluagel.livejournal.com]

You bastard.

Damn

[pxtl.livejournal.com]

Laying the smackdown on those goddamned singing robots I can understand, but jack o' lanterns are ART. Not cool.

Re: Damn

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

It wasn't me, it was the boys at school. And it wasn't jack-o-lanterns, it was the pumpkin patch near the school. I always felt so bad for the people who owned the patch - yet year after year, they'd plant them, and SMASH!

[anidada.livejournal.com]

Please tell me these aren't the same boys that Elizabeth plays with unsupervised.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Oh, heck no. Those guys are about 6 and 8 years old, and are pretty typical rough-housing kids, but not bad kids, you know? Dumb as rocks and nosey, but actually fairly helpful in their own way. They shovelled a lot a walks in the area and led a little gang of girls and boys in the fall that raked up leaves, albeit poorly..

[anidada.livejournal.com]

That's good. Though the Santabeaters are obviously from the area. My sympathies. :(

[paka.livejournal.com]

That's about the start of puberty for a batch of kids, and I kinda feel like kids that age act out more of what's going on inside their heads. I know I was pretty angry and got into fights a lot around that age - and that was around the age I was getting hit moderately regularly with a yardstick. Playing out stuff that way just suggests to me that something is going on at home, what, I don't know.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

That is definitely so. And I can remember being very angry and doing stupid things to get reactions at that age. When I was 11, for example, another boy and I drew big swaztikas on the side of the school.

We were sort of protesting something or other, but we knew it was going to make people mad. And it did - when we were caught (about ten minutes later) I got to hear a very sad and angry lecture about the Holocaust. And justifiably so.

[tigerwolfvix.livejournal.com]

I got that speech when I started drawing them all over my school folders and on personal notes in 6th grade. Apparently the only thing worse than drawing swastikas all over my personal belongings is to have the reasoning be "Oh yes, that death and war junk was terrible, but the swastikas... They're so pretty! All symmetrical and with that sense of motion from the legs. Like a pinwheel or a flower."
I might have given that teacher an aneurysm or something. He kinda didn't know what to say after that.

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

Swastikas have a very long history of use in cultures all over the world. Asinine 1930s German fascists!

Too much Halo for them

[pxtl.livejournal.com]

In real life, you don't hump the corpses of your fallen victims. They apparently didn't get the memo.

In their defense, though, it was an anamatronic Santa. I have always loathed those things and wanted to give one a good smashing, so I can sympathize.