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100 DOI:10.7330/9780874218923.c05 5 The Dazzle and Darkness of Play They felt like heroes in an instant. Here was a gorgeous triumph; they were missed; they were mourned; hearts were breaking on their account; tears were being shed; accusing memories of unkindnesses to these poor lost lads were rising up, and unavailing regrets and remorse were being indulged: and best of all, the departed were the talk of the whole town, and the envy of all the boys, as far as this dazzling notoriety was concerned. This was fine. It was worth while to be a pirate, after all. —Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer My research highlights participants’ attraction to the fun and creative elements of Every 15 Minutes, and their desire for the community attention—the “dazzling notoriety,” in Twain’s words—that they receive as players in the drama. The program’s promoters advance the premise that its entertaining aspects make it an effective means of combating drunk driving , grabbing the kids by the nape of the neck and shaking them. Yet my data suggest that the appeal of the program lies as much in getting attention through it as in paying attention to it, as people are drawn to the chance to play an active, starring part in the event. Play has long been idealized in academic literature. Back in 1950 Johan Huizinga argued that it is the play element in culture that has driven all of human history, and while scholars’ romanticizing of play has drawn well-founded criticism from more recent theorists, including Sutton-Smith (1997), I see value in Huizinga’s fundamental insight. I recommend, however , including the idea of dark play as a key element in this driving force. Is there something weird about how much people enjoy playing at morbid topics as they do in E15M? Is such play cathartic, as many counselors and theorists suggest? Might there be a destructive quality of play? As I have The Dazzle and Darkness of Play 101 noted throughout this book, people’s motives and responses are deeply layered and individual; yet a palpable undercurrent of attention seeking courses through my findings. In the following passages I illustrate the entertainment appeal of E15M, the ways in which public memorializations glorify the lives of its young stars, and the usefulness of “dark play” as a concept to understand this complex and spreading phenomenon. Every 15 Minutes As Attention Grabber Recruiting volunteers and raising awareness for the approaching Every 15 Minutes program in his small Southern California community, said a police coordinator, was easy. “People know it’s a vital program, the kids 102 The Dazzle and Darkness of Play love it, the community loves it. They do what they can. It’s [publicized by] word of mouth, because we don’t want to make it, you know, a circus.” Yet in many respects, the program uses its theatrical elements without shame to draw the public into the spectacle. “The Living Dead images, in my opinion, are sort of the eye candy,” one teacher explained. “To get a message across to any person, you have to get their attention. And by getting their attention in this manner, and then the crash scene, it brings it home. That’s the basis of theater.” A reporter for the Today Show on NBC in April 2001 compared the Living Dead faces to “makeup jobs that look like they’re straight out of a horror movie.” Participants’ comments I heard from coast to coast reflect broad recognition of the show-business aspects of the event. “This is like a Hollywood production! It’s great,” exclaimed a Maryland parent hours after receiving her “death notification” from police. “My knees went weak,” she recalled. Other participants, such as a Living Dead student in California, critiqued the program as though reviewing a movie: “Like, this year, I heard that the crash out front wasn’t as graphic as other years were, and they didn’t use really as good special effects. It wasn’t as, I guess, poignant as it was before. But it still hit home really hard.” At the hospital, a nurse remarked: “They’re going to get a lot of good footage of the mom; I heard she’s already hysterical.” The conscious effort to make the event theatrical influences myriad decisions by planners, from sticking with the “Every 15 Minutes” title (“I don’t think anybody’s really interested in the [statistic’s] accuracy, they...

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