RangerX wrote:There are those that consider the gladiator fights to be a symbol of the downfall of Rome. While society was collapsing around them, the citizens were happily distracted with things like gladiator fights, Christians being fed to lions, etc. Some might draw parallels with things today. Taking it to the next level would only further this viewpoint.
Less distractions, more reality. And reality TV has NOTHING to do with reality.
Ranger RangerX, I disagree completely. First of all despite all the media fanfare I honestly believe this country is still well on its rise before the fall. On the issue of gladitorial matches themselves hollywood history dramatically over plays the importance of gladitorial battles on roman culture. For instance the Coliseum had seating for 55,000 in a city of 1 million people, not insignificant but when compared to the Circus Maximus (A stadium built for Chariot Racing) which had seating for 250,000 people, a quarter of the entire cities population, it's unfair to label the roman people as a stupid, brutish, mob with little interest in anything but violence. There certainly were quite a few but the majority of the Roman people probably lacked the stomach for it.
As for legalizing them today, the way I think about it is that as long as it was all volunteer and emergency medical staff were on standby, why not let them choose to do it, and why not let me watch it in HD ? We could even make people on deathrow fight to the death, televise it and make all that expensive trial money back in advertising revenue.