January 20, 2005

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• That wasn't a very nice thing to do. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the real reason behind the Golden Gate Bridge district's annoyance at the filmmaker's duplicity is that it prevented them from squeezing out a licensing fee.
• It's a horrible thing for the bridge workers to witness, it's ridiculous to stage a suicide like it's theater, and there's tons of traffic under one of the most famous bridges in the world. I hope those who get noticed behind this rot away.
• I don't think the suicides were staged. Cams were left running all daylight hours.
• cams were left running all daylight hours And 99.99999 percent of what the cams showed? Freezing tourists wearing "I heart San Francisco" t-shirts and white shorts.
• orococo, I think the reference was to the tiny link left by Jerry Junior, an interesting and related read to your post. I remember going to do "the tourist thing" after living in San Francisco for two years. Caught the MUNI bus out to the visitor's center and walked across the bridge. Got to the first tower, looked out at the Pacific Ocean, looked up at the top of the tower, then looked down at the water below. It was a hell of a place and time to find out I had a fear of heights.
• This film maker seems to have bet the farm on a lie. If his film isn't brilliant then I suspect that this episode could haunt him the rest of his life, and end any possibility of a career.
• Suicide does that, doesn't it? To everybody...
• The filmmakers are actually friends of a friend of mine. Although they did mostly just leave the cameras rolling all the time to pick up the inevitable jumpers, they were on-site enough to actually prevent people from jumping on at least two occasions. As for the real reason behind the district's annoyance... well, they're kind of sensitive about the bridge being used by losers to off themselves. If it were up to them, people would just try to forget that happened - not make a freakin' documentary about it. How embarrasing it must be for them.
• "...used by losers to off themselves." Wow. Just.... wow.
• yes, suicides are losers, right. whatever. what i wanted to say was what's wtih the guy saying that thinking of this film, he can't help but think of "a snuff film?" does anyone else find that completely abnormal?
• does anyone else find that completely abnormal? Nothing abnormal about desperately trying to draw attention away from the real/interesting issue(s).
• ... and by "loser" I think majcher meant that they've "lost" in the afterlife, as in they will be suffering in hell forever and ever and ever.
• I suppose one could ask these people if they feel as if they are losers. They could be asked if they used the term 'off oneself' in their decision making. Although I think it is more of a derogatory term that is applied to third parties, rather than oneself. Does anyone have an access to hell, where they allegedly repose? These are important questions that need answering for this film to be comprehensive.
• That article basically proves why officials are pissed off at him. It's all about exposure. I didn't even know the statistics about jumpers on that bridge until I read this article, but now I'm thinking "dude, these people have been hesitant for decades to put up a barrier that would save people's lives? that's some twilight zone, "the village" type shit"... It just doesn't fit in my head that officials (and the people in that are) care more about how a fucking bridge looks, than about the jumpers. IMO that's the biggest problem.
• Do you think a barrier will prevent suicides? Or will it just move them elsewhere?
• It's weird, but I would guess that without the mythology/grandeur/symbolism/what-have-you of jumping off this bridge the barrier could prevent suicides. Personally, I'd like to go off the Burj Tower when it's completed.
• Since suicide does tend to be a crisis sort of thing, I think a barrier would do far more in the way of preventing suicides than moving them elsewhere. To a very large degree, the chances of someone suicidal actually attempting suicide depend on the availability and ease of doing so, and hopping over a low barrier is pretty damn easy. Something to consider is the common misperception that suicide is a rational choice. Sometimes (rarely) it is. But for the most part... using that as a justification for ignoring a problem is BS. Some of the people in the New Yorker article have this problem... "Some people come here, find themselves, and leave; some come here, find themselves, and jump." I've never jumped off a bridge (perhaps obviously ;) but that's not to say I'm unexperienced with the topic. It's really not a rational sort of thing.
• Ah, it might be best to put a barrier on the bridge without telling people. That way people will still go out there for a while at least, and when they can't kill themselves (unless they jump into traffic), they have a chance to reconsider.
• People intentionally die for a number of reasons. Some have even been known to do so for the sins of others.
• Fuck you, jesus. You goddam hippy.
• Well, Job got away with using that kind of language, so I do not see why the quidnunc kid can't, too.
• Job had a reason to cuss. No offense, JC, but your Dad was being a Right Bastard to him, and for no good reason.
• A "suicide barrier" on the whole bridge? Many here talk about it like it's a matter of installing a muffler on a car. A suicide barrier on the GG bridge would be huge, and enormously costly. And yes, the aesthetics of the bridge would be compromised, and who's to say that a determined jumper couldn't find a way to get over the barrier anyway?
• A suicide barrier on the GG bridge would be huge, and enormously costly. A diving board would be cheaper. This film crew seems to be in a conflict of interest. If they report suspected jumpers to the authorities, they stand to lose the death footage they were after. And who would want to see their movie then?
• There was a story in the New Yorker a while ago about Golden Gate jumpers and the suicide barrier debate, complete with gruesome details about what actually happens to a human body entering the water at 75MPH. I wonder if maybe the bridge officials are embarrassed that this guy actually went a long way toward implementing one of the barrier proposals, i.e., the "non-physical" barrier of cameras and guards. Now it's obvious that it could be an effective preventative measure.
• Lagged2Death, that New Yorker link was Jerry Junior's link, way up there in the first comment. Great article.
• Oopsie, so it is. Where did this fashion of posting the smallest possible link come from, anyway?
• Jumping of the GG bridge isn't just a suicide. THat can be done at home. Doing it of a landmark though, that makes your last moments much more "grand".
• If they report suspected jumpers to the authorities, they stand to lose the death footage they were after. You people don't read for comprehension, do you? Much easier to make a string of snippy comments about a flip choice of words, I suppose.
• The barrier idea, IIRC, began after that one particular shithead tossed his daughter into the Bay and followed with himself. I can't remember when that was - 1998?
• while I appreciate everyones concerns over preventing suicides, I was also hoping for a discussion of the panopticon-heavy implications of this episode. Are we headed to a world where you can't even kill yourself without a camera watching? With the ubiquitousness of cheap video hardware, and even cheaper storage, combined with the latest data reduction powers not to mention a population that is conditioned to watch the tube ennyway, I am getting Winston Smith vibes. In another vein, would suicides be dissuades by signs that said "ATTENTION: THIS AREA UNDER 24-HOUR VIDEO SURVEILLANCE". Would some mug for the camera before the big dive?
• I can't talk about this right now. To those of you who poo-poo the gesture: it's different when the gun is to you head. Suicide is final. Go for it.
• There was a big debate about this in Toronto when they installed a barrier on the Bloor St. Viaduct (mentioned in one of the articles above). It turns out that suicide barriers really do reduce the suicide rate, rather than just moving suicides elsewhere. This is a very well established fact, with a lot of evidence to back it up. I agree that this doesn't make intuative sense right off the bat. A simple (although somewhat innacurate) way of thinking about it is that suicidal people don't think 'wow, I'm so depressed I want to kill myself... how can I do this?'; they think 'wow, I'm so depressed I want to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge!' When they go there and find they can't, they don't, and they survive in large numbers. There are a couple of references in the New Yorker article which probably get closer to the truth of the matter. One was to the GGB being like a loaded gun on the kitchen table: something that will seemingly call out to depressed people having suicidal thoughts. The other is to the 'magical thinking' that suicidal people engage in. When a jumper thinks that by killing themselves in a certain way they will pass through a mystical gateway into another world, then taking away that place can make a huge difference.
• The other is to the 'magical thinking' that suicidal people engage in. This is profoundly true.