Everything I need to know I learned from action movies

I couldn't tell you what the first action movie was or when it was made. I couldn't begin to explain the fascination we humans have watching something big (say, an oil tanker full of bad guys) blown to smithereens from the safety of our couch. What I can do is tell you is the story of little B. Hett and how action movies shaped his life.\nB. Hett got his first taste of fantastic violence watching Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons. That coyote is not very wiley, Roadrunner would think to himself as Wile E. plummeted off the side of a cliff and transformed into a poof of smoke. B. Hett laughed with glee when Coyote blew himself up, caught on fire or got stuck in the deathtrap meant for Roadrunner. \nB. Hett didn't root for Roadrunner or Coyote. He rooted for the comic violence.\nThus, the formative years of B. Hett's life went by in a blur of cartoon violence -- everything from Foghorn Leghorn beating his dog friend with a 2x4 to a certain group of turtles fighting crime from a sewer. It seemed all this cartoon violence was wearing on B. Hett's parents, especially his father. Could his father have been so prudish and hateful that he wanted to rid his boy's life of all the violence-glorifying garbage his son was watching? No one knows for sure. What's known is, on a weekend night near B. Hett's eighth birthday at a video store near his suburban dwelling, this conversation took place:\n"Hurry up, B. Hett, I want to get out of here."\n"I just can't decide if I want to watch '3 Ninjas' for the 14th time or if I want something else."\n(Sigh.)\n"This is taking too long, son. We're leaving. I have a movie at home we can watch, anyway."\nB. Hett and his father got back to the house and B. Hett began his favorite movie-night tradition of popping the microwave popcorn while his Dad cued up the movie in the living room. The movie, B. Hett would later find out, was titled "Speed."\n"Speed" was like nothing B. Hett had experienced. In cartoons, when characters died, they were alive again in the next sequence. As it turned out, cartoon violence was not rooted in reality. In this movie "Speed," when a guy shoved a screwdriver through someone's eyeball, that guy stayed dead the rest of the movie. The explosions in "Speed" were also better in than they were in cartoons. Nothing gets an 8-year-old's adrenaline pumping like a big, explosive ball of fire.\nSo "Speed" was B. Hett's first glimpse into this new world -- a world his dad tersely termed "action movie."\nThe floodgates had been opened. B. Hett needed more. Action movies were the only thing he could think about in school, on the playground, even in church.\nB. Hett's father saw his son was in pain and did the only reasonable thing that could be done: He went out and rented "Die Hard."\nNow, after watching "Speed" (and even the violent cartoons), B. Hett was pretty much desensitized to violence. That's what makes "Die Hard" so brilliant in B. Hett's eyes. Come for the blood-splattering violence. Stay for the vile vocabulary, motherfucker.\nThis movie marked a turning point in B. Hett's life. He understood, even at that young age, that a situation where he would be walking over broken glass (barefoot, mind you) after an awesome, rackin'-up-the-body-count gunfight would never present itself. But if something like that did happen to occur in his life at any point in the future, B. Hett was now aware of the proper expletives to use.\nNext up for B. Hett was "True Lies," starring his favorite "Kindergarten Cop," Arnold Schwarzenegegger. B. Hett loved this movie but became confused when his Dad began to use the fast-forward button.\n"What are you doing, motherfucker?" B. Hett inquired. "This violence does not even compare to 'Die Hard.'"\n"I know," B. Hett's father replied. "But there are some things you aren't ready to see."\nOn the glowing screen in front of him, B. Hett saw, in fast forward, what he would later learn was called a "strip tease." And that was the lesson B. Hett took from "True Lies": Gratuitous violence is OK for young children, but a middle-aged woman performing a striptease is only permissible in fast motion. B. Hett realized the world isn't really so complicated after all.\nSo thank you, action movies, on behalf of kids like B. Hett all over America. The way you shamelessly off bad guys, keep coming up with bigger and better things to blow up (let's blow up the moon next!) and always let the good guys win is the reason you are number one in our hearts. We love you, we really do.