Look, I'm a writer. I'm not about to suggest limiting or restricting anybody's 1st Amendment rights. No, I'm talking about values as they are reflected in American entertainment, and how that impacts on personal attitudes -- especially among the young, who, by and large have not had enough life experience to make their own judgments based on fact.
In reference to mass shootings like that at the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater especially, where the shooter dressed up like the Joker and wired his apartment like something from a 007 film, it gets pretty hard to argue that popular culture had nothing to do with it.
But then look at gang shootings, too, all across the USA, and I might say particularly in Chicago last year.
Life is cheap. The "hero" is the guy with, not necessarily the biggest gun, but the nastiest attitude and the most resolutely inhumane attitude toward death and destruction. And where on earth do people get the idea that these are concepts to be valued?
Kinda funny how no filmmaker in his right mind would have his heroes talk about "niggers," "kikes," faggots," "beaners," or "sand niggers" and "camel jockeys." The bad guys might, but not the heroes. The heroes aren't even allowed to smoke tobacco anymore. Why -- if if would make no difference, if it has no impact at all upon the audience?
I don't think that watching a violent movie or playing a violent video game will drive a normal person to rush right out and start klling people. But it trivializes human life. It makes it less valuable. And in a lot of cases, it make violence glorious, and a heroic solution to everyone's problems.
For instance, the movie Taken, which I thought was a good movie in terms of plot development, cinematography and all. Hero Liam Nissen has a totally idiot daughter who wants to go to Paris and maybe (thrillingly) get laid by some French guy. Liam warns of dangerous streets, but even her mother -- Liam's x-wife -- wants the daughter to go.
Barely off the plane, she's fingered by, I think it was, an Albanian white slave ring and is kidnapped. So Liam Nissen, a one-time CIA (or something) agent, swings into action to get her back. In the process of his rescue, he kills probably in the neighborhood of two dozen people. All creeps and criminals, granted, but the slaughter is almost mind-boggling. Brings to mind the bloodfests of earlier films like Ronan and/or Scarface.
What supposedly "justifies" this massacre in Taken is that Liam is wasting only bad guys. Or the people he regards as bad guys.
Why doesn't he contact Interpol and have them put in jail? Why doesn't he at least contact the French police (though apparently he has some kind of contact among the Surete or something) and get them to act? No, not good enough. He's got to go commit the murders himself. He's more heroic than they are or could ever be, apparently.
So it's murder, murder, murder. Heads exploding. Blood squirting out of wounds like fountains, huge explosions and car wrecks that no human being could possibly survive.
You know why? I mean, really, you know why movies are made this way? Becauase it's visual. It's something you can show on film. Like calm deliberation is not very exciting to watch. Juries are a bore. And exciting feats told second hand just don't "play" well on film.
It's not a moral decison. It's all about the requirements of that particular medium, It costs a lot less and takes a lot less work on the part of screenwriters and others who craft the so-called "stories." If they had to actually think about dramatizing more positive things, they might not be up to the challenge. But it's usually the films that go beyond simple-minded violence that are best loved and win all the Oscars.
And, of course, there's audience demand. As David Letterman used to say, "Blows up real good." I mean, who doesn't love seeing a decapitated torso with blood and tissue gushing out the truncated neck? If you can add stringy things that sort of bounce, and gooey stuff that sticks to the floor, that's even better.
All of this creates a cultural environment that violence is good, useful, effective, and accessible to anybody with a beef. "You, too, can take revenge on your enemies! Just watch this!" It makes it OK to kill other people.
And it doesn't take a mental giant to figure this out. You don't need psychiatrists sifting through the health records of gun owners. You don't need to ban so-called "assault rifles," which are, really, dressed up plain old semi-automatic rifles. You don't need government interference.YOU ESPECIALLY DON'T NEED GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE.
All you need is for Hollywood and video game developers and the like to begin to recognize the value of human life and to back away from glorifying death and destruction.
Think that's going to happen any time soon? I doubt it, but who knows? Maybe we can start a trend that even liberals might embrace: murder as politically incorrect.
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