Posted on 07/26/2012 8:21:25 AM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
Peter Bogdanovich, the legendary director, has broken ranks with his Hollywood brethren. He may never eat lunch in that godless town again.
In a disarmingly-honest first-person jeremiad appearing in the August 3 issue of the Hollywood Reporter, the auteur known for such films as “The Last Picture Show,” “Paper Moon” and “Mask” indicts the motion picture industry for playing a role in last week’s massacre in Colorado.
“People go to a movie to have a good time,” said Bogdanovich, “and they get killed.”
“At first,” he noted, some of those watching the massacre unfold inside the theater, “thought it was a part of the movie. That’s very telling.”
The director lamented, “Violence on the screen has increased ten-fold. It’s almost pornographic… It’s all out of control. I can see where it could drive someone crazy.”
Bogdanovich wasn’t just ranting in the wake of tragedy. He was speaking truth.
Indeed, Ameirca’s youth are inured to violence through saturation exposure to violence-laden movies, like “The Dark Knight Rises,” as well as television shows and video games.
Before the average American child even finishes elementary school, he or she will view 100,000 acts of violence just on TV, including some 8,000 murders. And when they become old enough to go to the movies without their parental units, they’ll see even more ersatz violence.
Of course, most of Bogdanovich’s Hollywood brethren (and sistren) will strenuously object to suggestions that the violence and mayhem they are putting on the screen has any effect whatsoever on mass murderers like 24-year-old James Holmes.
But there is prima facie evidence of the influence Hollywood has on the hoi polloi.
All the way back in 1934, Columbia Pictures released “It Happened One Night,” a romantic comedy starring Clarke Gable and Claudia Colbert. In one memorable scene, Gable took of his shirt and revealed his bare chest.
In so doing, the actor inspired millions of American men to abandon their undershirts, temporarily devastating the nation’s T-shirt manufacturers.
More recently, there was the 1982 science fiction movie, “E.T.,” starring young Henry Thomas and a very young Drew Barrymore. In one noteworthy scene, the character played by Thomas lures an extraterrestrial out of hiding by dropping Reese’s pieces on the ground.
For months, Reese’s pieces were the most popular candy in America.
Warner Bros., the movie studio that released “Dark Knight Rises,” did not cause the bloodshed in Colorado last week. I still maintain that young man Holmes was operating under demonic influence.
But Warner’s certainly contributed.
In the previous installment of its Batman franchise, the most compelling character was not Batman, the good guy, but the Joker, who delighted in murder and mayhem.
That clearly was an inspiration to Holmes, who went so far before his real world killing spree as to dye his hair red in worshipful tribute to Warner’s evil-doing character.
>>If you could sell tickets for cinema #9 with the guarantee of safety, what would the public pay?<<
Whew...hard to say. Personally, I wouldn’t accept any institution’s “guarantee” of safety. I’d hate to see the security measures the public would have to endure in order for a company to make such a claim!
Gosh, what a good sport! You stay classy, hear?
Was there some risk that I was going to be less than classy?
No point in muddling simplicity and obvious truth with a bunch of college drivel.
Be sure to tell that to your doctor next time you or a family member has a serious illness.
Be sure to tell that to your doctor next time you or a family member has a serious illness.
This issue has been being studied by psychologists and the scientific community for the last 60 years.
There is irrefutable proof that watching violence on the tube or screen increases the violence of the audience.
True, not for everyone that watches. But enough that violence on the screen can be considered a causative factor for violence in society.
I can dig out the Scientific American reprints of articles from the 1950’s if you don’t believe me...
Oh, subject change?
Well, you go on and discuss that with yourself then, I’m not interested.
Not in the least. You blinked, smarty pants.
No, I walked away.
They didn’t teach you reading comprehension before you got to Jackass 101, I see.
Running with his numbers...
300,000,000 people see a cumulative one-third to one trillion murders depicted per year.
One third to one half of those people have easy access to a gun.
For all that, there is about one mass shooting per year.
That pretty much eliminates any correlation.
That pretty much proves no causation.
In contrast, 93 people are killed each day with automobiles.
And nobody gives a damn.
The point is, there is more than one element to the massacre. While anyone would readily agree that the shooter is legally and morally responsible for his actions, that doesn't disqualify the obvious downward changes in our society caused by violent media, which raise the temptation or even act as encouragement for troubled personalities to behave in those ways.
If you think culture has no influence whatsoever, try spending a few weeks in Afghanistan.
While anyone would readily agree that the shooter is legally and morally responsible for his actions,
I'm glad we agree. You should have just said so from the start rather than insulting me then being condescending, conversation would have played out differently. Certainly, you must have learned in English 102 then when one attempts to persuade a reader, one does not start out by insulting said reader.
What happened comes as part of living in a free society. There are risks. In such a society, people are free to produce violent movies, and other people are free to watch them or not watch them as they see fit. I personally do not consider Batman to be a violent movie. I consider the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake to be a violent movie.
I've seen both, and I've never plotted to murder a person or number of people. I've not assembled a suit of body armor, although I do have firearms, however I do not intend to victimize anyone with them.
I am a fan of horror movies. I absolutely love them, and I've watched them my entire life. When I was younger, I used to draw pictures that would certainly have me institutionalized in today's society. I also like to play violent video games. I've never committed any sort of violent crime in my entire life.
There is no way to solve in some blanket fashion the problem of human violence. Everyone is different. He chose to do this, James Holmes did. He is the responsible party. I simply do not care what factors exist in his life or in our society that may or may not have influenced him to make such a decision and then carry it out.
The solution to it is to put him on trial, find him guilty, and execute him directly after in a public fashion. No, the goal is not to deter future crimes, although future deterrence may or may not be a by-product of such an action, the goal is to punish him for what he did, and that is all there is to it.
He’s a true film scholar though and has written some of the best monographs about people like John Ford and Howard Hawks. He’s a tireless promoter of film culture.
You seemed to have gone immediately to the wall, reading into my analyis of "any" blame a black-and-white condemnation of media violence of any type at any time. Such a notion was not present in my words; you read into it and became huffy immediately.
When I mentioned statistics, it was to indicate that measurable trends are factual. The increases in violence among youth do coincide with the increases in violence, sex, bad language and disrespect for authority in the media. It's just a fact, not a comment of your taste in media.
If you like horror movies, no one says you shouldn't. But there are still many benefits to society of limiting what children see while their personalities and "social permissions" are in the development stage. Presumably you are a grown adult, and as you said, you do not commit murder after seeing a murder film. But again, studies of large samples of young people across many cultural lines do show a trend of copycatting, media addiction and even deaths associated with media addiction, such as gamers who cannot stop until they die of heart failure or dehydration.
In a free society, we are limited by the First Amendment from over-censoring media producers; and consumers are free to purchase violent or sexual content. However, we also expect media producers to self-limit or label their products where children are involved. Like alcohol or pharmaceutical manufacturers, the sale of their products is limited by regulation. Triple-XXX films are limited by age. There is no crime in protecting children and youth from violence that has become pornographic in its imagery, volume and shock value. Children did not belong in that theater.
It remains to be seen whether Holme's parents let him consume any type of violent content when he was too young to form appropriate values concerning it. But even if they did neglect his viewing environment and fail to teach him the difference between fantasy and reality, that does not reduce his moral or legal culpability. I also do not believe that even if he had a perfect upbringing but has developed schizophrenia, that he is any less legally culpable for those crimes. His culpability is a separate argument from whether society has been increasingly the peer pressure on youth to commit violence; however, you seemed to have jumped the gun on assuming that because I can see the increasing violence, that I wanted to excuse him. There's a lot of interesting gray area between your absolutist reactions.
Last paragraph:
whether society has been increasingly the peer pressure on youth to commit violence
should have been “increasing”, not “increasingly”
Once thing is for certain, Albion. I’m definitely a black and white type of person. You’ve got me described very accurately there. I generally do not see or contemplate gray areas.
I’m definitely on the look out for people trying to excuse this man based upon outside criteria. I am so much this way that I am not willing to excuse him in any way even if he was/ is schizophrenic.
I am willing to concede outright that he is insane. What he did was not the act of a sane person. However, the extent of his meticulous planning shows me that he is also simply evil.
At anytime he could have and should have realized what he was contemplating doing was just sheer evil.
I will say at this time that even if this man is determined to be legally insane, I want him executed. there is no mitigating circumstance in this case in my mind. I want a guilty verdict, and I want him executed. I believe to do anything else may encourage future similar acts. There needs to be a clear and swift consequence here.
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