Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Violence In Movies in the time of Sandy Hook

At first, when I heard the title to Stallone's new movie was called 'Bullet to the Head', I actually thought it was a joke. How could they, right after the Sandy Hook shootings and amid the insanity of violence in Chicago, possibly have the insensitivity and indifference to release a movie today with that title. Even if the movie's title was set way before the Newtown shootings, I figured they would, at least, change it.
I was wrong.


It boggles my mind how sheer arrogance such as this is purveyed without even a whimper from the same people who outcried the shootings at Sandy Hook. Let’s think about this clearly for a minute: we are experiencing an epidemic of gun violence in our streets and almost every week there is an incident of mass shootings and then Hollywood comes out with a mass marketed movie called ‘Bullet to the Head’.

It’s no wonder why our younger generation is confused and angry. The grownups; the people who are supposed to be the smart and rational ones, are showing an utter disregard for human suffering and showing that making money off of violence is more important. We are saying to our youth: “do as I say, and not as I do.”
Sheer hypocrisy.

How many mothers of murdered children will walk past a theatre or open up a newspaper and see the poster for this Stallone movie and not cringe with heartbreak. How many will relive the death of their child every time this trailer comes on T.V.?

Someone once said that violence in movies does not equate to violence in the real world. Then someone else countered with: if T.V. does not mold and shape reality, then why are there commercials? Corporations did not recently spend 3.7 million dollars for an ad on the Super Bowl for nothing. Statistics proved that when women began smoking in films back in the thirties, women began smoking in the real world. When Clark Gable removed his shirt in the movie ‘It Happened One Night’ and displayed a bare chest, the T-Shirt companies had a heart attack. Today, our children have become desensitized to murder and violence, because, in my opinion, they have seen countless forms of violence in the media.

If ‘Bullet to the Head’ doesn’t get people fired up in life after Sandy Hook, then dammit, nothing will.