Friday, December 28, 2012

Guns and Cinema

One week after a disturbed young man took the lives of over two dozen people, the NRA responds with its inflammatory response. While the politics of gun control go beyond the scope of this blog, the NRA did blame what it calls "the culture of violence" perpetrated by our modern day media.

Excuse my French, but blaming movies, television, and video games on what can be considered acts of terrorism is complete and utter bullshit. It has always been bullshit. And it will always be bullshit. Our modern society is actually less violent than previous civilizations. After all, we no longer watch public executions in our city squares or watch slaves fight to the death in arenas.

We do, however, watch both bad and good guys with guns in movies. We almost expect it. We have watched anti-heroes like Dirty Harry threaten criminals with "the most powerful handgun in the world". We watch how the West was won, but we have also watched two unlikely cops become partners over and over again.

Guns have become as American as apple pie and baseball. National cinemas reflect the culture of the host nation. Media did not give us our gun culture. Our gun culture gave us our media.

Factcheck: NRA blames media for gun violence | Poynter.

Happy filmmaking!

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