It is All Theater
The social media, including all
the over the air broadcasts, internet sites, and print mediums are ablaze with
celebrity condemnation of the violence we see in the world around us, well kind
of ablaze, if you overlook the obvious disparity in approach.
The “Big Stars” in the film
industry are happy to jump on the band wagon to condemn gun violence, yet when
it comes time to put their money where their mouths are what do we see? I took a quick look at movies that are in
theaters now (including new ones released this week) to see what kind of social
commentary the industry is pushing forward to create the utopian world we all
desire. Not surprisingly they seem to
directly contradict the moral outrage we hear coming from their lips. Roughly 47% of the films have guns used in
violent situations, 29% have strong, violent, or abusive sexual content, and
only 18% seem to be guns or violence free.
That remaining 6% is a movie about an heiress haunted by how her
ancestor’s gun killed people and I wasn’t sure how to characterize that one,
but it was the only one I saw that seemed to support the industry’s public
narrative.
I will be the first to admit I am
a cynic, but the last person I ever listen to is someone who tells me how I
should believe when it is obvious they don’t have the courage of their own
convictions.
In my life-time the movie
industry must have fired a trillion fake rounds of ammunition to tell the
stories of humanity, teach the moral lessons they thought would be profitable,
condemn the violence of the real world, or just because they thought it would
be entertaining. The number of rounds
fired does not include all the phaser, laser, or proton cannon shots taken in
distant worlds or even in defense of future earths. In all this fake shooting how many real
deaths have occurred that are just chalked up as the cost of doing business?
It is reported that at tonight’s
self-congratulatory celebration the big names will be wearing an orange
American flag to signal their superiority in the moral battle over gun
violence. In the que for “Movie of the Year”
is a tale about the seduction of a minor, the dramatization of the near end of
England, the salvation of the British Army, a kind of remake of “Guess Who’s
Coming to Dinner,” a standard about a California girl who wants to go to an
Eastern College for its culture, an old man meets a young girl, a newspaper
publisher’s heroic effort to destroy a President, a mute janitor discovers a nefarious
government plot, and finally a woman fights a sheriff over the rape and death
of her daughter. Sadly, guns, violence and
seduction of minors seem to play in a fair number of the great films of last
year. Tales of utopia, not so much, but
I digress.
Clearly, virtue signaling can
make up for so much in an industry that thrives on the glamorization of
violence. I will leave the speculation
on whether there is a cumulative effect on young men who spend hours in violent
video games up to you.
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