How many more people have to die before Washington Post critic Anne Hornaday strikes again?
How many students watch outsized frat-boy fantasies like “Neighbors” and feel, as Rodger did, unjustly shut out of college life that should be full of “sex and fun and pleasure”? How many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which the shlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl, find that those happy endings constantly elude them and conclude, “It’s not fair”?
Movies may not reflect reality, but they powerfully condition what we desire, expect and feel we deserve from it. The myths that movies have been selling us become even more palpable at a time when spectators become their own auteurs and stars on YouTube, Instagram and Vine. If our cinematic grammar is one of violence, sexual conquest and macho swagger — thanks to male studio executives who green-light projects according to their own pathetic predilections — no one should be surprised when those impulses take luridly literal form in the culture at large.
I mean, if Hornaday can make an argument for blaming Elliot Rodger’s tragic murder spree on “the toxic double helix of insecurity and entitlement that comprises Hollywood’s DNA,” then I can certainly make a go at blaming such tragedies on dangerously complicit commentary that totally ignores the role of, you know, the gun.
Rodger reportedly stabbed to death his two roommates and a guest at his apartment, and then shot to death two women and a man before turning the gun on himself.
I’m not saying that Hornaday doesn’t have any valid points about sexism in Hollywood, and she does at least make a nod to the role of mental illness in this tragedy. But she doesn’t even mention the role of the gun, or the role of our nation’s stupidly dangerous gun culture. And in that sense she helps contribute to the enabling of future such tragedies.
And you’re both willfully ignoring the fact that this was nothing more or less than a calculated act of political terrorism by a male supremacist. Talk about guns or Hollywood is deliberately and maliciously obscuring the point.
You can’t blame just the gun culture, he stabbed his first 3 victims. The guy clearly had serious issues that should have been a warning to others.
I don’t believe any of his batshit reasons are worth analysis. He was clearly mentally ill and debating his twisted logic gives him more credit than he deserves. His killing spree should be viewed with comtempt, not treated as an opening for political discourse.
Every society has a few deranged malcontents, but no other country has America’s frequency of mayhem. It’s hard to believe cultural factors, such as violent movies and video games, play no role. Of course, so does easy access to guns.
Invariably, gun advocates will point out that countries like China and Japan have recently experienced murder rampages committed by people using knives or swords. Their argument essentially is, if such people can’t get guns they’ll use some other instrument of inflicting harm, so restricting guns doesn’t solve the problem.
To a certain minor extent that argument is true, but it overlooks the fact that murder rampages are very uncommon in those countries, whereas they seem to happen weekly and sometimes daily in America. Also, it’s much easier to run away from a knife than from a gun. So my response is, yes, but, guns make it much easier for madmen to kill a lot of people in very little time.
I don’t think Hollywood execs sit around thinking, “How violent can we be today?” I believe they’re thinking, “How can we make money today?” For it’s a fact that most Hollywood films and projects lose money. It’s every bit as tough to make a profit in the entertainment industry as it is in any other business. In some ways it’s harder, because movies are made on speculation, without any buyers lined up in advance, so life and death in the movie business depends on getting hits at the box office. That’s why you see so many remakes and sequels and formulaic storylines, and so little originality, in Hollywood’s output; proven box office winners represent less business risk. What it all boils down to is entertainment execs give the public what they think the public wants, because anything else is business suicide; so, we have these kinds of movies, TV shows, and video games because it’s what the public will pay money for. Ultimately, it is the customer who is to blame for a lousy product.
@3 So are you saying we shouldn’t have a political discussion about easy access to guns just because another madman was able to legally buy a carload of guns and ammo, and then mowed down another batch of innocent victims?
Of course, if we simply banned BMW’s, then all would be fixed…
You know, “if we can save just 1 life…” sorta thing.
@2, 3, 6…
Cue the reliable apologists for the Gun Fetish Death Cult.
How about President McCain’s “hero” Samuel Wurzelbacher
http://wonkette.com/403643/joh.....porn-clips
…”Joe The Dumber”….Wurzelbacher:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/l.....-dead-kids
Joe The Plumber To UCSB Parents: ‘Your Dead Kids Don’t Trump’ My Guns
What a bunch of childish, narcissistic assholes you all are.
@ 7
Just ask any TeaKlan fucktard, and they’ll say outright that the occasional mass killing is perfectly acceptable price to pay for liberal firearms laws. The Second Amendment trumps Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
He not only stabbed three people to death, and then shot three other people to death, he also injured at least one bicyclist very badly by hitting him with his car. This was mentioned in the UCSB campus newspaper, the Daily Nexus. I’m a UCSB alum.
Hollywood execs are mostly interested in making movies that make a ton of money. I don’t think they care how they do it: they just want to make money.
This guy was not a schlub. He was insane.
“The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun…is the bad guy with the gun.”
” totally ignores the role of, you know, the knife”
@ 13
Knives have multiple uses, and purposes. Firearms only have one.
@5 & 7 Don’t plead ignorance. Mental health is the main issue here. Before we stop letting guns into the hands of the insane, we have to find a way to identify them. Wishing all guns would magically disappear will not make it happen.
@15 cont…
Limiting sales will only work if you know who not to sell to. A strict ban of gun sales would be nice, but not likely to happen anytime soon. Then you would also have to deal with all the guns already out there. Controlling and limiting the sale of ammo would stand a better chance.
And before you respond that you could make your own ammo at home, you can already make your own guns at home. With 3D printing it will be much easier.
@16…
Bullshit.
Guns kill. That is the sole purpose of a firearm.
Take your Gun Fetish somewhere else.
Here is the Onion on guns in America:
http://www.theonion.com/articl.....his,36131/
“‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens” – the rest of the ironic story is about how gun violence happens so much more frequently in this country than almost anywhere else n the world – yet we are helpless to prevent it.