The Chinese never used to be violent until they started copying everything American
filmschoolrejects.com
"Just as a keg of beer needs a bung hole to relieve pressure, we need violent movies to relieve the pressures of every day life."
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02:57 PM ET
What, if anything, should be done about violence in movies?
By CNN's Jack Cafferty:
That horrific massacre in a Colorado movie theater has revived the debate of whether violent films contribute to real-life violence.
Director Peter Bogdanovich talked to the Hollywood Reporter about how movie violence is way over the line.
"Violence on the screen has increased tenfold. It's almost pornographic. In fact, it is pornographic. Video games are violent, too. It's all out of control. I can see where it would drive somebody crazy."
And Bogdanovich knows violence. His first film, 1968’s "Targets," showed a sniper killing movie-goers at a drive-in.
But he now says there are other ways to talk about violence without showing people getting blown up. Bodganovich believes there's been a "general numbing of the audiences" because there's just too much murder and killing on our screens.
He says people have become insensitive to it and that there's a general lack of respect of life.
Meanwhile, The New York Times reports how Warner Bros. Studios, which put out "The Dark Knight Rises," has a decades-long history of violent movies.
Starting with gangster films in the 1930s - Warner Bros., which shares a parent company with CNN - is also responsible for films such as "Bonnie and Clyde," "A Clockwork Orange," "Dirty Harry," "Natural Born Killers" and "The Matrix."
There have been alleged copycat crimes after the release of several of these violent Warner Bros. films.
As for the aftermath of the Aurora tragedy, background checks for people wanting to buy guns in Colorado have spiked more than 40%.
And in multiple theaters around the country, screenings of the same "Batman" film have been accompanied by panic, evacuation and gunshots being fired.
Here’s my question to you: What, if anything, should be done about violence in movies?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Marilyn:
How about putting back some boundaries? Enforcing ratings and curfews? No good comes of little kids watching R or PG-13 movies at 2am. The outcome of this tragedy might still have been 12 killed, but they would not be children placed at risk by their parents and enabled by the movie theaters.
D. in St. Paul, Minnesota:
No one actually gets hurt in the movie, Jack. It’s all fake. Now… psycho little idiots who shoot up theatres? Different story. What a deliberate question though. That's like finding a way to blame 9-11 on the plane... not the terrorists.
Dave in New Hampshire:
It's not just movies, Jack. Video games now are way over the top. All this violence that we're shoving down the throats of our youths has to have an effect on their minds. The other part to this dilemma is the news and the coverage of war. Do we really need to show video from helicopter gunships killing combatants over and over and over? How many times do we need to show the simulation of the killing of bin Laden?
T.:
Violent movies should be required to show at least five minutes of interviews with victims of violence (including hospital footage), with the doctors and family who care for them, and with the loved ones who survive those that died. In this way, people would be reminded that violence is not entertaining but has tragic, painful and life-altering consequences and costs.
Rich:
While watching a movie, a madman starts killing people. Was it the movie that caused it? No. The movie was just the venue he chose. He could have picked a McDonald's and the people would have been just as dead. Movies do not kill people, Jack, idiots kill people.
C. in Massachusetts:
Don't go to see them.
David in Tampa, Florida:
It you take out the gun violence, the NRA gets PO'ed. If you substitute sex for violence more people will go, after all sex sells, but the Christian right will get PO'ed. If you replace sex and violence with intellect and art, everybody gets PO'ed and stays home. Maybe that is why I don't go to movies anymore.
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