“What about all those American shootings?”
That was a recurring question I was asked on a recent trip abroad.
It was also something I was asking myself when I was on my return flight and noticed someone across the aisle watching an American action film featuring a nearly continuous stream of gun fights, car chases, and explosions.
I didn’t know the name of the film, but I easily recognized the formula — get a generic beefed-up action hero, get the audience to connect to him or her, and then thrill viewers with two hours of choreographed — and sanitized — violence.
That people actually made the film with the knowledge that others would sit through it is meaningful.
So is the fact that such action films are big at the box office — as a quick look at the International Movie Data Base list of top grossing films demonstrates.
Obviously, there’s money to be made on simulated violence — especially of the cartoonish variety.
But there’s also the devil to pay.
“Our movies, TV shows, and video games collectively have become the modern Roman Colosseum where permissible atrocities are sold as entertainment to vulnerable minds.”
That’s from Trenton-born playwright and screenwriter William Mastrosimone.
Though he became well-known for his explosive play “Extremities,” Mastrosimone also became increasingly aware of how violence in entertainment informs violence in society — as shown in his play “Bang Bang You’re Dead.”
The 1999 play deals with school shootings and is based on an extensive amount of research on the psychological impact of violent entertainment and video games.
I have known Mastrosimone for more than 30 years and produced a production of “Bang Bang You’re Dead,” so I am aware of his thoughts regarding entertainment — something he wrote about in his “Confessions of a Violent Movie Maker.”
Yet it is in the above quoted 2018 college address where Mastrosimone lays bare the connection between entertainment and killing:
“An Ohio student killed three random schoolmates. In court he appeared in a white t-shirt with a hand-written word on the front: KILLER. He gave the finger to grieving parents. When asked his motive, he said ‘I don’t know.’ He said he was never bullied and was not upset with anyone.
“Still another shooter claimed that he was inspired by ‘Basketball Diaries’ where a young man returns to school and massacres teacher and classmates.
“The Virginia Tech shooter dressed in a power costume — all in black with double shoulder holsters, like a character in a body-bag movie. The Colorado shooter wore a red wig like the violent Joker in Batman.
“Fantasy is the biggest part of school shootings.
“There is a correlation between violent entertainment and violent behavior. The evidence is overwhelming. Increased viewing of violence leads to increased acceptance of aggressive behavior. No, a movie does not make a kid go out and kill; but the accumulation of violent entertainment over a span of years predisposes a kid to be less empathic and indifferent to violence.”
The general public may also be indifferent because violent films and television shows have become such a common part of our lives. “Don’t try to change that. It’s a billion-dollar industry,” says Mastrosimone.
The writer isn’t alone. The American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation says “a growing body of literature shows a strong association between the perpetration of violence and exposure to violence in media, digital media, and entertainment.”
In a position paper updated in 2020, AAFP argues that entertainment-inspired violence is “a serious public health issue that should concern all family physicians, particularly as it affects young patients and their parents or guardians. Children, adolescents, and young adults consume digital media from a variety of sources, many of which are mobile, are accessible 24 hours a day, and offer both passive and active engagement. Many of these media platforms feature entertainment that contains significant doses of violence and portrays sexual and interpersonal aggression.”
The paper also points out that “studies have shown that independent risk factors for exposure to extremely violent movies include male gender, racial or ethnic minority status, low socioeconomic status, and poor school performance.”
While some individuals and organizations may argue to the contrary, there are both academic studies, like the one above, and experiential evidence that demonstrates the entertainment industry’s unprecedented power to influence behavior for better or worse.
For example, the upbeat optimistic, and patriotic films of the 1930s and early 1940s helped Americans smile through the Great Depression and prepare to enter World War II.
Then again, in 1915, D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of Nation” bolstered the waning membership for the Ku Klux Klan and cinematically introduced something hitherto unused by the Klan but now one of its most potent symbols: cross burnings.
And doubters only have to consider the large amount of dollars advertisers willingly pay to sell products — and political candidates — during primetime television to see how the entertainment industry shapes behavior.
Or they can just simply take stock of the vast number of commercial jingles unconsciously stored in their memories.
While various public activism has put pressure on the entertainment industry to reconsider past practices — such as eliminating television commercials for unhealthy products, monitoring stereotypes, and creating rating systems — it doesn’t seem to have halted the production of entertainment products highlighting gratuitous violence.
Or, as Mastrosimone has noted, fantasy violence — he makes a clear distinction between a film where a figure gratuitously kills opponents and American forces’ D-Day landing to liberate Europe.
The day after I returned home to Bordentown, the topic of shootings (this time on South Street in Philadelphia) and films came up with another town resident, Bryan Grigsby.
Grigsby is a retired photo editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and served in the U.S. military as a photographer in Vietnam.
As we talked, Grigsby simply shook his head and recounted his job of taking photos of soldiers shot in battle and said American street shooters have no idea of what a gun can really do.
Unfortunately, as two current violence-related exhibitions at Artworks Trenton show, many mothers, fathers, and family members do.
And many more will learn if our culture doesn’t owe up to the reality that our daily consumption of violence and nihilistic entertainment is a killer.
