the Blame Game
long with being the supposed end of the world, yesterday (the 21st) was supposed to be the day when the NRA provided what they claimed were “meaningful contributions” to ensure that shootings like in Connecticut never happen again.
Instead what we got was the same old story… blame the video games, violent movies and television. Pretty much, blame everything that isn’t guns.
I take a major issue with this assertion by the head of the NRA and really anyone who asserts that it’s violent video games, or violent movies or the like that’s causing this problem, as a novelist, and occasional scriptwriter I know that sometimes we write particularly dark and violent scenes. Sometimes we do it because that’s what the story calls for, and sometimes, (as in the case of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood to give an account of a very violent real world event in a book form. To tell a story of something that really happens.
Sometimes, art imitates life, paintings, films, television and even novels depict things that really happen… so why is it the solution of some to place blame on the storytellers? I’m not a gamer, but even I see that in a lot of games there is a story to be told, it may not be the typical story; and I will grant you that some people take things way too far, that’s true with everything. Think about it this way, people joke that men after a movie like let’s say Skyfall (being that’s the most recent action movie I’ve seen) makes you feel like you can kick ass! I personally feel like I want to be in a movie where I kick ass, or write a character who kicks ass but that’s just me. Conversely, if a woman (again I’m generalizing to make a point) were to see Bridget Jones she suddenly feels like anything in love is possible if she can only meet Mr. Right. I know, I’ve been there as well.
Both are pretty bad combinations if we’re honest with ourselves, but no one is talking about banning Romantic movies just because they give women unrealistic expectations of love, romance, sex and men.
Movies, and video games, and books (though I notice no one ever specifically says books–but where do most movies come from, particularly lately), are art. We have as a society agreed that art, regardless of what some might think about what constitutes “high” art or “good” art, contributes to make us a civilized society, and that’s one thing we never discuss in relation to the denigration of society, the fact that we cut funding for the arts first. Not everyone is meant to be a scientist or mathematician. Some people should be artists. Perhaps if we concerned ourselves more with providing children with a well rounded education that includes artistic programs rather than higher SAT scores that mean very little in the real world, we could make a real change for the better.
