Couldn’t possibly agree more with your observations on guns. 100%. I’d love to see the licensing agreements to get some of those guns in there, or the vendor agreements to provide them to productions. The entertainment industry is culpable, and your observations are right on. But … why no mention of video games? I find it impossible to believe that sitting in a chair with headphones on, cut off from the outside world, with virtual guns, mowing down virtual people for bragging rights — I find it impossible to believe that in no way contributes to the desensitization of young people. All? No way, of course not. Those who are already troubled? Absolutely. It all contributes. We seem unwilling to accept that, as if even the mere question turns us into reactionary prudes who don’t understand what kids want. Everyone is to blame: parents, schools, politicians, the perpetrators themselves. But “the culture” IS to blame … I’m so glad to hear someone pointing this out in a sensical way … and it’s vital to hold the video game industry, a MASSIVE part of what defines our culture, responsible as well. Too many people have made too much money off of these deaths, even while they publicly decry the violence and death.
I am sorry, but I have to disagree with this … I am as upset as anyone about the shooting after shooting after shooting. But having grown up in Germany I have to say that neither movies nor video games play a role. Let’s just look at other countries. Most teenagers in other countries watch the same movies American teenagers watch. I grew up on a diet of Simon and Simon as well as any Terminator movie I could watch, Commando, later on Heat, and yes, I love anything from Tarantino. Ok you can blame my poor movie tastes, but I wasn’t and am not alone in that type of movie diet. On top of that take look at European movies, watching those you could think Europe or Asia (just look at the bloody violence of Japanese movies) had an even bigger gun violence problem … but they don’t. And we still have mental health issues, kids get bullied just like here, yes, we have illegal immigrants, too. The thing we don’t have is easy access to gun, with more or less no questions asked. That is the only difference. Or as you like to say it … Guns. Are. The. Only. Difference. So no, there is no need to change the programming, we have to be very clear, the problem is guns. As well as politicians that do nothing about it. America isn’t unique … the only unique part about the US are guns.
Once upon a time a long, long time ago, I experimented with writing death-free episodes on action shows. For the original Equalizer I wrote an episode about child abuse in which nobody used a weapon. The net noticed what I was attempting and nervously asked that the EQ at least fire one shot from his gun into a ceiling to stun and capture everybody's attention in the climatic scene, but otherwise went along with the plan. Interestingly, nobody in the audience seemed to notice - or care, one way or the other. I repeated the exercise on seaQuest. A vastly more complicated show, in which the star itself was a weapon, the goal was simply to have no one, including the usual background extras, die in the episode, which required cooperation from the actors, stunt department, and CG artists. This time not even the network noticed. And again, neither did the audience. The point? I'm not sure, even though they were my own experiments. But it might be interesting if others made similar tests of this and that today...
Couldn’t possibly agree more with your observations on guns. 100%. I’d love to see the licensing agreements to get some of those guns in there, or the vendor agreements to provide them to productions. The entertainment industry is culpable, and your observations are right on. But … why no mention of video games? I find it impossible to believe that sitting in a chair with headphones on, cut off from the outside world, with virtual guns, mowing down virtual people for bragging rights — I find it impossible to believe that in no way contributes to the desensitization of young people. All? No way, of course not. Those who are already troubled? Absolutely. It all contributes. We seem unwilling to accept that, as if even the mere question turns us into reactionary prudes who don’t understand what kids want. Everyone is to blame: parents, schools, politicians, the perpetrators themselves. But “the culture” IS to blame … I’m so glad to hear someone pointing this out in a sensical way … and it’s vital to hold the video game industry, a MASSIVE part of what defines our culture, responsible as well. Too many people have made too much money off of these deaths, even while they publicly decry the violence and death.
I am sorry, but I have to disagree with this … I am as upset as anyone about the shooting after shooting after shooting. But having grown up in Germany I have to say that neither movies nor video games play a role. Let’s just look at other countries. Most teenagers in other countries watch the same movies American teenagers watch. I grew up on a diet of Simon and Simon as well as any Terminator movie I could watch, Commando, later on Heat, and yes, I love anything from Tarantino. Ok you can blame my poor movie tastes, but I wasn’t and am not alone in that type of movie diet. On top of that take look at European movies, watching those you could think Europe or Asia (just look at the bloody violence of Japanese movies) had an even bigger gun violence problem … but they don’t. And we still have mental health issues, kids get bullied just like here, yes, we have illegal immigrants, too. The thing we don’t have is easy access to gun, with more or less no questions asked. That is the only difference. Or as you like to say it … Guns. Are. The. Only. Difference. So no, there is no need to change the programming, we have to be very clear, the problem is guns. As well as politicians that do nothing about it. America isn’t unique … the only unique part about the US are guns.
Once upon a time a long, long time ago, I experimented with writing death-free episodes on action shows. For the original Equalizer I wrote an episode about child abuse in which nobody used a weapon. The net noticed what I was attempting and nervously asked that the EQ at least fire one shot from his gun into a ceiling to stun and capture everybody's attention in the climatic scene, but otherwise went along with the plan. Interestingly, nobody in the audience seemed to notice - or care, one way or the other. I repeated the exercise on seaQuest. A vastly more complicated show, in which the star itself was a weapon, the goal was simply to have no one, including the usual background extras, die in the episode, which required cooperation from the actors, stunt department, and CG artists. This time not even the network noticed. And again, neither did the audience. The point? I'm not sure, even though they were my own experiments. But it might be interesting if others made similar tests of this and that today...
No mention of “Cuties”……..why didn’t the interviewer ask about that disaster?