12 dead, 58 injured in Colorado at midnight showing of Dark Knight

Because you have a Consitutional right to machine-gun a deer.

 

My heart goes out to all involved. I just hope another asshole doesn't attempt to duplicate this tragedy.

 

I don't necessarily agree with him, just like I didn't agree that Marilyn Manson and video games caused Columbine.

But I also definitely don't think that that thoughtful post deserved a, "Shut the fuck up." Seems like a reasonable enough discussion point.

 

I don't think anyone accused Marilyn Manson of directly profiting from Columbine.

Here, Nolan is being accused of just that.

 

Don't blame Marilyn Manson The Boston Herald April 28, 1999 Wednesday

Copyright 1999 Boston Herald Inc.
The Boston Herald

April 28, 1999 Wednesday ALL EDITIONS

SECTION: ARTS & LIFE; Pg. 059

LENGTH: 863 words

HEADLINE: Don't blame Marilyn Manson

BYLINE: By LARRY KATZ

BODY:
Can music cause murder?

If you read the papers or watched TV last week, you would think so. In the rush to explain the murders at Columbine High School, reporters and editors jumped at the suggestion that British Goth music, German industrial techno and our current all-American boogeyman, Marilyn Manson, were to blame.

Now Congress is getting into the act.

Despite lacking any clear connection between music and the Colorado killing spree, the media did not hesitate to spread the notion that Goth bands such as Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy, industrial bands such as KMFDM and Rammstein, and Manson were to be feared and possibly blamed.

But the only thing certain from these idiotic reports about the music-Littleton connection was that these breathless reporters and their editors had never heard of Goth music prior to the shootings. If they had, they might have paused from their hysteria and asked why there haven't been other Goth music-inspired murders in the 15 years or so this style has been around.

A week after the tragedy, the music-murder angle has been forgotten by the TV stations and newspapers who were so quick to exploit it. This particular aspect of the tragedy didn't have legs. The emphasis has shifted. Now the focus is on violence in the entertainment industry - video games in particular. Which leaves millions of Doom players to wonder about the lack of video-inspired murders in all the years shoot-'em-up videos have been around.

This is not to say that music, video games and movies have no effect on the minds of children - and adults. The argument offered by defensive entertainment industry moguls that their most violent products are harmless diversions that do not affect behavior is self-serving nonsense. These are the same people who, when it suits them, proclaim that their movies are powerful, deeply affecting works that will change your life; that their video games are more realistic than ever; that their CDs are meaningful, artistic statements.

The never-spoken truth is that the entertainment industry does not care about anything except whether or not its products make money.

Want to know why there are so many violent TV shows, movies, video games and rap records? Because they are profitable. That it takes little effort or imagination to produce such low-grade entertainment makes these products that much easier to deliver.

Of course, as soon as critical voices call for an end to such violent material, the giants of the entertainment industry will stand up and bluster about artistic freedom and First Amendment rights. They needn't worry. The sacred right to make money is enough to guarantee that they won't have to change the way they do business. They will continue to proffer violence because it is an easy path to profit. Shock sells. Just ask Marilyn Manson.

Yesterday, Congressmen Ed Markey and Dan Burton introduced a resolution asking the surgeon general to conduct a study on the influence of media violence on children. What good will that do? What will another study tell us that common sense won't? There is no doubt that violent entertainment can have a negative influence. But no study will ever conclusively prove that it makes a murderer.

So the debate will continue. Who or what shall we blame for the murders in Colorado? And, for that matter, for the rate of murders by guns in the United States - more than 10,000 dead in 1997, according to FBI statistics. Is there any answer?

In the wake of all the questions raised by last week's tragedy, the only answer I could think of was in a song, "If It Were Up to Me," on Cheryl Wheeler's most recent album, "Sylvia Hotel." I wasn't the only one to think of it. A growing number of radio stations across the United States have started playing it. One station, KBCO in Denver, has been playing it every two hours since the Littleton shootings. Every time it's played on the air, Wheeler's Cambridge-based label, Rounder, is giving $ 5 to the Center for the Prevention of Handgun Violence.

Wheeler, who will no doubt sing it when she performs at the Emerson Umbrella in Concord on Saturday, is one of New England's leading folk singer-songwriters. She's also had some success singing and writing country hits. But "If It Were Up to Me" is a hard-hitting rocker that slaps you to attention with its wordplay and the force of its inescapable logic. Listen to it and you can forget about all those pontificating TV pundits trying to explain how a public school was turned into a killing ground.

"Maybe it's the movies, maybe it's the books," Wheeler begins. Then she continues to list our society's scapegoats: "Maybe it's the drugs, maybe it's the parents . . . maybe it's the music, maybe it's the crack . . . maybe it's the magazines, maybe it's the Internet . . . maybe it's the art, maybe it's the sex . . ."

On she goes, her list growing in amusing, tongue-twisting fashion, until the music climaxes and Wheeler reaches her conclusion: "But I know one thing: If it were up to me, I'd take away the guns."

Makes more sense than taking away video games and Marilyn Manson CDs, doesn't it?

 

It is so over the top and ridiculously stupid, that is the only response I could muster. That post is no way thoughtful, in fact it is the opposite and just shows how little the poster knows regarding Nolan and the actual series. I wouldn't say that series glorifies violence in any way and it certainly isn't trash. The hero of the movie adheres to no gun rule and is morally against killing. Those movies are some of the most brilliant that have been produced in recent years for the way in which the messages within them mirror reality. That really isn't the point here, but as far as movies negatively impacting people, which I think is horseshit to begin with, that one doesn't even scratch the surface. Chris Nolan does not have one grain of blame for stupid crap like this. To suggest otherwise is absurd. Not everyone who's accumulated great wealth is an evildoer. I get so sick of reading this stuff. Some people are great artists and are paid for it. I'm not Chris Nolan's beer buddy but making character assassinations because someone is rich and makes great movies is dumb.

 

He's saying that Nolan profits from the atmosphere of violence and mayhem that he himself fosters, and he seems to find it hypocritical for him then to profess his caring.

Again, not something I necessarily agree with, because I give artists a lot of leeway, and I think that accusations that they are the cause of acts like this is akin to moral panic. I think Nolan is holding a mirror up to the darker aspects of society, not necessarily encouraging them or creating them.

But still: Not deserving of your response. Sorry, not trying to be a jerk to you.

 

I edited but I think we see this pretty much the same way; the original post was a little too dramatic for me.

 

Sorry to get your undies in a pinch.
Nolan fans have traditionally responded the same way to rejections of his "art."
Just one guy's opinion
Do you think this would have happened at a premiere for "The Help" or "War Horse"?
Nolan's movies are largely about oblivion.
In this case, life imitated the "art."

 

You have to take the poster's history into account, too. Fart boy is a sock puppet and a troll. He has proven it time and again.

Movies don't create the violence in the world. They reflect it.

 

"Shock sells" is not the same as accusing Nolan of commenting in real time only in order to keep ticket sales high.

 

There's a difference between saying the movie sucks and it is Chris Nolan's fault that some nerdy loon goon shot up a theater. Life didn't imitate shit. Life happened. We've been killing each other since the dawn of time. Long before Chris Nolan was making movies. That will be it for me, someone else can feed the troll.