In recent weeks, while watching baseball games, The Daily Show, and (I admit) some Seinfeld reruns, I saw what seemed a never-ending reel of trailers for The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Savages. And I became disgusted by the wall-to-wall violence in them—by the countless scenes of shootings and slashings, explosions and car crashes. Such interminable images of violence broadcast at all hours to a general audience could, I thought, only have a warping effect on society.
Then came the massacre in Aurora at the screening of Dark Knight on July 20. In response, there’s been the usual tide of commentary about the mindset of the murderer and the source of his weapons. These are of course important questions, and the revisitation of the madness of our gun laws is especially welcome. But I’ve been struck by how little attention has been paid to the movie itself. Among the news outlets I followed (including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and All Things Considered), The New Yorker was one of the few that really grappled with whether there might be a link between the violence in the movie and the carnage in the theater. Anthony Lane rejected such a link, flatly asserting that “no film makes you kill.” Disagreeing, David Denby argued that violence on the screen inures us to actual violence. In forgetting that violence causes pain and death, we become “connoisseurs of spectacle.” Denby expressed special concern for the ironic, detached attitude toward on-screen violence that has captured the smart set:
The sophisticated response to movie violence that has dominated the discussion for years should now seem inadequate and evasive. An acceptance of dissociated responses as normal should not be the best we’re capable of. Movies may never change, but we can change.
After the massacre, I went back and read the review of The Dark Knight Rises in The New York Times, and it illustrates what Denby is talking about. Manohla Dargis’s references to violence are knowing, urbane, and highly attentive to style. “In a formally bravura, disturbingly visceral sequence that clarifies the stakes,” she writes of the film’s villain, “Bane stands before a prison and, in a film with several references to the brutal excesses of the French Revolution,” delivers “an apocalyptic speech worthy of Robespierre.” She added, “If this image of violent revolt resonates strongly, it’s due to Mr. Nolan’s kinetic filmmaking in a scene that pulses with realism and to the primal fear that the people could at any moment … become the mob that drags the rest of us into chaos.”
I was struck, too, by the play the Times gave her review. It covered much of the front page of Friday’s WeekendArts section, with a giant photo of Batman filling the right-hand side; the review’s jump on page eight, which included a still from the movie, took up another half page. Sandwiched in between was a full-page ad for the film (with a blurb from Newsweek blaring at the top, “A Monumental Conclusion to the Epic Trilogy. Audiences Will be Blown Away”).
It’s hard to imagine that there’s no connection between the space the Times gave its review (which was very positive) and the advertising for it. Hollywood is a huge source of revenue for the Times, and the paper compliantly gives blockbuster treatment to blockbuster movies. Both The Amazing Spider-Man and Savages got equally prominent review coverage, and both movies had large ads in the paper. The advertising does not guarantee a positive review—Dargis’s review of Spider-Man was anything but—but it does seem to assure prominent and respectful treatment.
It's a classic causation/correlation argument that media researchers have grappled with for decades. Certainly human history is rife with examples of horrendous violence that predated mass media. The violence we see in mass media is arguably a reflection of and reaction to our already violent society, not necessarily a catalyst.
I wouldn't necessarily link violence in films to the ugliness of American discourse. I'd give more credit to the increasingly international market for American films. Hollywood has increasingly come to rely on foreign investment and foreign consumption of its films for revenue, and Batman is no different in this regard. It should come as no surprise that action films are more lucrative in the international market than romantic comedies. Unlike a joke or a dramatic piece of dialogue, acts of violence transcend the language barrier. Explosions sound and look the same in every language.
#1 Posted by Jay L, CJR on Wed 25 Jul 2012 at 11:18 AM
When I scan through the list of movies available to me on my movie channels, almost all are violent, or for some other reason, disgusting. Very few are really worth watching. Yet, I believe these violent films, which I do not enjoy, are a big draw for the foreign markets because they are not nearly as violent as real life is in the foreign areas. On the contrary, most other places in the world are much more violent than our films. Look at all the countries that are having religious wars or revolutions. Those things have not happened in the U.S., YET. But what we watch goes into that computer in our heads and will eventually come out. We do become desensitized to all the violence and when we see it for real, it's no big deal. Let's watch romantic comedies or something easy and relaxing. Who needs Batman, Spiderman or the Vampires, anyway?
#2 Posted by Harriet Berg, CJR on Wed 25 Jul 2012 at 02:34 PM
Personally, I think this owes more to our culture's aestheticization of violence than the breakdown of the boundary between advertising and editorial. Even if the movie studios had not bought ads, the reviews would not have criticized these movies for excessive violence. Mainstream movie reviewers, like American culture in general, tend to be uncomfortable with excessive gore, but they have come to accept stylized violence, for better or worse.
#3 Posted by Peter Sterne, CJR on Wed 25 Jul 2012 at 09:37 PM
Your cause-effect is flawed. Movies reflect the brutality of society that is primarily and indomitably the domain of govt.
If anyone (other than the govt) should be scrutinized, it's the MSM. Private individuals and groups will never rival the body-counts of govt, yet the MSM almost exclusively condemn the former while promoting the latter. That's how the MSM desensitize and disarm their readers in the worst way.
And about those "fanatic gun lobbyists" and "anti-government extremists"... The extreme fanatics are those who condone or promote monopoly (govt) violence and aggression. The extreme fanatics support the govt's disarming the people who did NOT commit the massacre but who, if armed, could have prevented a lot of it.
So long as you use your press credentials to promote govt — or other liars, thieves, murderers, and monopolists — you are part of the problem.
#4 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Thu 26 Jul 2012 at 09:38 AM
So the ugliness and violence of our culture is reflected in the movies--a product of our culture. Why was this article written again? Are you making the assertion, Mr. Massing, that Americans, peculiar somehow to the rest of human history, glorify violence to some degree that has tipped the scale? The Romans used to watch men slaughter each other with broad swords and axes. A millenia later, Europeans did the same on horseback, jousting with lances and goring each other to the screams and cheers of hundreds of spectators. I challenge you to find more than 1/2 a pint of blood in the new Batman movie--which was remarkably fun and entertaining, by the way, and not nearly as violent as the real world--a lot of good journalists could tell you that.
#5 Posted by Dan M, CJR on Thu 26 Jul 2012 at 09:52 AM
In response to some of the forehead-slapping comments previously posed:
-- "But I’ve been struck by how little attention has been paid to the movie itself." Sure, a violent movie caused a violent outbreak at its premiere. This killer planned well in advance to be driven over the edge by a movie he hadn't seen -- and probably never will. Correlation meets causation meets absurdity.
-- If all you can find on TV are violent movies, you're simply not looking hard enough. Pick different channels. Pay $7.99 a month for Netflix. Read a book.
-- "The extreme fanatics are those who condone or promote monopoly (govt) violence and aggression." Yes, by all means let's have a free-market system for legalized violence. Let the market decide (who lives and who dies). Also, I highly doubt that in a chaotic, dimly lit, smoky atmosphere, more people firing more guns would have produced fewer casualties. Let's not forget that Colorado HAS a concealed-carry law. Yet, no armed citizenry solved the problem there.
-- "Why was this article written again?" Well put.
#6 Posted by Sean, CJR on Thu 26 Jul 2012 at 10:28 AM
So, what you're saying here is that you're perfectly willing to suspend the First Amendment, but have no interest in looking at doing anything about the Second?
OK.
Remember that correlation != causation.
#7 Posted by Susan, CJR on Thu 26 Jul 2012 at 02:01 PM
There is, inherent in a lot of this discussion, the idea that somehow people can't differentiate what they see on the screen to real life, that they are somehow "desensitized" to real-world violence by all of the faux mayhem they witness in media.
For a small percentage of people, that may be the case. But I suspect most of us have little trouble telling the two apart. How many millions of kids tied a towel around their necks and leaped from a picnic table to fly like Superman and found out how the world really works when they hit the ground.
For most of us, real blood, real violence, is seldom witnessed. I have spent time in urban environments literally around the world and I have witnessed, in 55 years, one fistfight. Indeed, it's remarkable how well people do seem to get along.
People used to routinely witness death up close. Extended families lived at home and when grandpa died, he did it at home #where the wake was often held#. My mom grew up on a farm where butchering hogs, cattle and chickens was not only frequent, but participatory.
For all of the concerns about what the depictions of violence does to society - a concern that could go back to Shakespeare's day - I submit there has still been a general march forward in most societies. It's pretty much universal that chattel slavery is seen as evil. While not entirely consistent, the position of women in more societies has improved to the point where in most cases, they're no longer property, to be forcibly disposed of at a man's whim. The exploitation of children, while still persistent in some places, is increasingly frowned upon.
I'm not about to say we've reached Nirvana by any means. But we're closer to the light than we perhaps were. And it's all happened with shoot-em-ups and slasher movies flicker in the background.
Auroras, Columbines, Virginia Techs - those kinds of things will always be with us. They are not the function of culture, IMHO, but rather manifestations of psychotic pathologies within individuals. You didn't pull the trigger at the movie theater. Neither did I.
And neither did Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino or Oliver Stone.
#8 Posted by Michael B, CJR on Thu 26 Jul 2012 at 02:52 PM