The carnage that played before the nation’s eyes on network news stations across the country April 20 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado did not just bring back a grim reminder of so many other school shootings in year’s past.
The tragedy brought back the one question society, the press and the nation had asked one too many times before. Who is responsible?
The press did not take long to start pointing fingers at who shared the blame for the frightening, senseless carnage seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold left in their wake leaving 12 students and one teacher dead and wounding 23 others before taking their own troubled lives.
When “Good Morning America” cohost Diane Sawyer read emails the morning after the rampage, one message stood out most among all the others.
“We celebrate Rambo and Schwarzenegger movies, then we’re surprised to see something like this.”
The entertainment industry was ranked highest on the nation’s list of culprits. The person who ranked number one was controversial film director Oliver Stone whose 1994 film, “Natural Born Killers”, was the picture both Columbine students had reportedly watched more than a dozen times. The movie was about a serial murdering couple who embark on a cross-country killing spree.
Investigative programs like “Dateline”, “20/20” and tabloid television shows like “Inside Edition” also took note of 1999’s first $100 million box office hit, “The Matrix”, in which Keanu Reeves’ character, dressed in a black trench coat and dark sunglasses, blows away cyber villains with a cache of automatic weapons.
Angry, concerned customers called video retailers asking them to pull “The Basketball Diaries” (1995) from shelves because of a scene where Leonardo DiCaprio’s character guns down a schoolteacher and a few classmates in a dream sequence.
In some cases, the industry acted righteously in wake of the massacre. CBS pulled an episode of “Promised Land” as did Fox for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to be shown later. Both episodes featured high school shootings. A Marilyn Manson concert was canceled in Colorado, the heavy metal rock group the shooters listened to whose musical lyrics spoke of suicide, murder, and mass destruction. A week later, the band postponed the last five dates of their tour in consideration of what happened and spoke out against the press according to April 29 Wire reports.
“The media has unfairly scapegoated the music industry and so-called Goth kids and has speculated-with no basis in truth-that artists like me are in some way to blame,” Manson said. “This tragedy was a product of ignorance, hatred and access to guns.”
Not even the Internet could escape the controversy. The world-wide web is after all the place where thousands of informative documents can be obtained with just the push of a button thanks to the First Amendment. The Internet was where the killers got directions to build pipe bombs. Where Timothy McVeigh learned how to build the bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City killing 168 men, women, and children four years ago.
Blood drenched video games like “Doom” took a hit as well. All this came up because it was what the murderers watched on their VCRs, looked up and played on their home computers and listened to on their compact disc players.
Trouble is we have become so immune to graphic violence in TV shows, movies, rock music, video games and even the network news that it no longer offends us.
The entertainment industry is a business, and it is their job to give society what they want to see.
And what do audiences crave? They pay to “root for the bad guy” Mel Gibson in the revenge thriller, “Payback” (1999), and see depressing sadomasochistic trash like “8mm” (1999) that gross $20 million opening weekend while inspirational dramas like “October Sky” (1999) are lucky to stay out a month. I do not know what disgusted me more when I saw “8mm” in February; the film’s sleazy adult content or my noticing some parents took their five-and six-year-old kids to see it.
Shows filled with rough language, violence and nudity like “NYPD Blue” continue to rank in the top 20 Nielsen’s. And just about every new episode of NBC’s “Law & Order” is a crime story “ripped from the headlines” while family dramas like “7th Heaven” are promoted as “the show you aren’t watching.”
“Space Invaders” are outdated. Blood and gore reign heavy in games like “Doom” but there are hundreds of computer games kids play that are just as violent as some of the Star Wars games. Yes, Star Wars!!! In “Dark Forces”, the player can set their skills to a hard level, allowing them to shoot at Imperial officers multiple times turning the entire base into a shooting gallery. While in “Rebel Assault II”, players can opt to use a target and aim their laser gun at any part of a Stormtrooper’s body, be it below the waist, chest, and head to blow them away. But no blood is ever spilled.
“Forrest Gump” producer Steve Tisch was quoted in the May 3, 1999, issue of Time saying the blame should not be just on what Hollywood produces.
“Lots of other wires have to short before a kid goes out and does something like this,” Tisch said. “It’s a piece of a much bigger, more complex puzzle.”
Instead of society asking who’s responsible when tragedies like the one at Columbine happen, they should ask themselves who is not.
When another tragedy of this magnitude happens again, the nation will go through the same sad, vicious cycle the country’s done so many times before in Pearl, Mississippi, West Paducah, Kentucky, Jonesboro, Arkansas, and Springfield, Oregon.
They will play the blame game again and finger the entertainment industry and the Internet as the cause. They will again examine gun control; an issue the politicians have been debating to no end since ex-Beatle John Lennon’s assassination outside his New York apartment in December 1980.
Perhaps they should point fingers at the shooter’s parents who apparently had no idea their garage was a pipe bomb factory, knew nothing about the hate filled website Harris designed with plans to kill most everyone in their quiet suburb, or the diary outlining hopes to hijack a plane and crash it into New York City, and had no idea their sons had a fetish for war, guns and Adolf Hitler.
Not one of the newspaper articles I read said it was because of a movie, video game, rock group, or the worldwide web. The students’ ideas may have come from what they heard on the radio and read in the newspapers the day after the massacre.
Those avenues of information only travel so far. Today’s electronic medium is vast. It is a good bet their inspiration to copy what Harris and Klebold did came courtesy of the reporters who covered the tragedy on the morning and nightly news live from Littleton, Colorado.
©5/10/99
The tragedy brought back the one question society, the press and the nation had asked one too many times before. Who is responsible?
When “Good Morning America” cohost Diane Sawyer read emails the morning after the rampage, one message stood out most among all the others.
“We celebrate Rambo and Schwarzenegger movies, then we’re surprised to see something like this.”
The entertainment industry was ranked highest on the nation’s list of culprits. The person who ranked number one was controversial film director Oliver Stone whose 1994 film, “Natural Born Killers”, was the picture both Columbine students had reportedly watched more than a dozen times. The movie was about a serial murdering couple who embark on a cross-country killing spree.
Investigative programs like “Dateline”, “20/20” and tabloid television shows like “Inside Edition” also took note of 1999’s first $100 million box office hit, “The Matrix”, in which Keanu Reeves’ character, dressed in a black trench coat and dark sunglasses, blows away cyber villains with a cache of automatic weapons.
Angry, concerned customers called video retailers asking them to pull “The Basketball Diaries” (1995) from shelves because of a scene where Leonardo DiCaprio’s character guns down a schoolteacher and a few classmates in a dream sequence.
In some cases, the industry acted righteously in wake of the massacre. CBS pulled an episode of “Promised Land” as did Fox for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to be shown later. Both episodes featured high school shootings. A Marilyn Manson concert was canceled in Colorado, the heavy metal rock group the shooters listened to whose musical lyrics spoke of suicide, murder, and mass destruction. A week later, the band postponed the last five dates of their tour in consideration of what happened and spoke out against the press according to April 29 Wire reports.
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| Marilyn Manson |
Not even the Internet could escape the controversy. The world-wide web is after all the place where thousands of informative documents can be obtained with just the push of a button thanks to the First Amendment. The Internet was where the killers got directions to build pipe bombs. Where Timothy McVeigh learned how to build the bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City killing 168 men, women, and children four years ago.
Blood drenched video games like “Doom” took a hit as well. All this came up because it was what the murderers watched on their VCRs, looked up and played on their home computers and listened to on their compact disc players.
The entertainment industry is a business, and it is their job to give society what they want to see.
And what do audiences crave? They pay to “root for the bad guy” Mel Gibson in the revenge thriller, “Payback” (1999), and see depressing sadomasochistic trash like “8mm” (1999) that gross $20 million opening weekend while inspirational dramas like “October Sky” (1999) are lucky to stay out a month. I do not know what disgusted me more when I saw “8mm” in February; the film’s sleazy adult content or my noticing some parents took their five-and six-year-old kids to see it.
Shows filled with rough language, violence and nudity like “NYPD Blue” continue to rank in the top 20 Nielsen’s. And just about every new episode of NBC’s “Law & Order” is a crime story “ripped from the headlines” while family dramas like “7th Heaven” are promoted as “the show you aren’t watching.”
“Forrest Gump” producer Steve Tisch was quoted in the May 3, 1999, issue of Time saying the blame should not be just on what Hollywood produces.
“Lots of other wires have to short before a kid goes out and does something like this,” Tisch said. “It’s a piece of a much bigger, more complex puzzle.”
Instead of society asking who’s responsible when tragedies like the one at Columbine happen, they should ask themselves who is not.
Millions of kids in America watch violent movies and TV shows, play violent video games, bring up adult content on the Internet, and listen to Marilyn Manson. Not one of them goes out on a shooting spree. If such were the case, there would be mass shootings in schools, restaurants, and malls every day.I have always blamed the individuals who pulled the trigger and not the issues that could have brought about the act. That was long before police came across Harris’ suicide note which said “Do not blame others for our actions. This is the way we wanted to go out.”
They will play the blame game again and finger the entertainment industry and the Internet as the cause. They will again examine gun control; an issue the politicians have been debating to no end since ex-Beatle John Lennon’s assassination outside his New York apartment in December 1980.
Perhaps they should point fingers at the shooter’s parents who apparently had no idea their garage was a pipe bomb factory, knew nothing about the hate filled website Harris designed with plans to kill most everyone in their quiet suburb, or the diary outlining hopes to hijack a plane and crash it into New York City, and had no idea their sons had a fetish for war, guns and Adolf Hitler.
Most of all, society should blame the press who often develop a holier-than-thou, in-your-face attitude with their excessive, unnecessary coverage. A couple of days after the Colorado shootings, worried parents took their kids out of various area schools in Texas and across the country after students made both bomb and death threats against their campuses.And on April 28th, a 14-year-old student shot two 17-year-old classmates, killing one at a school in Taber, Alberta.
Not one of the newspaper articles I read said it was because of a movie, video game, rock group, or the worldwide web. The students’ ideas may have come from what they heard on the radio and read in the newspapers the day after the massacre.
Those avenues of information only travel so far. Today’s electronic medium is vast. It is a good bet their inspiration to copy what Harris and Klebold did came courtesy of the reporters who covered the tragedy on the morning and nightly news live from Littleton, Colorado.
©5/10/99
