Normalized violence displayed on the big screen

Movies, TV shows, short films, the Oscars, Hollywood. All of these exist within a multi-billion dollar industry that has an enormous capacity to reflect, challenge, and change our culture and society. The influence and proper place of the film industry needs to be evaluated and understood so that it does not run rampant where it should not.

Movies and Television can be used to shine a light on injustice, to provide emotional catharsis, to reckon with taboo topics, or just to entertain. There is no inherent issue in that. The problem is the methods that filmmakers use to do this. Violence, nudity, language, and crime are just some of the tools that can be used to tell a story. While they can all be used to great effect, they are also often misused. Violence becomes gore. Nudity becomes porn. Language becomes abuse.

One of the biggest questions lawmakers and society must answer is what limits, if any, should be placed on the film industry, its methods, its audience or its content. Regulation can protect young people from potentially harmful content, but any control on the distribution of media inevitably becomes a discussion of freedom of speech. Is it the government’s place to decide what we should and shouldn’t see? Do we leave it in the hands of filmmakers? Too much control becomes propaganda, too little becomes gratuitous debauchery. We must make the film industry a space that protects both our children and the free exchange of ideas.

The other thing the film industry can do is explore our societal norms, what’s taboo or not. Depictions of gratuitous violence run rampant in our media for people of all ages. While we may decry violence in society we cannot deny its massive presence on the big screen. At the same time other less destructive but more taboo topics such as nudity, intimacy, and non-traditional ways of living are demonized by the industry. Alcoholism, trauma, mental health, and drug addiction is all made light of while nudity, intimacy, or sex is seen as a cardinal sin. What we show as being ok is much more important than what we say.

I don’t have all the answers of what is right or wrong, but I know violence is wrong. Almost everyone agrees on that. We condemn it in the real world. But then we turn around and plaster it all over the big screen. We hide all these other halfway taboo issues, things we haven’t reached consensus on if they’re right or wrong, but we show the one thing we all agree is bad. This imbalance makes no sense to me. If we haven’t reached a consensus about things then our kids should see that in their stories, people trying to figure it out. But we have decided violence is bad, and yet we show it anyway. Do you want your children to see a world depicted in their film that is a nuanced and complicated place where violence is never the answer, or do you want them walking around thinking that violence is the only normal way to solve their problems?

If you want to send in your opinions about the film industry or suggest issues you want to see evaluated in a future installment please email any and all thoughts to me at wflannery001@csbsju.edu. I thank you all for reading and I hope you will all strive to argue to learn rather than to win.