Violence: Merely Entertaining or Mainly Evil? : Industry’s Critics Overlooking an Important Distinction

According to Hollywood folklore, in 1934 Clark Gable bared his chest in “It Happened One Night” and single-handedly collapsed the men’s undershirt industry. Oddly enough, his appearance in 1935’s “Mutiny on the Bounty” didn’t launch a surge in powdered wigs and knee-breeches.

Gable didn’t sink the undershirt industry; American men were ready to abandon undershirts, millions already had, and Gable’s appearance only confirmed what many of the rest wanted to.

These thoughts came to mind after reading the Calendar article on whether or not heavy doses of movie and TV violence affect behavior (“Soul-Searching on Violence by the Industry”).

Just as Gable really reflected a growing fashion and didn’t create it, so violence in films, television and other media reflects audience interests rather than shapes them.

Look at the extremely violent media of Japan, where even cartoons depict gory mayhem, yet that nation’s violence and sexual crime rates are among the lowest of any major industrial nation. Their suicide rate, just slightly higher than America’s, is still far below that of Eastern Europe.

Though profound cultural differences exist between the U.S. and Japan, there is no factual basis for the simplistic criticism that screen violence automatically equals inimitable behavior.

But that’s not a justification for complacency or maintaining the status quo. The critics of media violence do have one legitimate point: Too often filmmakers use violence in a callow and indifferent manner, producing films and TV shows that are emotionally shallow and dramatically hollow.

It’s like Pauline Kael’s famous criticism of “The Towering Inferno”: It wasn’t a good movie, but with all the helicopters exploding, offices burning and people plunging to their deaths, it certainly wasn’t a boring one.

What the critics of media violence either fail to realize or fail to acknowledge is that there’s a very real qualitative difference in types of on-screen violence.

Likewise, creators often mistake violence as the purpose of their productions rather than a tool in getting their point across.

To wit: Laurel and Hardy’s slapstick is achingly funny; the Three Stooges’ slapstick is almost too painful to watch. Stan and Ollie turned their pratfalls into a wry commentary on human foibles; Larry, Moe and Curly indulged in brutality for brutality’s sake.

By simply tallying the number of car chases, gunshots, explosions and dead bodies in films and TV shows, critics and creators make the same error. Fifteen times as many people are killed in “Die Hard 2” than “Die Hard,” but that doesn’t make it 15 times “more violent” or “better.”

By this logic, 1970’s “Tora! Tora! Tora!” is a far “more violent” and “better” film (more than 3,200 people killed at Pearl Harbor) and 1951’s “When Worlds Collide” is the “most violent” and “best” action-adventure movie of all time.

Critics need to learn there is a difference between a “GoodFellas,” a “Die Hard,” a “Re-Animator” and a Bugs Bunny cartoon (all, in their proper context, examples of creative use of screen violence).

Creators need to remember it’s not the physical scale of a production that attracts audiences but the emotional intensity (even professional wrestling knows this, spending almost as much time explaining its various rivalries as it does in the ring).

Our productions can deal with matters of substance in an entertaining manner or they can be cynical manipulations of the audience. Aiming for the former justifies use of any dramatic tool. Aiming at the latter demeans both maker and viewer.