Guns in Movies Are a Story-Selling Tool

Re “Cinema Gunplay: Drop Dead,” editorial, Oct. 24: Seven of the last 10 films that won an Academy Award for best picture had guns or gun violence in them, including “Schindler’s List,” “Titanic” and “Unforgiven.” A writer uses guns in a story to increase tension and add to the threat that the main characters, and ultimately the audiences, experience. If a villain is holding a gun, that simple act speaks volumes to the audience’s fears of death and finality.

Are writers now supposed to discard a legitimate storytelling tool that has been used ever since guns were invented? I think not. Guns are a sad reality, but they are also an effective writing tool used to evoke certain emotions from the audience. This tool can be used rightly or wrongly, sparsely or excessively, but for The Times to imply that, because of a single survey, Hollywood should curtail its use of guns in stories based on public mood, whether it was before or after Sept. 11, is as absurd as asking screenwriters to stop writing fictional stories about drugs, war or crime.

TV and films are entertainment, and the guns depicted in entertainment programs do not kill real people. The public should be focused on the threat of real guns in the hands of real people meant to do real harm.

Kevin Nieman

Thousand Oaks

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They’ll stop making them when we stop paying money to see them. Not a moment sooner, or a moment later. Simple as that. The studios don’t care about our opinions, they care about our wallets. That’s what businesses do.

John Gray

Santa Monica

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I agree that gun violence in films is not much of an issue when it comes to judging how good a film is. Violence is still popular when it is fit into the plot correctly. If you just have people shooting it out on film for no reason, then obviously people won’t like it. But when you have a movie like “Saving Private Ryan,” the gun violence was a big aspect in the film. It allowed the audience to fully understand what it would have been like to be in World War II.

America will always be intrigued by violence and special effects, but it will never go for something that is just a gun-shooter film with no plot.

Brian Lewolt

Newbury Park

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Apologists for media gore often cite the Bible and Shakespeare as examples of great literature and violence. There is a difference between art and trash. We now have the means to bring graphic violence to a new, wide-screen, stereophonic, digitized level. Video games give children the thrill of the kill and leave nothing to the imagination. We also have millions of guns available.

Pandering to the lowest common denominator for profit is obscene and gives twisted minds blueprints for mass murder.

Ruth Rosen

Santa Monica