Hollywood declared war on American gun culture in 2013 with a public service announcement calling for stricter gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Now the industry is back on the attack in the wake of the Feb. 14 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Stars including Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney and the cast of ABC’s “Modern Family” support this month’s March for Our Lives rally for stricter gun legislation.
Yet a study by the Parents Television Council shows that portrayals of gun violence on television have increased dramatically in recent years, even in shows deemed appropriate for children.
The entertainment industry’s love of gunplay and hatred for firearms muddles, if not negates, Hollywood’s role in a constructive conversation on the Second Amendment.
That 2013 public service announcements looks tame by current standards. Celebrities routinely dub the National Rifle Association a terrorist organization. Prominent actors such as Sally Field and Michael Keaton have blamed the NRA, Second Amendment advocates and Republicans for the 17 deaths at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last month.
Nonetheless, stars defend their gun-soaked content. Jennifer Lawrence deflected blame from her industry’s handiwork during the New York City premiere of her R-rated spy thriller “Red Sparrow.”
“I think the problem is guns, not the entertainment industry,” the Academy Award winner told the press.
A few Hollywood voices beg to differ. Comedic actress/writer Amy Schumer revealed how she modified a sequence in her 2017 flop “Snatched” to remove gun violence from the story.
Megan Boone of NBC’s “The Blacklist” tweeted how she would change her character’s behavior on the hit show after the Parkland shooting.
“Liz Keen will never carry an assault rifle again and I am deeply sorry for participating in glorifying them in the past,” the actress tweeted.Rare is the Hollywood star who expresses a pro-gun attitude. Keanu Reeves, star of “The Matrix” trilogy and more recently the “John Wick” franchise, told Britain’s Independent newspaper while he was working on “Street Kings” in 2008: “You mean should citizens be able to have a weapon? Yeah, why not? I am not fundamentally against citizens having access to a weapon, but I think that it has complications, the use of it. It’s probably not the wisest thing. Personally I don’t own a weapon.”This isn’t the first time industry players have questioned the impact of fictional violence on the real world. Producer Harvey Weinstein inspired headlines in 2012, for reasons unrelated to his sexual appetites, by calling for a summit on movie violence after the 2012 cinema shooting in Aurora, Colorado.“I think as filmmakers we should sit down — the Marty Scorseses, the Quentin Tarantinos and hopefully all of us who deal in violence in movies — and discuss our role in that,” Mr. Weinstein told The Huffington Post at the time.His summit never materialized, though.Oscar winner Jamie Foxx, who starred in the Weinstein-distributed “Django Unchained,” connected movie violence with the real thing while promoting the 2012 film.