Violence: Merely Entertaining or Mainly Evil? : What Filmmakers Are Missing Is a Sense of Responsibility

I’m still twitching from the rage I felt after reading the Calendar article on “Soul-Searching on Violence by the Industry” (Calendar, May 18). As it turns out, if this industry has a soul, it is dead-set against searching it.

The article included a quote from movie director Walter Hill, who is credited with “The Warriors,” “Alien 3” and the about-to-be-retitled “Looters.” He said: “I somehow think the notion that if you disarm Clint Eastwood or Arnold Schwarzenegger you can change the world in some positive way is probably a little naive.”

Is this man short of cash? Is that it? Is there anyone in the motion picture industry who wasn’t influenced by movies as a kid?

That’s not what they say in their Oscar speeches.

I don’t think there’s any doubt in anyone’s mind that the media has saturated us in images of violence and the effect has been to cheapen life. The question is, how do we deal with that? How do we make the industry behave responsibly without stepping all over the First Amendment?

Let’s be honest. Violent movies and television make a lot of money. That’s why Walter Hill and his co-workers want to make them. Yet they must know with certainty that disarming Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger would go a long way toward bringing about positive changes in the world. Let’s not subvert the truth.

Violent movies and television are protected by the First Amendment, not applauded. I don’t want to see Sylvester Stallone or Estelle Getty pointing a gun at me from a billboard.

Of course it has an impact. I wish it weren’t true but it is.

Believe me, no one’s stomach turns more than mine to have to say that Arnold Schwarzenegger influences anyone, but he does. The President sure thinks he does.

I was walking past a schoolyard not long ago and a Santa Monica city bus drove by with that horrible Harrison Ford movie poster on it (with him pointing a gun straight out and the words “The Games Begin” alongside him). I thought to myself that I should write the bus company about that, and at that moment I turned to see a little kid on the playground throwing rocks and yelling, “Hasta la vista, baby.”

I am a consumer. I will not pay to see these violent films. Yes, Hollywood, you are allowed to sell violence, but please don’t. When you do, you are a part of the problem.

I am not an advocate of censorship but I’m a big believer in responsibility. Responsibility. I feel like screaming it from the highest rooftops.

It can be nothing but greed that motivates these performers and studios to profit from the same young viewers whose hearts they empty of the value of even their own lives. People should not shoot people and we should not get used to seeing it.