Legend’s VIEW
Mass media influences violence
Following the on air murders of 2 journalist in Virginia, many are expressing despair with the frequency of these senseless violent acts, and also with the stale sympathy that usually follows.
Hashtags and sending condolences to victims families online is proving to not be enough. Such statements imply that we all share the responsibility in finding solutions that can prevent these crimes from occurring so much.
What can we do?
Get more aggressive in reforming gun laws? Absolutely. What about mental illness? It is often brought up, but only in a way that suggest the assailants in these events are simply crazy individuals. Seldomly is the issue subject to a broader examination, one that doesn’t single anyone out, but considers the images and environment that the mind lives with daily.
In our society, it’s mass media that mostly grips our attention, and makes us sit comfortably in front of violent programming like “The Walking Dead, games like “Grand Theft Auto”, and films like “The Purge”, which was successful enough to have a sequel. We immediately shift to discomfort and outrage when similar violence is carried out in real life, bringing us real events like 2012 Aurora theatre shooting, Sandy Hook, and UC- Santa Barbara shootings. We have to hold ourselves and Hollywood accountable.
Otherwise they’ll begin to take advantage of our desensitization, as being seen with the new movie “Del Playa” that is now being petitioned by a group mostly made up of people connected to the 2014 shooting near UC Santa Barbara.They accuse the movie producers of exploting the tragedy.
However, “Del Playa’s” promo has an interesting tagline : “Monsters aren’t born, they are created.”
