The tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School have engendered a rash of sensitivity on the part of those who produce our mass entertainment.
The release of the new movie based on Lee Child's successful series of books about larger-than-life but more-violent-than-average hero Jack Reacher has been postponed for fear of offending cinema audiences. And entertainment reporters are scratching for signs that television shows are being removed from the air. That seems to be the case with "Best Funeral Ever," but perhaps not with "American Guns," which may be going off the air for other reasons.
In any event, there's a new sensitivity in the air, though there's evidence it's very temporary -- in the article above, for example, it appears lots of violent shows are still attracting eyeballs despite events at Sandy Hook.
That's not surprising, though. I suppose these movie-goers, like most of us, draw a mental line between entertainment and reality. I've read some of the Lee Child books; I've seen some pretty violent films; but I've never been anywhere near confusing what goes on in these entertainment genres with what might happen in real life. In the entertainment world, feats of violence and derring-do are exaggeratedly impossible; no one with an ounce of realism could think of them as performable by real people -- sort of like the driving feats in those automobile ads, where they tell you, basically, "don't try this in your own car, idiot!"
Maybe films and books should come with some sort of warning label like that. It seems the difference between those who go on a bloody rampage, and those who don't, is just being unable to discern the line between real and fantasy.
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