Violent movies and their effect on American culture

 In an article published to SFgate.com, author and movie critic Mike LaSalle confronts the issue of violence in movies with the claim that these images desensitize and contribute to violence in American society.  He then switches over to blaming critics for this phenomenon, because he feels like they(himself included) should have spoken out and somehow convinced movie makers that showing violence in any film rated underneath "R" was wrong.  I think Mike feels like critics have more control over society and the film industry than they actually do.  People only care about what critics think when they agree, these trends and film in general reflect society moreso than the other way around. 

Tarentino advocates not blaming the film industry for real world violence. His claim is that films reflect society and people do not feel the need to commit violence against actual people just because they saw it.  While there are good points to be made about this, in my opinion he is too dismissive of the effects films can have on people.  He speaks about wanting to reach people and then pretends like his films have no lasting effects.

Our last article, by Marilyn Monroe, provides the most insight into our topic simply because he's not using an interview or article as a sales technique, but is actually contributing to an ongoing discussion. He claims that the attacks by journalists are simply a tactic to distract people from the fact they provide as much violence to the public as anything else.  Monroe also contends that times have not become more violent but our access to individual events has increased.  From my perspective, there is a lot of truth to that.  Its easy to decry violence when it happens against people you sympathize with, but nowhere near as many people bother to address the issue when we're killing Osama Bin Laden in his home, in a foreign country, or when we execute a murderer, or when a war breaks out between other countries. 

Lets not blame any industry or group or law for violence commited by the individual.  Every person is different, everyone reacts to different things.  Lets educate and help people, and see if we can have more of an impact in reducing violence than people who seek to blame and legislate.