“We are what we watch”
By Tom Quiner
Read this comment from “Your 2 cents worth” in this morning’s Des Moines Register:
“Texas Chainsaw 3D” was the No. 1 box office movie last week. Now millions in the U.S. get their violence, blood, gore and killings in 3-D. “Gun control” in the U.S.? No guns? Massacre people with a chainsaw and enjoy it … millions of movie goers did! We are what we watch.“
Do Hollywood movies that honor violence bear any culpability for the violence in our neighborhoods?
Hollywood screams at the NRA at the same time they crank out violent “entertainment” that targets our teens.
The Democratic Party is happy to take their campaign contributions and ignore Hollywood’s perverse influence on our culture.
Some Democrats want to do more than restrict guns, they want to confiscate them, as reported in our morning paper.
And yet they have no interest in confiscating violent entertainment.
Let me ask you, are we “what we watch” as the writer above suggests?
Let me put it this way: small businesses and large corporations spend billions of dollars in advertising for a simple reason: they know it works. They know that if you are exposed to their message enough, it influences your buying behavior.
Look at the Obama re-election campaign. They spent $265,000,000 on media advertising to persuade us to vote for their man. Would they have invested these resources it if didn’t work? They spent two and a half times as much as the Romney campaign, which makes a pretty persuasive case for the impact of more media exposure verses less.
In that light, if a teenage boy spends thousands of hours watching violent entertainment, could his behavior be influenced?
Hollywood and the Democratic Party refuse to answer the question. The money is too good to get bogged down in such an uncomfortable debate.
In the meantime, they bask in the glow of another box office smash hit, “Texas Chainsaw 3D.”
Blood. Guts. Violence. Hollywood used the billions of profits they earned churning out this kind of “entertainment” fare to re-elect Barack Obama.
How can all of this violent entertainment NOT have influenced our culture?
Just watch. Hollywood will keep churning out ultra violence.
Just watch. Democrats will keep taking their money.
And if we are in fact what we watch, more vulnerable viewers will be seduced into the world of violence. And Democrats will add chainsaws to their list of things for government to control.
We have both preached this message and I believe we are correct – you are what you eat and you become what you see. This has made no difference – but there is one thing that might change Hollywood. I would guess that 30-40% of those who regularly go to movies agree with our position. So the answer is both obvious and free-market oriented. Just Say No to the movies – no matter how much we might want to see one in particular. I guarantee that if Hollywood lost 30% of its audience, they would begin to take notice. And even if they didn’t, that’s just that much less revenue they can use to elect people whom they support and who support them.
This is worthy of further conversation. I may write about your comments in more detail later this week.
I hope you do because you have a voice that carries to many – and we have seen that only in concerted and unified action can we make a difference.
Garbage in – garbage out. Rots your brain, your spirit and your wallet. Don’t waste time on Hollywood, whether network tv or the movies. God wants and expects so much more for us and of us. The concept of beauty exited the stage long ago. With your eyes on eternity, there’s no room in the view for substandard dreck shysted by freaks, fakes and phonies. Read a classic, heck, read the Bible and the saints, listen to classic music, or, do what Tom suggested earlier today, go have some good conversation. Turn off Hollywood and turn on life.
I love your phrase “a concept of beauty.” Worthy of further discussion in this forum.
I agree. I’m a retired child and adolescent mental health therapist and have seen a significant increase in truly dangerous adolescents over the last 15 years. We need to encourage parents to control what our children see both in movies and from other sources such as video games. If they don’t sell they won’t make them.
Hi Chuck. Thanks for the input. Great to hear from you.