I read an interesting article a couple years ago that proposed the interesting idea that TV and movies were not violent enough, rather than being too violent. I wish I knew where to find that article again, so I could share it and represent it accurately. The writer made some valid and interesting points that I wish to pass on, with a few additions gleaned from other sources and some of my own ideas thrown in. If someone knows who wrote it - or has the article - please send it to me so I can acknowledge him/it properly.
Not violent enough?
Think about this:
When TV characters get shot to pieces, survive, then the next week are back to 100% and getting beat/stabbed/shot-up again, for season after season, even intelligent people can start to underestimate the real severity of gunshot (or stab) wounds. So, Jack Hammer, P.I., gets shot in the shoulder while on a case; he puts a Kotex over the hole, secures it with DuctTape, and continues the chase. In the next scene (about two days later) he has his arm in a sling, he's well on his way to a full recovery, and he's going home with The Girl. Great part to play, fun show to watch. Properly depicting his wounds as causing severe blood loss and shock, possibly shattering the shoulder joint (or at least 1 or 2 bones) so that he will probably have a lifetime disability, maybe a collapsed lung; this would make the story a little too realistic to be as much fun.
Even "just a flesh wound" can cause tremendous (read: permanent) muscle/tissue damage.
Stuck with a knife? No problem, of course; just pull the knife out, apply a little pressure to the wound, fend off the perpetrator, drive yourself to your ex-wife's house to have her sew it shut, and you're back to 100% in a day or two. What a man!! Not like the rest of us that would run the risk of systemic infection from an un-sterilized blade invading our abdomen, even if there were no risk of peritonitis from anything other than skin being damaged. (I remember well when my appendix ruptured and they "cut" me! Ideal surgical conditions, still not negligible.)
Knocked unconscience with gun butts and pieces of pipe on a weekly basis? Wake up a couple hours later with a mild head-ache, jump up and continue the persuit. No worry about concussion, possible annurism, chipped/cracked vertabrae, or a torn/detached retina like we mortals are prone to suffer from such severe trauma.
The point is, with so much action on TV and movies, no-one ever suffers more than a passing inconvenience at worst. Being raised on this nonsense undoubtedly convinces some ignoramuses (ignorami?) that committing such violence can't be that bad.
Now, to add to this confusion, let's outlaw guns - especially (shudder!) handguns - so that they become prestige (street cred), something with almost magical powers that make you invincible - like on TV. Now you have a street thug - a predator - that has The Power, and knows that law-abiding citizens don't because they aren't smart enough to carry (albeit, illegally) like he does. (Know why the criminals call themselves "Wise Guys?" Because they believe they're smarter than the rest of us.) Drugs are illegal, but he deals in those. He can get cocain from South America and opiates from Asia and Afganistan; why do gun-control freaks think
that guns don't come in with the drugs? That supplies the (already) criminal element, while laws only disarm the law-abiding citizens, creating easier victims.
Ignorance of guns makes them more alluring, more fantastical. Something almost magical. (Remember Robinson Crusoe's Man Friday when they "met?" Knowing nothing of guns except for having seen his own attackers shot, he jerked off his shirt to see where the hole in him was.)
People in TV and movies calmly discuss their divorces, their present predicament, how much ammo they have (don't have), etc., while shooting hundreds of rounds at an adversary that also carries hundreds of rounds (already loaded in magazines, of course!) Have you ever fired a full magazine without hearing protection, then had a normal conversation? I can't hear plainly for an hour or so after a trip to the range, even though I use foam ear plugs and earmuffs together.
Never mind that I need a range bag to carry more than one handgun, a couple hundred rounds, and spare mags, but they have all this just stuffed in their jacket pockets - as often as not, grabbed on the fly. (Of course, the BG's use the same caliber and magazines as the Hero/Heroes so all can share!)
Perhaps if guns were a part of everyday life like they should be (ever heard of the Second Amendment?), and everyone had (freedom to access) them, there would be less misconception and subsequent misuse (read: abuse) of them. And never mind that crime would be lower: statistics have proven this many times, while gun control laws have never - never - shown to be effective against crime (just the opposite, in fact - quite literally and consistantly so. Look at Australia: Violent crimes jumped some 70% in the couple years following the (near) total dis-arming of the general public.)
If we didn't treat guns like some Devil's Magic that should be shunned; if we didn't attach some artificial, imaginary stigma to gun ownership that makes it unacceptable for "polite company;" if we could remember that Hollywood is nothing but fantasy, totally detached from reality - guns could again be regarded as nothing more than the potentially dangerous tools they really are. Potentially dangerous, yes. So are propane torches, bandsaws, hydraulic logsplitters, tillers, - anything is dangerous if misused or abused. Cain and Abel only had rocks. The simple truth is that a handgun is a specialized tool intended for self-defense rather than splitting firewood or soldering pipe joints. Why is that evil? Because it might hurt a child? If that's a legitimate concern (not just emotional leverage), why do you drive a car? I know, and know of, several minors (under 18) killed and/or maimed by cars over the years, but I don't know anyone accidentally shot as a child. I do, however, know one senior citizen that lost an eye as a child from - you guessed it! - a thrown stick.
Anyone that takes TV and movies - and anything else from the entertainment industry (Entertainment Industry - get it?) - seriously or literally probably also believes Michael Moore is filming rightous documentaries.
