Article 2: Movie Violence

In this article, written by Andrew O'Hehir, he starts off by stating how one in particular movie creator, Harvey Weinstein, is backing of from making violent movies because he feels violent movies are having a negative affect on society. In this article,  O'Hehir seems to be on both sides of the argument with what Weinstein is saying. For instance, O'Hehir states, "I guarantee you that Weinstein has thought about this long and hard, and understood that he would take incoming fire from all sides of the culture wars. I also believe that he’s had numerous conversations with other Hollywood studio heads and producers, who may share his concerns but don’t want to talk about it." Then O'Hehir discusses the argument on whether gun laws and the amount of people that own guns are causing an increase in violence. It is obvious to see from his article that he feels gun laws and the number of guns owned by people are not the problem with violence. For instance, he states, "Gun manufacturing and gun sales have exploded in the United States over the last few years (since the election of a known Kenyan Muslim as president, perhaps), yet by most measurements gun violence has reached its lowest level since at least 1981." Overall, I think O'hehir raises a good discussion topic on whether or not violence in media causes violence within people. Yes, violent movies are considered the more popular movies, and I believe it is because people are emotionally curious about it. Meaning, we wonder what it feels like to have a violent situation happen to us. And the best way to gain this type of emotion is by watching a movie that displays that emotion. Does it mean that we want to go and act out the violent acts we see in the media. No, not at all, it's just that we as people are curious on what some situations would feel like. Movies and other violent media videos allow us to feel the emotions of a tragic event without actually having to go through that event.