Celluoid Mirrors or Murder Simulators?

UbiSunt

Senior member
Oct 1, 2004
516
0
0
-The Manchurian Candidate (1962) - The lead actor's name is Laurence Harvey (father of Domino Harvey) whose character was captured and brainwashed by the Soviets during the Korean War and is trained to shoot the presidential candidate with a sniper rifle.
-(1963) Lee Harvey Oswald, a man with a communist background, shoots the president with a sniper rifle.

-Taxi Driver (1976) - Vietnam vet Travis Bickle is 26, a loner in the mean streets of New York City, slipping slowly into isolation and violent misanthropy. In solving his insomnia by driving a yellow cab on the night shift, he grows increasingly disgusted by the low-lifes that hang out at night: "Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets." His touching attempts to woo Betsy, a Senator's campaign worker, turn sour when he takes her to a porn movie on their first date. He even fails in his attempt to persuade child prostitute Iris to desert her pimp and return to her parents and school. Driven to the edge by powerlessness, he buys four handguns and sets out to assassinate the Senator, heading for the infamy of a `lone crazed gunman'... (http://imdb.com/title/tt0075314/plotsummary)
- (1981) John Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in an attempt to win the love of actress Jodie Foster, who played Iris in Taxi Driver.

-The Basketball Diaries (1995) - Includes the dream sequence in which "Jim" (Leonardo DiCaprio) strides into his classroom wearing a trenchcoat and swinging a shotgun, then proceeds--in slow motion--to blow away the teacher and all the kids in the room.
- (1997) In Paducah, KY, a student shoots eight of his classmates huddled in a prayer circle killing two girls and later blaming the movie.

-Harlem Nights (1989) - a movie about gangs in the late 1930s starring Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor is released.
1989 - gang fights break out at theaters during the opening weekend of the movie.


-Natural Born Killers (1994) - "Delivery boy Mickey Knox (Woody Harrelson) falls in love with customer Mallory Wilson (Juliette Lewis). He soon helps her kill her abusive father (Rodney Dangerfield) and enabling mother (Edie McClurg), beginning their macabre journey down Route 666. Their M.O.: every few miles, they attack everyone within their site, invariably leaving only one person alive to tell the tale. The two are made famous by unscrupulous reporter Wayne Gale (Robert Downy jr.), as they run across the countryside, pursued by the equally sadistic Jack Scagnetti (Tom Sizemore). Just before the trial, a ratings-whoring interview by the same reporter who made them famous leads to pandemonium, not just within the prison itself, but nationwide. A satire of the media, public opinion, and the modern attitude toward violence." (http://imdb.com/title/tt0110632/plotsummary)
(1999) - It is discovered that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planned Columbine while referring to April 20, 1999 as the day of "Natural Born Killing".

-Elephant (2003) - A fictionalized retelling of the Columbine shootings, school-shootings in general, told from the perspective of several high-school kids.
-(2005)- Just weeks before he killed fellow students at his own high school, Jeff Weise watched a movie about a Columbine-style school massacre with his friends, Elephant.

I'm not trying to create a scapegoat out of the movie industry. I am also completely against censorship. However there seem to be too many parallels, more than what is listed for these movies, to have not influenced psychopaths. But the real question is; does it produce pyschos?

-This argument has also been applied to video games lately, but I want to know what ya'll think of movies' influence.

-This issue is the smoking gun that organizations like the Legion of Decency, Tipper Gore and Lieberman, and every other left-wing/right-wing watchdog group is trying to find. This is the most important issue involved with censorship in movies and video games.
 

Arcex

Senior member
Mar 23, 2005
722
0
0
I've watched most of those movies and I haven't killed anyone yet (not that I remember anyway). Can movies like that influence an individual enough to push them over the edge into murder? Its within the realm of possibility, but are movies the sole cause of these occurrences? Unlikely.
 

NJDevil

Senior member
Jun 10, 2002
952
0
0
Originally posted by: UbiSunt
-The Manchurian Candidate (1962) - The lead actor's name is Laurence Harvey (father of Domino Harvey) whose character was captured and brainwashed by the Soviets during the Korean War and is trained to shoot the presidential candidate with a sniper rifle.
-(1963) Lee Harvey Oswald, a man with a communist background, shoots the president with a sniper rifle.

-Taxi Driver (1976) - Vietnam vet Travis Bickle is 26, a loner in the mean streets of New York City, slipping slowly into isolation and violent misanthropy. In solving his insomnia by driving a yellow cab on the night shift, he grows increasingly disgusted by the low-lifes that hang out at night: "Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets." His touching attempts to woo Betsy, a Senator's campaign worker, turn sour when he takes her to a porn movie on their first date. He even fails in his attempt to persuade child prostitute Iris to desert her pimp and return to her parents and school. Driven to the edge by powerlessness, he buys four handguns and sets out to assassinate the Senator, heading for the infamy of a `lone crazed gunman'... (http://imdb.com/title/tt0075314/plotsummary)
- (1981) John Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in an attempt to win the love of actress Jodie Foster, who played Iris in Taxi Driver.

-The Basketball Diaries (1995) - Includes the dream sequence in which "Jim" (Leonardo DiCaprio) strides into his classroom wearing a trenchcoat and swinging a shotgun, then proceeds--in slow motion--to blow away the teacher and all the kids in the room.
- (1997) In Paducah, KY, a student shoots eight of his classmates huddled in a prayer circle killing two girls and later blaming the movie.

-Harlem Nights (1989) - a movie about gangs in the late 1930s starring Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor is released.
1989 - gang fights break out at theaters during the opening weekend of the movie.


-Natural Born Killers (1994) - "Delivery boy Mickey Knox (Woody Harrelson) falls in love with customer Mallory Wilson (Juliette Lewis). He soon helps her kill her abusive father (Rodney Dangerfield) and enabling mother (Edie McClurg), beginning their macabre journey down Route 666. Their M.O.: every few miles, they attack everyone within their site, invariably leaving only one person alive to tell the tale. The two are made famous by unscrupulous reporter Wayne Gale (Robert Downy jr.), as they run across the countryside, pursued by the equally sadistic Jack Scagnetti (Tom Sizemore). Just before the trial, a ratings-whoring interview by the same reporter who made them famous leads to pandemonium, not just within the prison itself, but nationwide. A satire of the media, public opinion, and the modern attitude toward violence." (http://imdb.com/title/tt0110632/plotsummary)
(1999) - It is discovered that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planned Columbine while referring to April 20, 1999 as the day of "Natural Born Killing".

-Elephant (2003) - A fictionalized retelling of the Columbine shootings, school-shootings in general, told from the perspective of several high-school kids.
-(2005)- Just weeks before he killed fellow students at his own high school, Jeff Weise watched a movie about a Columbine-style school massacre with his friends, Elephant.

I'm not trying to create a scapegoat out of the movie industry. I am also completely against censorship. However there seem to be too many parallels, more than what is listed for these movies, to have not influenced psychopaths. But the real question is; does it produce pyschos?

-This argument has also been applied to video games lately, but I want to know what ya'll think of movies' influence.

-This issue is the smoking gun that organizations like the Legion of Decency, Tipper Gore and Lieberman, and every other left-wing/right-wing watchdog group is trying to find. This is the most important issue involved with censorship in movies and video games.

All the events you listed are tragic but where is the connection? Sure, they called it, "the Day of Natural Born Killing" and they also said, "this is like doom" while doing it.

I hate to bring Chris Rock into a serious topic like this, but "what ever happened to crazy." People have been doing crazy, irrational things for the entire existence of humanity. Hitler didn't play a game called "Kill the Jews." Stalin didn't watch a movie, "Purge my people." Individual acts are often influenced by some aspect of modern entertainment media but to say that those movies/games/whatever were the CAUSE of the violence is ridiculous.

Question, what is your solution to this? You bring up how they seem to be related, but I feel that "Natural Born Killers" not being released would not have stopped Columbine.

Why don't we try and blame Maryln Manson for that one too.

Any sort of censorship over these mediums are a terrible anti-American and anti-Democratic idea.

I also don't see "parallels" as much as I see coincidences. People who look for connections between violence and movies like to link events that seem to happen as a result of each other. Did Lee Harvey Oswald ever watch the Manchurian Candidate? Would he still have killed Kennedy otherwise?

Presidents were assinated before the movie was released. School shootings occured before Natural Born Killers, Maryln Manson and Doom came into being. There are some sick people in the world, and movies will not change that!
 

jhu

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
11,918
9
81
nice selection. here's a few more:

1) independance day (1996): aliens try to invade earth with large flying saucers. will smith and some other guy armed with an ibook save the day.

1996-present: july 4 comes and goes without the predicted alien invasion. apple stock rises, then falls, and now rises again.

2) sideways (2005): two friends go to some wine producing area of california and have sex with people.

1900-2005: people have been going to wine producing areas of the country and having sex for quite a long time

3) ringu (1998): people watching a cursed video die within 7 days

2002: same movie, but with white people. strangely, not much better since the premise is pretty stupid anyway.
 

UbiSunt

Senior member
Oct 1, 2004
516
0
0
Originally posted by: NJDevil
Originally posted by: UbiSunt
-The Manchurian Candidate (1962) - The lead actor's name is Laurence Harvey (father of Domino Harvey) whose character was captured and brainwashed by the Soviets during the Korean War and is trained to shoot the presidential candidate with a sniper rifle.
-(1963) Lee Harvey Oswald, a man with a communist background, shoots the president with a sniper rifle.

-Taxi Driver (1976) - Vietnam vet Travis Bickle is 26, a loner in the mean streets of New York City, slipping slowly into isolation and violent misanthropy. In solving his insomnia by driving a yellow cab on the night shift, he grows increasingly disgusted by the low-lifes that hang out at night: "Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets." His touching attempts to woo Betsy, a Senator's campaign worker, turn sour when he takes her to a porn movie on their first date. He even fails in his attempt to persuade child prostitute Iris to desert her pimp and return to her parents and school. Driven to the edge by powerlessness, he buys four handguns and sets out to assassinate the Senator, heading for the infamy of a `lone crazed gunman'... (http://imdb.com/title/tt0075314/plotsummary)
- (1981) John Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in an attempt to win the love of actress Jodie Foster, who played Iris in Taxi Driver.

-The Basketball Diaries (1995) - Includes the dream sequence in which "Jim" (Leonardo DiCaprio) strides into his classroom wearing a trenchcoat and swinging a shotgun, then proceeds--in slow motion--to blow away the teacher and all the kids in the room.
- (1997) In Paducah, KY, a student shoots eight of his classmates huddled in a prayer circle killing two girls and later blaming the movie.

-Harlem Nights (1989) - a movie about gangs in the late 1930s starring Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor is released.
1989 - gang fights break out at theaters during the opening weekend of the movie.


-Natural Born Killers (1994) - "Delivery boy Mickey Knox (Woody Harrelson) falls in love with customer Mallory Wilson (Juliette Lewis). He soon helps her kill her abusive father (Rodney Dangerfield) and enabling mother (Edie McClurg), beginning their macabre journey down Route 666. Their M.O.: every few miles, they attack everyone within their site, invariably leaving only one person alive to tell the tale. The two are made famous by unscrupulous reporter Wayne Gale (Robert Downy jr.), as they run across the countryside, pursued by the equally sadistic Jack Scagnetti (Tom Sizemore). Just before the trial, a ratings-whoring interview by the same reporter who made them famous leads to pandemonium, not just within the prison itself, but nationwide. A satire of the media, public opinion, and the modern attitude toward violence." (http://imdb.com/title/tt0110632/plotsummary)
(1999) - It is discovered that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planned Columbine while referring to April 20, 1999 as the day of "Natural Born Killing".

-Elephant (2003) - A fictionalized retelling of the Columbine shootings, school-shootings in general, told from the perspective of several high-school kids.
-(2005)- Just weeks before he killed fellow students at his own high school, Jeff Weise watched a movie about a Columbine-style school massacre with his friends, Elephant.

I'm not trying to create a scapegoat out of the movie industry. I am also completely against censorship. However there seem to be too many parallels, more than what is listed for these movies, to have not influenced psychopaths. But the real question is; does it produce pyschos?

-This argument has also been applied to video games lately, but I want to know what ya'll think of movies' influence.

-This issue is the smoking gun that organizations like the Legion of Decency, Tipper Gore and Lieberman, and every other left-wing/right-wing watchdog group is trying to find. This is the most important issue involved with censorship in movies and video games.

All the events you listed are tragic but where is the connection? Sure, they called it, "the Day of Natural Born Killing" and they also said, "this is like doom" while doing it.

I hate to bring Chris Rock into a serious topic like this, but "what ever happened to crazy." People have been doing crazy, irrational things for the entire existence of humanity. Hitler didn't play a game called "Kill the Jews." Stalin didn't watch a movie, "Purge my people." Individual acts are often influenced by some aspect of modern entertainment media but to say that those movies/games/whatever were the CAUSE of the violence is ridiculous.

Question, what is your solution to this? You bring up how they seem to be related, but I feel that "Natural Born Killers" not being released would not have stopped Columbine.

Why don't we try and blame Maryln Manson for that one too.

Any sort of censorship over these mediums are a terrible anti-American and anti-Democratic idea.

I also don't see "parallels" as much as I see coincidences. People who look for connections between violence and movies like to link events that seem to happen as a result of each other. Did Lee Harvey Oswald ever watch the Manchurian Candidate? Would he still have killed Kennedy otherwise?

Presidents were assinated before the movie was released. School shootings occured before Natural Born Killers, Maryln Manson and Doom came into being. There are some sick people in the world, and movies will not change that!

Hitler WAS a rabid fan of Wagner's ring-cycle operas and based a great deal of the National Socialist parades on the works. Wagner's Romantic idea of Germanic paganism also influenced Hitler's ideas of ethnic purity and indirectly supported his anti-Semitism. The anti-Semitic MEDIA tha Hitler encountered in Vienna also laid the foundational basis for Hitler's anti-Semitism.
 

UbiSunt

Senior member
Oct 1, 2004
516
0
0
Originally posted by: jhu
nice selection. here's a few more:

1) independance day (1996): aliens try to invade earth with large flying saucers. will smith and some other guy armed with an ibook save the day.

1996-present: july 4 comes and goes without the predicted alien invasion. apple stock rises, then falls, and now rises again.

2) sideways (2005): two friends go to some wine producing area of california and have sex with people.

1900-2005: people have been going to wine producing areas of the country and having sex for quite a long time

3) ringu (1998): people watching a cursed video die within 7 days

2002: same movie, but with white people. strangely, not much better since the premise is pretty stupid anyway.


You forgot:

(1991) - Point Break - An undercover cop goes underground to expose a crime gang within a sub-culture and at the climax lets the gang leader escape.

(2001) - The Fast and the Furious - An undercover cop goes underground to expose a crime gang within a sub-culture and at the climax lets the gang leader escape.

Must be a glitch in the Matrix.
 

dahunan

Lifer
Jan 10, 2002
18,191
3
0
I do think that some of those authors/writers are somewhat crazy to be making movies like that in the first place... If they were censored then they might just act that stuff out in real life
 

UbiSunt

Senior member
Oct 1, 2004
516
0
0
In my opinion, the federal government's role is nothing else other than to ensure that the MPAA is actually sef-regulating the industry. Unfortunately, the big businesses that now control the studios also control the congressmen through lobbyists. If movies like Sin City were given their deserved ratings (NC-17) there would be no problem. Movies like that undermine the rating system.

-Concerning video games, things would be a lot better if the Congressmen would stop taking big fat kickbacks from EA while complaining about violent video games NOT made by EA. Instead they should be dismantling EA's push for monopoly and Sony's push for vertical integration of its products, but that would be doing their job and it doesn't get votes. BTW, the 2001 FTC report determined that the ESRB was a more intensive and better rating system than the MPAA's rating board.
 

NJDevil

Senior member
Jun 10, 2002
952
0
0
Originally posted by: UbiSunt
In my opinion, the federal government's role is nothing else other than to ensure that the MPAA is actually sef-regulating the industry. Unfortunately, the big businesses that now control the studios also control the congressmen through lobbyists. If movies like Sin City were given their deserved ratings (NC-17) there would be no problem. Movies like that undermine the rating system.

-Concerning video games, things would be a lot better if the Congressmen would stop taking big fat kickbacks from EA while complaining about violent video games NOT made by EA. Instead they should be dismantling EA's push for monopoly and Sony's push for vertical integration of its products, but that would be doing their job and it doesn't get votes. BTW, the 2001 FTC report determined that the ESRB was a more intensive and better rating system than the MPAA's rating board.

What about letting parents decide? One cannot get into rated r movies without being escorted by a parent/guardian. If a parent decides their sixteen year old can see some animated violence, shouldn't htey be allowed to?
 

dahunan

Lifer
Jan 10, 2002
18,191
3
0
Originally posted by: NJDevil
Originally posted by: UbiSunt
In my opinion, the federal government's role is nothing else other than to ensure that the MPAA is actually sef-regulating the industry. Unfortunately, the big businesses that now control the studios also control the congressmen through lobbyists. If movies like Sin City were given their deserved ratings (NC-17) there would be no problem. Movies like that undermine the rating system.

-Concerning video games, things would be a lot better if the Congressmen would stop taking big fat kickbacks from EA while complaining about violent video games NOT made by EA. Instead they should be dismantling EA's push for monopoly and Sony's push for vertical integration of its products, but that would be doing their job and it doesn't get votes. BTW, the 2001 FTC report determined that the ESRB was a more intensive and better rating system than the MPAA's rating board.

What about letting parents decide? One cannot get into rated r movies without being escorted by a parent/guardian. If a parent decides their sixteen year old can see some animated violence, shouldn't htey be allowed to?


What about the parents of those high school murderers.. Columbine and the one in Springfield, Oregon Thurston Kip Kinkel


They were probably the lazy ass types who let their kids do anything they wanted to because they didn't want to upset their children
 

UbiSunt

Senior member
Oct 1, 2004
516
0
0
Originally posted by: NJDevil
Originally posted by: UbiSunt
In my opinion, the federal government's role is nothing else other than to ensure that the MPAA is actually sef-regulating the industry. Unfortunately, the big businesses that now control the studios also control the congressmen through lobbyists. If movies like Sin City were given their deserved ratings (NC-17) there would be no problem. Movies like that undermine the rating system.

-Concerning video games, things would be a lot better if the Congressmen would stop taking big fat kickbacks from EA while complaining about violent video games NOT made by EA. Instead they should be dismantling EA's push for monopoly and Sony's push for vertical integration of its products, but that would be doing their job and it doesn't get votes. BTW, the 2001 FTC report determined that the ESRB was a more intensive and better rating system than the MPAA's rating board.

What about letting parents decide? One cannot get into rated r movies without being escorted by a parent/guardian. If a parent decides their sixteen year old can see some animated violence, shouldn't htey be allowed to?


That's what the ratings system is for. I thought that was understood.