After the recent Littleton Massacre, the debate on movie and television violence and its influence on society has again raised its ugly head. Please understand this, I am a person who deals in movies that are intrinsically violent; i.e., war movies. I find much of the debate specious. Can a movie, or series of movies, that have violent scenes make an inherently non - violent person violent? I would suggest the answer is no. However, can movies have an influence on an individual, or a society, for a specific period and for a specific purpose? I am sure that the answer is yes. By that token should we ban all violent movies? I don't have an answer for that. The answer to that question depends on your definition of violence. I will suggest this. By their very nature, war movies are violent. Without the war, well, a war movie becomes a Boy Scout documentary. As such, the writer should write the events as close to the truth as can be written.
Can movies influence our society? To a certain limited extent, movies can influence certain people for certain reasons and for certain amounts of time. I use for my example the movie BRAVEHEART. There has developed both here and in Scotland a large following of Wallacites. The movie has played almost continuously during the recent voting in Scotland. It probably does not matter to these Wallacites that the movie mixed up its history, had Wallace in places he never was, and made him a warrior/academician/general. All things he never was. However, the movie has certainly produced a boon in the Scotland Forever market.
One thing movies cannot do is influence a whole society for a long period of time. Another movie that was the darling of the Center for Defense Information (CDI) crowd was TOP GUN. In one of my previous editorials ( http://suite101.com/article.cfm/military... ), I went into a long discussion of the CDI and their claim of the influence of that movie. One thing the movie did not do is influence a nation to conduct a major land war against a nation in the South West Asia. Perhaps the movie was part of a larger pattern of politics and desire, but certainly not the catalyst that forced the issue.
Movies can illustrate a certain period of history. A good non - war example is the motion picture GRAPES OF WRATH. Its story of the Joad family is truly a brilliant expose into the travails of the American people during the Great Depression. A good war example is MRS. MINIVER. Both movies managed to capture the mood, the truth, about a period of time.
