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About That Popular 'Black Films Don't Sell ...Aurora, Colorado - Seeing Red
There have been many moments that stood out for me with respect to the Aurora massacre. One, was a young black male getting ready to go off to his first year in college. He was in the theater during the shooting. He said, "this was not like a movie or a video game, it's real." I witnessed his stillness and fear, in that moment, as reality and the fantasy of what he thought violence was - converged.
It isn't easy to speak with people about violence or violence prevention. Our culture has accepted it as another one of our rights as Americans. We have the right to be violent. Not until we, or a loved one, encounter(s) "extreme" violence, violence that the culture considers "legitimate", do we rethink this position.
Today, I was happy to learn that Warner Bros. will be donating money to the Aurora shooting victims. I was hoping this would happen. You see, there has been no outcry against violence in movies. People are afraid to lay the blame of the shooting at the film industry. After all, the killer appears to be psychotic. And, his desire to dress up like 'the Joker' is just apart of his psychosis. He was crazy, right?
I have heard many people say, over the years, "I watch movies and play video games but I'm not violent." Only the crazies take it to violence. We live in a culture that does very little until there is a huge catastrophe. You see, there are warning signs all throughout the culture that an event like this would happen. But, because we don't understand how violence on the screen and in music translates to our daily lives, we think it's not a problem.
Did you know, in Chicago, there have been 24 student homicides in 2012? And, 315 wounded in 2012. Young black men are slaughtering one another in Chicago. And, President Obama has not flown in to comfort the families and survivors. There has been no eye-catching font with sentimental music and special coverage given to the deaths. Scott Pelley, on CBS, for two nights in a row this summer, had it as a headline on the CBS Evening News, when no one else was reporting it (for this reason and his work on poverty in America, he is my go-to at 6:30pm.). Anderson Cooper went to Chicago a couple of years ago. He took his crew there, spent some time. And, yet and still, the murders escalate.
Along with this, the numbers of domestic violence and sexual assaults against black women and children are too painful to mention. It seems to be a private affair. Something that most wallow in shame with or believe that it is something that was deserved. There is a chance that most of you reading this have experienced violence, either sexual or domestic, have perpetrated violence or know someone who is in prison for committing an act of violence. So, why is it that we don't make a concerted effort to put an end to violence?
There are very little avenues for understanding conflict resolution or anger management in American culture. As a former domestic violence crisis intervention counselor, one of the first things I was taught is that men who are abusers have anger/violence as their 'go-to' emotion. They can mimic love, express platitudes but once conflict/questioning/confusion is introduced into a situation, the only response they know is violence. They have no tools, no way to negotiate their way out of difficult or simple issues that arise. The most used example is the "she didn't cook what I wanted for dinner." Most of us can negotiate that. If we encounter food we don't like, we simply, eat something else, eat the parts we like, any host of alternatives. Men who batter do not have that capacity.
In studying the why's and how's of domestic violence, we had to learn the causes. Clearly, many learned from the men (and women) in their households but, the larger culture was and is always a major component. Because the 'black american family' has been severely compromised, black males (and females) turn to the larger culture for role modeling. (Or, the restrictive and lack of nuance in the strictures of the church. Be good or you're a sinner. Be good or you will be beaten.) What is conflict resolution in the larger culture? How are problems solved in movies? What does retribution look like in movies? And, what is sexy in movies? The gun has almost become a body part, a pair of voluptuous breasts, a shiny…well, you get my drift. It's the glorification of this type of conflict resolution that's crippling the culture.
It's very simple. When experts need to learn what is happening in a child's household, they are given dolls to act out a scenario. Children who are beaten, abused, etc., will do with the dolls what they see the adults do. OR, will reenact what the adults do to them. Or, will reenact what they see on TV. Depends on what has made the biggest impact. A child who is healthy, will create loving or nurturing interactions with the dolls. I would argue that most of those boys and men that are killing themselves in Chicago are just acting out their experience, acting out what they see in movies and in video games. Violence is conflict resolution. And, one does not have to color their hair 'red' to show the signs. The signs are around us on a daily basis. It's in our choice of song, our hitting of children, our language, our dismissal and 'gaming' of intended love interests. It has been woven into the fabric of our lives and we, as citizens of America, deserve better.
The movie industry can put a ban on cigarettes in movies but not violence? And, I'm not contemplating a complete ban. Violence is an unfortunate aspect of life. But, it's the way that it's presented that needs to be checked. At the very least, discussed. The Catholic Church, Penn State and the Movie industry, all institutions that have white males running the show, are infecting all of us. I still cannot get over what Penn State officials did. Why do you cover-up the abuse of children? What, in Joe Paterno's life story, allowed for that? As we diversify institutions, the problems will decrease because people from varied backgrounds may have different priorities. For example, women entering the criminal justice system have brought new and more effective laws (regarding domestic violence and child abuse) to the books. The culture is broken and it needs to be fixed.
Heaven Sutton, age 7, was shot at a candy stand outside of her home in Chicago. She was, simply, selling candy and a shooting erupted. On the news, there was no headline, no special graphic or mournful music with a blown up image of her- constructed to make you care about her. When the Aurora shootings happened, one of the victims, a 24 year old up and coming journalist, had the story of her life on repeat. And, yes, that should be the case. The picture of the 6 year old, with the ice cream cone, murdered in Aurora, her image has been emblazoned in our minds. And, yes, that should be the case. Do any of you have an image of 7 year old, Heaven Sutton in your mind? Or, any of the other 24 children who were killed in Chicago?
I am not one to compare and contrast, it's all morbid and painful and brutal. But, why is this Aurora massacre any different than the deaths of these children in Chicago? Until America finds a way to address its blatant disregard for the well-being of its' citizenry, in all sectors of the culture, we will find ourselves spending more time, mourning and grieving the actions of the psychotic. Most people are not privileged white men, who when they erupt, try to take everyone with them. Most people are not mass murderers. Most people are suffering from violence, quietly, and in the most intimate segments of their lives - where movies, music and video games are on repeat.
28 Comments
CareyCarey | July 26, 2012 12:29 AM
I hope Tanya doesn't mind. The dust has settled so I thought I'd share this piece on violence and ...well, even though it's "old" ... well, it fits. "The Senseless Act Of Violence" This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.
It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who next will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.
Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet. Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in defiance of the law, by one man or by a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of our lives which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, whenever we do this then the whole nation is degraded. Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on MOVIE and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire. Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of other human beings. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them. Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our souls. For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter. This is the breaking of a mans spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. For when you teach a man to hate and to fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies that he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your home or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and to be mastered. We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens. Alien men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in a common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.
Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence. Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goals, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at the least, to look around at those of us of our fellow man, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again. - Robert F Kennedy, April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Donella | July 25, 2012 6:46 PM
I find it amazing that the shooter murdered 12 people in cold blood, injured dozens of others, terrorized an entire city, and then was taken into custody seemingly without a scratch or bruise from police. Many have been killed in custody for much less or nothing at all.
Troy | July 25, 2012 2:10 AM
violence is more real and present than the fake emotion love. Violence is cutting down a tree, killing a bee, driving a fossil fuel vehicle and or also poisoning the ocean. Violence and copulation are the most natural things humans do. We add nothing to our ecosystem and only have a negative impact. Not one war has ever had to actually take place in the history of the world. However all Americans owe their country to violence and nothing other than violence. How do societies overcome violence? Why are the teenagers that fought in the American revolution heroes and kids who kill now monsters? Why are we supposed to support our troops when there has never been a righteous war?
Orville | July 25, 2012 1:15 AM
I agree with Tanya that there seems to be a disparity about the American media's attitude towards gun violence when it affects white people and black people.
I remember watching CNN an episode with Don Lemon last summer I think and some black Americans were upset at President Obama for ignoring the gun violence in his former hometown of Chicago. The parents were pleading with President Obama to get involved but he didn't.
I think there is an undercurrent of racism that when black people die due to gun violence that blacks are stereotyped as being more pathological and more morally corrupt than whites.
In Toronto, right now there is a huge discussion about gun violence because it is not just black people dying now the gun violence is affecting everybody. Young men are shooting people in broad daylight in Toronto and that's shocking.
It isn't just America that has a problem with violence right now in Toronto there is a huge debate about gun violence. I don't know if Americans on this board heard about the shooting over a week ago at a block party over 20 people were injured and two young people died. And in June 2012 at the Eaton Centre a major mall in Toronto a man shot people at a food court and people died there too. In the Canadian media, there is a lot of discussion about America and how the American society culture of violence is now invading Canada.
Charles Judson | July 24, 2012 9:00 PM
I do agree that the U.S. has a peculiar relationship with violence that doesn't exist in other developed nations. Our dogged adherence to the death penalty being an example. However, nations like Japan have a legacy of cinema and television that's much more violent than us and they have a significantly lower murder rate. Most studies have concluded that the most troubling effects of violence in video games and movies are temporary and have no lasting effect. I'm also not convinced if it's productive to equate systematic violence with what happens in places like Aurora. That our leaders are just as use to the death and destruction of young Black men on a regular basis as the neighborhoods who see that destruction on a daily basis shouldn't be a shock. You can go back to the founding of the United States and the idea that two grown men would solve their differences by shooting each other wasn't seen as that radical and wasn't limited to class or race. Let's not forget that in the 1960s and 1970s the Black Panther Party was an organization who's core existence was defined, shaped and empowered around violence and the threat of it, for good and for bad. What do you expect of a people who had to live under the threat of police and mob violence? Violence that was both built into the law, tolerated by the law and at times free of the law? Community based PTSD can be just as real and more damaging than individual PTSD. The reaction to violence, real and perceived, can also be dangerous and unfocused. A lot of our no-tolerance laws and rules for schools we're designed in the wake of a Columbine and earlier versions out of the misguided 1970s perception that kids were living THE WARRIORS on a daily basis. Our laws targeting crack were out of line with the laws regulating other drugs and were pushed by African-American officials with a ferocity that often rivaled their White counterparts. More kids are dying slow deaths of ignorance, poverty and malnutrition than they are right out violence. I would more challenge filmmakers here to go deeper and explore what violence, real, imagined and imminent means to the Black community. So much of what we create is about what has happened to us, or is about teaching a lesson. I would also not discourage filmmakers here from using violence in their films. Violence in and of itself is just an expression of humanity that are much deeper and much scarier. With enough legislators in Congress, I can use the same impulses that can kill, to destroy you without ever firing a shot or pulling out a knife. This is the time to face ourselves, not to point fingers.
CareyCarey | July 24, 2012 8:40 PM
Hello Tanya. First, as we've discussed, because of the back & forth... "going in circles" nature of conversations that can ensure (some people can get "touchy" & emotional when the author replies in the comment section), I'll understand if you don't respond to me. Having said that, I believe it's important to note that having read all of your guest post, I am a fan of your writing, but this one left me with a few concerns. First and foremost, I don't understand the purpose of this article? I mean, in the beginning, I don't know why you included our president in this conversations? It's unjust to imply that he can visit every victim of gun violence, regardless of their skin color or where they live. 2.) You implied that only men commit conflict resolution by means of violence upon another human being, which is far from the truth. 3.) You said: "As we diversify institutions, the problems will decrease because people from varied backgrounds may have different priorities. For example, women entering the criminal justice system have brought new and more effective laws (regarding domestic violence and child abuse) to the books". Tanya, I have to ask, can you specify the laws you're referring to? I mean, it goes without question that women have been part of the justice system and "law making" society for many many years. 4.) If the purpose of this post is to draw a connection or culpability of films to violence in the USA, I believe the connection is unfair and porous. Violence IS an aspect of life that's played out EVERY DAMN DAY through the news of warring nations throughout the world . Films pale in comparison. Lastly, because I couldn't find a central theme to your article, I felt as if it was a basic "race bait" and gender bait message. Case in point.... " I was taught is that men who are abusers have anger/violence as their "go-to" emotion. They can mimic love, express platitudes but once conflict/questioning/confusion is introduced into a situation, the only response they know is violence ~ Tanya" and "Most people are not privileged white men, who when they erupt, try to take everyone with them". Privileged white men?! I am sorry Tanya, you will have to explain that. I don't believe any of the alledged murderers would be described as "privileged" ( including John Allen Muhammad and his younger partner, Lee Boyd Malvo; The Beltway Sniper attackers )
Nikki | July 24, 2012 2:06 PM
I also live in Chicago and I've seen Heaven Sutton multiple times. I still haven't seen the 6 year old in Aurora once. Not to say that there isn't a bias. However, I don't hear about the crimes in NY or Kansas or any other city really. Unless there is multiple deaths in a single event. Or a White woman is missing.
Nikki | July 24, 2012 2:00 PM
I've seen numerous articles blaming the violence in films ( Yes, for this tragedy). I'm actually tired of hearing people blame the violence in films for the actions of adults.
Burr? | July 24, 2012 1:55 PM
Because a massacre or natural disaster affects a lot of people at once, creating a group that is easily addressed and identified. Come the fuck on. I can easily ask you why you're focusing on deaths in Chicago and not in Memphis, or Little Rock, or Flint, and blame that on an "ism," too.
the black police | July 24, 2012 1:52 PM
Wait what does Obama have to do with the Chicago situation? Is it cuz he's from there (not born there I know)? Or is it cuz hes President and thats one of his duties? Also were you surprised that after Anderson went there, the shootings didnt stop? Do you really think anybody in this whole life can say anything to the community that will singlehandedly stop the violence? There are many factors that contribute to this and COMMUNITY LEADERS should take active roles to make these problems stop.
Luke Allison | July 24, 2012 1:51 PM
Very thoughtful post Tanya. Also keep in mind the 1000 children who died all over the world from purely preventable causes just yesterday. Astounding and unTweeted.
Scot McKnight, one of the top bloggers in the religious sphere (he's a progressive anabaptist scholar, so a proponent of non-violence) is having an interesting discussion over at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/
All creeds are welcome. Come join us!
Priss | July 24, 2012 1:43 PM
What does this have to do with black film?
Patrick | July 24, 2012 1:42 PM
âIt is not that television is entertaining but that it has made entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience. The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining.â â Neil Postman, "Amusing Ourselves to Death"
Obviously, this quote extends to cinema and (if the author had lived long enough to see its current manifestation) video games. The real reason people don't want to examine these trends is that it would require us to look inward as a societ...y- at our values. It is much easier to say "it's just fantasy. Most of us can make the distinction between fantasy and reality." When in fact the real question we should be asking - and what you address in your article - is "WHY is this our fantasy and our only fantasy?" Why does our culture promote violence that is sexy and sex that is violent? Is it a part of us? Yes, perhaps. But which part? Our evolved, enlightened part, or our base, gutteral part? The problem is that while the debasement has only become more aggressive, the arguement about whether it is good for us has become passe. Most people see it as an 80s, early 90s Tipper Gore issue and have "moved passed it." Even the right is more interested in advocating gun rights than challanging media the way they did in the Reagan era. There are simply no advocates left. So parents are left dealing with it on their own. And with Dad playing "Call of Duty" with his 6 year old son, the adults have, literally, left the building.
Well done Tanya. We need more voices like yours to reignite this type of dialogue.
James | July 24, 2012 1:40 PM
The Village Voice writer Ta-Nehishi Coates wrote an article about post crack rap. In it he spoke on how rappers have turned to the "glory days" when crack was king. They focused on how crack their selling of it was the best thing they ever done. He suggested why not rhyme about it's final toll on the users, dealers and the community. As a film maker I agreed. I feel that way about violence.
As I got toward the twilight of my adolescence I saw just how not only unpredictable violence is. Guns backfired on would be shooters. You meant to shot the enemy but your boy gets hit and killed and your other boy takes the fall-20 years in the joint for a mistake. One kid I knew for girls and ball all of a sudden was a thug in 1995. He talked the talk, but ran afoul with my boys. We all ran into one another going to the store. I didn't know he was scrapping like that. He and my boys get to arguing. I tried to and somewhat brake it up. But he was by himself and my boys were a pair. One of em got away and hit him. He ran back to the projects and got his crew-real thugs. I saw it he let the hood get in his head (read All Gods Children it shows how honor got flipped to respect with the same results).
My guys were street dudes, plus we all went back to my block. It was a summer night everyone was out. Son shows up for some reason by himself ask for a fair fight. No dice. He gets pummeled. Tries to get up and run away. He made one move and then he and the old iron monkey bars had a meeting. I was about 100 fr away and it sounded as if I was a foot away. After that his goons showed up and we had a stand off their 44. vs well lets says my guys had a lot of guns that night one of em was in a tree with a 9mm. Cooler heads prevailed. But I thought me or someone is dying tonight.
To me as a film maker that's what violence is about. That cat was a pretty boy. Perhaps ball not working out for him or the raw reality of his on coming adulthood got to him. He then took up
the street life. I never heard about him after that night.
Or how about this old school cat. He was just shooting the breeze. The conversation as it does in the hood turned to some recapping of a violent event. He was shot. The dude is about 45 now. He still has a "shit bag".
As Coates said about crack is what I would show. The open ended results of violence. Death is rare. Many live with the results. Another cat playing with a gun in the steps was shot in the head. He lived but but had a permanent limp. It's a river that never stops flowing. Add in the legal entanglements and you have a never ending saga of quick fix solutions with intractable results.
tanya steele | July 24, 2012 1:34 PM
I think, those concerned, have to put the pressure on. it's politics. it's like any other group that is a forced to be reckoned with. take the NRA, for example.
FilmGuy | July 24, 2012 1:29 PM
As tough as it is to grasp such senseless violence, it often boils down to who the media heads think will care about the news. Having worked for the newspapers, I can tell you, it's all about emotional priority and what's going to 'sell'. The media, like movies, also considers it's audience before release and like a catchy logline, a headline seeks to attract the emotions of a particular (white) audience. So looking at it this way, black people dying in Chicago is sadly a generic 'theme' and isn't of much interest to the majority white audience. The Aurora incident, if we are to read headlines like loglines, is a huge emotional event that instantly grabs the attention of the target audience so that is what gets repeated by the media. Remember, the majority will only care when it affects them personally (their city, state, race, religion, etc). What we need is a national news station dedicated to African-American news, a black CNN if you will.
No | July 24, 2012 1:21 PM
That Obama hasn't comforted the bereaved parents of Chicago doesn't surprise me. He has often shown his indifference towards a certain class of black voters. For example, he'll go to a black church and talk about fatherless black children -- a fair point -- but wouldn't be caught dead with the parents of Trayvon Martin or those in Chicago. Yet he'll travel to catastrophe-stricken areas where the population is predominantly white and console those Americans but not those in his own political backyard.