Hollywood Hypocrites

In today’s day and age, the topic of gun violence is hot and more controversial than ever. The decision is not one that can be made with black and white thoughts. Nevertheless, millions worldwide have made their thoughts clear and began to either protest guns or protect them. Many Hollywood stars have publicly announced their protest against gun violence. But isn’t it a bit ironic that the same celebrities that are fighting against guns, violence, suicide, homicide, etc. are acting in movies about just that?

Millions of dollars in revenue from recent movies such as “Baby Driver”, “Blade Runner”, “Tomb Raider”, “Rampage”, “Death Wish”, and many others that have been made. People will pay $10-$15 to gain admittance to action and adventure movies, which promise plenty of violence. We are paying money to watch the very actions we shame happen on screen. Sure, we all know that these films are fiction and are meant to stay as such. But do younger children understand that we are supporting the violence in movies only because it is in a movie and not real life? Confusion may arise if we begin teaching our children that guns are bad, but then pay to be entertained by them.

A week after the mass school shooting in Florida on February 14th this year, Ted Cruz actively spoke out about how Hollywood is glamorizing guns in their movies, but claiming that they support gun control. “Hollywood liberals on gun control is akin to Hollywood liberals on global warming,” Cruz said. “Which is they fly their private jets to a conference, step out and say, ‘Global warming is terrible. Let’s take away everything from the working men and women.’ And then they get back on their private jet and fly back. Same thing on gun control. If you have a bevy of armed security officers protecting you, maybe you shouldn’t be trying to strip Second Amendment rights from law-abiding citizens.”

Tensions also arose later that month when the movie “Death Wish” was released. People argued that it wasn’t the right time for a movie about a serial killer to be released, three weeks after 17 were shot dead and 14 more injured. The movie was set to be released in November of 2017, but was pushed back due to the Las Vegas shooting. So Hollywood went ahead and released it regardless of protest, because a second holdup would probably hurt profits.

Josh Gad, Ellen Degeneres, Bette Midler, Gabrielle Union, Rainn Wilson, Chelsea Handler, Billy Eichner, Kim Kardashian, Elizabeth Banks, Tyra Banks, Mike Tyson, Alyssa Milano, and several other celebrities have all tweeted about the Florida shooting, linking back to their support of having more gun control. And while these comments are appreciated, haven’t some of these celebrities acted in movies featuring the violence they are reprimanding?

In the end, while opinions can be thrown around as much as they want, nothing is going to happen unless the government decides to take action and listen to what the people want. Hollywood can be called out, celebrities can be chastised, and blame can be pointed anywhere, but it really all boils down to the fact that gun violence needs to be stopped one way or another.

Photo By: Wikimedia Commons