Tuesday, December 07, 2021

Our Strange Fascination with Guns

So, there have been a few things in the news I've been thinking about lately. First, as everyone knows, there was yet another school shooting.  Then, just days later, a Republican congressman posing with his family and their guns, "Merry Christmas! ps. Santa, please bring ammo"  


Which, to those of us on the left, seemed to signal a failure of human decency
But then (stay with me on this), I saw the new trailer for the new Matrix film, and was struck by how cool the good guys looked with their guns--running down hallways, jumping, shooting, posing dramatically with a gun turned sideways.



Now, for years and years, I've argued that violent media has no effect on violence in real life.  Partly this has been a knee-jerk reaction against my conservative upbringing, in which (to my great resentment) my media viewing was severely restricted because of the beliefs from parents and Christian school teachers that violence in Hollywood movies was the root of all the current social problems.  So I developed beliefs that went in the exact opposite direction.
However, in the last few years, in my ongoing effort to become a better person, I've been trying to reduce the amount of unexamined personal dogma that I carry around with me.  Do I know for sure that violence in media has no effect?  Have I carefully studied all the research?  Have I read all the books?  Or was this just a bias that I developed in my teens, based on a knee-jerk reaction, and have never carefully examined?

The obvious argument against violent media leading to school shootings is the one that I've argued on this blog numerous times before (HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE,  HERE etc).  Hollywood movies are watched in every country on earth, and yet only America has a repeated problem with school shootings. Japan, for example, consumes all the same violent media we do (and more), but they never have a problem with school shootings.  The problem is clearly the easy access to guns, not the movies.
...but do movies make the problem even worse?  Given a population in which every disturbed teenager already has easy access to guns, do we really need movies that show how cool it is to jump around and fire guns?

I don't think we can ever get rid of violence in the media.  There is some sort of primeval male fascination with violence--for whatever reason--some genetic predisposition probably explained by our ape brains and evolutionary psychology.   If there's no violence, the movie won't be interesting to a lot of young male viewers.
But, does it have to be gun violence?  Or can we get the same thrill by showing the heroes jumping around and doing fist fights?  Or swinging around on ropes and swashbuckling with swords?

I myself (primitive ape brain that I am), often get thrills from watching gun fights and explosions on the screen.  But then, I ask myself, why do I find this so thrilling?  What is so exciting about watching someone point a gun and pull the trigger?  I mean, at least with the old-fashioned swashbuckling (fist fights, sword fights, martial arts, etc), you can kind of explain it to yourself by saying that there's an appreciation of watching a man use pure athleticism and agility to best his opponents in a fair fight.  But why do we idolize men who can simply point a metal device and squeeze a trigger?
I can think of several action movies where the big manly hero does very little in the way of fighting other than to point a metal object and move his finger on the trigger.  (The Expendables 2 being the most obvious example from the movies I've reviewed on this blog.)  Why do we even like this stuff?  Don't get me wrong, I liked it.  I found it as entertaining as the next guy.  But why?
Where does our strange fascination with guns come from?

Update: Just in the hour since I published this post, another congressperson has jumped on the "guns and family and Christmas" bandwagon

I am, needless to say, revolted by this. But to try to be fair here (and also to state the obvious) I believe the Republican cult of gun fetishization has less to do with devotion to guns themselves, and more of a cultural tribalism signifier.  That is, they are posting this stuff precisely because they know it will upset liberals, and less because of an actual devotion to guns.
(Although, actually... is that really a defense, or does that just make it worse?  I mean, at a certain point, you've got to aspire to have more written on your tombstone than, "I did my best to increase cultural divisions during my short time on this earth.")
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