I never thought that an online article from MTV would provide thoughtful commentary about films which realistically portray the horrors of gun violence. The ten films listed in the article are supposedly intended to make the viewer feel revulsion about the devastation that this violence is wreaking on the United States. At the same time there is the volatile, never-ending debate as to whether or not Hollywood’s fetish for firearms and glorification of violence is responsible for the epidemic of mayhem and murder that is unleashed across our nation on a daily basis – whether the shootings are individual actions or mass shooting events resulting in the deaths of four or more people.
No doubt, Hollywood has churned out a tremendous number of violent, weapon brandishing war movies,westerns, gangster tales, and other action films where guns are the central, destructive force over many decades. However, it seems that the most graphic and stylized depictions of gun violence in cinema didn’t really come to the fore until the late 1960s. The Wild Bunch (1969) is one of the more noteworthy of this type due to the gleeful, almost orgiastic celebration of slow-motion machine gun terror and blood spatter depicted in that frenzied tale of aging gangsters trying to pull off one more train heist in Texas circa-1910 before retiring.
The Godfather and it’s sequels continued the graphic bloodshed in a focused, stylized manner during the 1970s along with the Death Wish series starring Charles Bronson, and Clint Eastwood features such as Dirty Harry. The 1980s turned explicit, gunslinging action packed movies into a veritable franchise with the Rambo, Lethal Weapon and Die Hard series featuring Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson, and Bruce Willis respectively as the action heroes. Excepting the Godfather series, all of the above mentioned were narratives of the vigilante whether it be a member of law enforcement or a regular citizen seeking justice and/or revenge against assorted criminals, sociopaths, and terrorists. However, all of the above proved to be box office successes although critical opinion was mixed.
Some thought that these stories glorified violence while exploiting crime and not always accurately understanding the social issues they were supposedly addressing. The MTV article pointed out that the movies are obsessed with the “cool” factor of guns, and to quote the article directly it states that the movies are “transforming them into fetish objects to be celebrated with mindless glee, contributing to a culture of acceptability and naturalization of violence.” While there definitely is some truth to that, the ultimate responsibility for the culture of death caused by guns as depicted in Elephant lies with the government. There is plenty of blame to go around. The inertia of the federal and state governments (some of the states at least) to act show that they are fully culpable for what the AMA (American Medical Association) has declared a national public health crisis.
While legislatures around the United States continue to dither with tiresome debates and excuses – the carnage continues. According to the Gun Violence Archive there have been 140 mass shootings throughout the United States as of April 10th. This is utterly astounding since we are 100 days into 2023 as of April 10th – meaning that there have been more shootings than days in the year at this point. For a considerable period of time the worst mass shooting incidents tended to be workplace violence committed by disgruntled employees during the 1980s and 90s, but these were still hardly daily events as they seem to be now. While these shooting events are extremely disturbing – the horrifying rise in school shootings didn’t begin until the Columbine High School massacre in suburban Denver on April 20, 1999.
This proved to be a watershed year as school shootings by other students (rarely adults) moved to the forefront of attention regarding gun violence in this country. According to the Washington Post there have been a whopping 377 shootings at schools with the vast majority of them committed by minors with guns – many of these being military-style assault weapons. This brings us to Elephant (2003) which is a tragic tale of a mass high school shooting which is quite similar to the real life Columbine incident where two students conspired to commit both a bombing and shooting at the high school. When the bombs failed to detonate as planned the two students (Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold) continued their rampage with the rifles killing twelve students, one teacher, and then committed suicide.
The story of Elephant begins as a typical day of high school life with no hint of the terror and tragedy that will soon unfold. The film is one of seventeen features directed by Gus Van Sant, well-known for his independent projects as well as high-profile ones. These indies though, usually deal with characters who live on the margins of society or are otherwise disadvantaged. However, with Elephant it’s not really clear if the high school shooting duo fit into that category, nor is there a specific motive for the shooting. The story suggests that perhaps they were influenced to a degree by violent video games, watching 1930s documentaries about Adolf Hitler and the rise of Nazism in Germany. There’s a whiff of bullying suggested, but nothing concrete.
These scenes are played in a matter-of-fact manner and are not especially ominous. The killings at the school mostly occur in a detached manner without the amped-up, roiling melodrama typical of a mass release Hollywood feature. There is no big build up to the slayings. They just happen and are done. There are a few scenes where the killers confront students at close quarters, but those scenes end abruptly leaving the audience unsure of the outcomes. Maybe all of this was meant to reflect what the MTV article was saying about “the naturalization of violence” in our society. It’s truly frightening to think that actions and behaviors once considered repugnant eventually become an accepted fact of life – a terrible new normal.
Among the ten movies the MTV article suggested as being realistic, sobering accounts of how dreadful gun violence is were such controversial titles as Taxi Driver (1976) which follows a marginal character who finally goes off the deep end, or Full Metal Jacket (1987) depicting the ghastly ravages of the Vietnam War. Of course, how critics may view these narratives can be rather different than how moviegoers perceive their “messages”. In any case, as touched on earlier, it’s hard to prove the link between the violence presented in mass entertainment and people going out to imitate this in the real world. Violent movies, tv shows, and video games have been around for a long time, but the epidemic of gun violence in schools does not have a timeline to parallel that.
Naturally, everyone wants to know the why??!! of these gun-fueled mass shootings which occur in our country on a constant basis, particularly at schools where the youngest with their whole lives ahead of them are cut short on an alarming basis. Everyone demands explanations for what may largely be inexplicable as Elephant is suggesting. Is it bad parenting that is a root cause of this? Is it a more extreme uptick of juvenile delinquency in general? Is it caused by fiercer bullying? Is the sensationalism of the news media to blame? Are lax and apathetic governments without the backbone to control the manufacturing and sales of these weapons to blame? As I mentioned earlier, there’s lots of blame to go around but it’s up to those in positions of power and responsibility to make decisive moves towards curtailing this carnage as much as possible.
