So much for President Obama's pull in Hollywood, which has gone on a violence binge, glorifying gun violence in the nation's five top box office hits.
A new study finds that the five, Gangster Squad, Django Unchained, Zero Dark Thirty, Les Miserables, and A Haunted House, depict 65 scenes of violence, including 38 scenes of gun violence, affecting a whopping 185 victims. Most die.
The Media Research Center study, shared with Secrets, cited two especially violent movies. In Gangster Squad, "eight of the 12 violent scenes involved gunplay, and 65 people were killed or wounded on-screen," said the study.
In Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained , there are at least 69 victims in 19 violent scenes, 12 including guns.
"The media, of course, don't seem terribly interested in calling out Hollywood for talking out of both sides of their mouth," said a spokesman.
The study notes that much of the violence is committed by good guys. But it's still violence and something the media often calls a bad example. "To be sure, a lot - perhaps most - of the violence was committed by good guys pursuing justice or other noble ends," said the study. "InA Haunted House, the violence was for comedic effect, and Zero Dark Thirty was purporting to show a historical event (the hunt for and killing of Osama Bin Laden.) Les Miserables is set in part against the backdrop of revolution. But since assault weapons bans, new laws limiting the capacity of magazines and other gun control measures don't distinguish good from bad or divine intent, violence in Hollywood films should be held to the same standard."
