Happiness is a Warm Gun

The Beatles said that happiness could be found in a warm gun, but just how warm does that gun have to be?

What does it actually mean to point that gun at another person? For years, media has attacked us with spectacular

displays of gun violence, so the image itself is familiar, but the emotions associated with guns and violence are

foreign to most of us. Still, critics of the media will argue that the violence we see on a day-to-day basis causes us

to act in a violent manner. Todd Gitlin, a professor at NYU disagrees however, claiming that blaming the media for

brutality and crime is an excuse to turn away from the more intricate causes of violent behavior. While it is

undeniable that the media plays its part in desensitizing Americans to the horrors of violence, Gitlin correctly asserts

that we can discern the difference between fiction and reality and that societal failure is truly to blame for crime and

brutality.

Without question, the often gratuitous violence seen in the media contributes to tolerance of violence in the

real world. Crime dramas on television, thriller movies, and video games today all depend on graphic scenes of

brutality in order to appear more realistic and to present convincing story-lines. These images which constantly

assault us build resistance against the shock we would normally feel when confronted with scenes of violence. In the

same way that one who frequently uses a shovel would eventually build up callouses from repeated use, so do we

develop callouses against the depictions of violence. These callouses render us impervious to the horrific displays,

even when they occur in real life. Americans, after having been subjected to hours upon hours of fictional

exhibitions of crime on both the big screen and TV, will not be appalled when confronted by actual violence in the

news if they are not personally affected. Media, therefore, plays an essential role in disparaging the capacity to

comprehend the significance of violent crime.

Although the media does indeed desensitize us to violent crime, we are still able to distinguish the

difference between the fiction and reality. Equipped as we are with basic reasoning skills, we are able to discern that

the violence seen in the media is not socially acceptable behavior. On the TV show “Bullshit,” hosts Penn Jillette

and Raymond Teller attempt to prove that the brutality in video games does not awaken latent violent tendencies in

the people who play them. As an experiment, they take a ten-year-old boy, an avid fan of first person shooter games

such as Call of Duty, to a shooting range to fire an AK-47. Instead of embracing the opportunity to fire a weapon

that he wields skillfully in the virtual world, the boy is visibly frightened by the weapon, and after shooting only one

round, he returns to his mother to cry in her arms. In his reluctance to shoot an actual gun, this boy shows his ability
to discern the distinction between the fantasy world of his games and the reality of violence, even at a young age.

Critics of media assume that a link exists between the violence shown in media and the actions of those who see it,

completely underestimating our ability tell fantasy and reality apart. Gitlin, however, accurately perceives this

ability when he claims that violence in the media is not the cause of violent behaviors in society.

Though it is clear that the media does not directly affect our actions, violence remains a prevalent issue due

to societal failures such as economic impoverishment. The media presence has been growing for decades, and yet

crime rates fluctuate regardless. Even in the past decade, when the popularity of crime dramas and gruesome movies

was on the rise, the overall crime rate was lower than it had been in last three decades of the 20th century, when

media was not so widespread, nor quite so violent. Therefore, the relationship between crime and media is not nearly

so significant as the relationship between crime and the economic inequalities which persisted from the 70s until the

90s. In the 1970s, the rate of violent crime began an upward ascent that would result in almost thirty years of

increased levels of violence in the United States. This is more likely a result of the financial depression caused by a

massive downturn in the economy in the 70s rather than of the influence of the media. The increased rates in robbery

and theft during the 1970s suggest that those who struggled financially sought to ease their suffering by violent

means. In addition, those who are impoverished tend to turn to drugs and alcohol, factors which appear frequently in

violent crime. Indeed, throughout the latter part of the 20th century, drug and alcohol use was also on the rise.

Though violent crime is made up of several complex economic and societal components, poverty is a far more likely

cause than is the media.

Because prodigious violence in the media is so frequent, politicians and media critics alike use it as a

scapegoat for all of our nation’s problem with violence and crime. The problem, however, is not that simple. These

critics do America a disservice by turning a blind eye to the societal failures causing violence while they point to

media, which changes only our perception of violent behavior. Blaming the media, as Gitlin claims, simply avoids

the deeper, more complex factors which influence crime in a America today. Media will not drive us to discover

whether or not the Beatles were right about happiness being a warm gun. We are content simply to watch.