I came across the original celebrity Demand a Plan video after signing the Demand a Plan petition. I thought is was fine. Pretty similar to most celebrity PSAs. Kind of preachy. Not particularly informative. But as my views are generally liberal, as are most celebrities’ views, I agreed with them. So I didn’t give it much thought.
Then came the parody of the Demand a Plan video. (The link is at the bottom of this post, in case you haven’t seen it.) Wow. I know that most movies are violent – in fact that’s a big reason that I don’t see a lot of movies. I don’t like violence; I find it both distressing as well as boring and uncreative. And I hate blood. But, aside from my personal feelings, the parody video did an excellent job at pointing out exactly how egregiously hypocritical the celebs are. And regardless of where someone falls on the spectrum of gun reform, the video-editor did a service by calling out the entertainment industry for the role they play in our violent culture.
But what makes me most angry isn’t their past movie gun-toting behavior. I can forgive the past. What I find disgraceful is that not a single one of them has come forward and apologized. Not a single one has said that in the future they promise to not participate in movies where they shoot automatic weapons, to refrain from singing lyrics that glorify violence, and to work with their colleagues on creating movies that do not rely on violence to be entertaining. Why don’t they create a ‘demand a plan’ petition that they can all sign and give to Warner Bros, Sony Pictures, Universal, etc. saying that they won’t act in violent movies anymore? THAT is the plan they should be demanding.
Of course I know why they don’t. Because they’d probably never work again. What movie doesn’t have violence in it these days? Romantic comedies? I don’t even know. But don’t preach to me about signing the Demand a Plan petition when you have no intention of changing your own behavior, as I discussed in my blog post about changing culture.
This being said, none of us is perfect, and certainly not a celebrity. I’m not trying to hold celebrities up to some unrealistic standard. But I’d like to see just a little bit of sincere connection between their words and actions. Thank you.
P.S. Matt Damon, sorry for making an example out of you. I think you are super-cute. Please don’t be mad at me 🙂
[Added on Jan 9 to my original post on Jan 5]: While my post above was more of an opinion than an analysis, I came across this article that I think brilliantly articulates the problem with how Hollywood both reflects and reinforces disturbing aspects of the American mindset. I certainly don’t expect any celebrity to tackle this one. And, I don’t have a suggestion about how to change it either, and nor does the author. But he did articulate the problem nicely. Read the article here.
Acute Redhead 