Get A Load Of Peggy

I've been noting some of the mindless speculation about the Colorado theatre attack. For many, of course, it's a chance to knock popular culture, always a good angle when anything anywhere goes wrong. The column practically writes itself--certainly Peggy Noonan gives no indication of interrupting the process with any original thought in her latest thumbsucker:

Did “The Dark Knight Rises” cause the Aurora shootings? No, of course not.

Good.  Can we end the column here?

One movie doesn’t have that kind of power, and we don’t even know if the shooter had seen it.

Peggy, did you pay any attention to the story?  The attack took place at a Thursday midnight showing--the first chance anyone had to see the film.

But a million violent movies have the cumulative power to desensitize and destabilize, to make things worse, and that’s what we’ve been seeing the past quarter century or so, the million movies.

I understand you've written this column so many times that you're on autopilot, but shouldn't you at least glance at the evidence and discover violent crime has been going down sharply in the last twenty years? (Other social problems have been improving as well, such as non-violent crime and teenage pregnancy levels, but since this is about a shooting spree, I'll concentrate on violence.)

Each ups the ante in terms of carnage. Remember Jack Nicholson’s Joker, from 1989? He was a garish, comic figure and he made people laugh. He was a little like Cyril Ritchard as Captain Hook in the old TV version of “Peter Pan.” You knew he wasn’t “real.” He was meant to amuse. . . .

I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make here.  That Jack Nicholson's take on the Joker was less dangerous to America than Heath Ledger's? If you think that, then you can't handle the truth, which is America was a lot more violent back in 1989 (and I'm sure we can find many editorials--maybe even you wrote one, Peggy--about the dangers of Batman films a generation ago).

Some of the sadness and frustration following Aurora has to do with the fact that no one thinks anyone can, or will, do anything to make our culture better.

That's the frustration of people who want the culture to change anyway, and will exploit any tragedy to make their point.  It's also the frustration of people who don't bother to look up statistics that are readily available.

The film industry isn’t going to change, the genie is long out of the bottle. The genie has a cabana at the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The movie market is increasingly international, and a major component is teenage boys and young men who want to see things explode, who want to see violence and sex.

Actually people have been complaining about the effects of movies from the start. Meanwhile, if you want to get international, the general trend has been lower rates of violent crime over the years.

Political pressure has never worked. Politicians have been burned, and people who’ve started organizations have been spoofed and spurned as Puritans.

Unfortunately, political pressure has sometimes worked when it comes to censoring art and entertainment.  What it's never succeeded at, at least as far as I can tell, is signficantly lowering the crime rate or dealing with actual social problems.

When Tipper Gore came forward in 1985, as a responsible citizen protesting obscene rap lyrics, her senator husband felt he had to apologize to Democratic fund-raisers.

She wasn't a responsible citizen so much as an incredibly well-connected one, whose personal anger could mean tremendous problems for those creating music.  And I was too busy noticing Al holding national hearings on his wife's pet project to pay much attention to any apologies he may have made.

By the way, her first complaint was about "Darling Nikki," not a rap song.  In fact, most of the lyrics people were mad about back then were not rap, which hadn't quite taken over in 1985. (Since it has taken over, of course, there's been a tremendous drop in violence.)

If some dumb Republican congressman had a hearing to grill some filmmakers, it would look like the McCarthy hearings.

Just what's the end game here?  Do you truly want entertainers looking over their shoulder?  Do you want them to stop making films that hundreds of millions enjoy, or weigh down our entertainment with messages you approve of?  And what happens if they do and there's another massacre?

There would be speeches about artistic freedom, and someone would have clever words about how Shakespeare, too, used violence. “Have you ever seen ‘Coriolanus?’”

Actually, I missed Coriolanus.  I was busy down the street at the bear-baiting.  Then I went over to the town square and watched them hang some pickpockets.

Anyway, we all know when old art uses violence, it's okay.  You know, like Jack Nicholson in Batman.

The president won’t say anything—he too is Hollywood funded—and maybe that’s just as well, since he never seems sincere about anything anymore.

Peggy, please, stop. You're gonna make me vote for Obama.