Violence, Depravity, and the Movies: The Lure of DEVIANCY

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Jan, 1999 by Anne P. Dupre

"We may be enticed by violence on film because we are so afraid of it in life. We can sit in a theater, enjoy the violent scene on the screen from a distance, and then go home--we hope--to safety."

I AM NOT a psychic, but I am going to make a prediction, though I hope I am wrong. I predict that, if and when the film "American Psycho" is released, the police will deal with at least one killing which copies the murders and mutilations in the movie. The prospective picture is based on a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, and its makers attempted to sign Leonardo DiCaprio to the lead role.

The book depicts a Wall Street Yuppie who tortures and kills for the fun of it. He murders 18 people, including a child that he kills at the zoo. He reserves his most sadistic torture for women. In one scene in the book, the killer attaches jump leads to a female victim's nipples. In another, he has sex with the head of a woman he has decapitated. Some favorite weapons he uses on women are a nail gun, power drill, chain saw, and, it' you can imagine (or want to), a hungry rat. Get ready, America, and pray that this movie does not light a fuse in someone living near you.

You may question why--if I can make a prediction that someone will die--the law has no mechanism to prevent this potential harm. It is no secret that some people like to copy killings they see in movies. Films give people a sense of what depravity is possible and a movie star to model after. Copycat killings are alleged to have been linked to such pictures as "Natural Born Killers," "Warlock," "The Money Train," "The Basketball Diaries," and "Child's Play 3," among others. It is true that people also can read about psychotic killers in books, but words on the page do not seem to inspire the same kind of frenzy blood on the screen can. Psychotic killers generally are not bookworms. Moreover, films reach a wider audience than most books.

The first response to my prediction undoubtedly will be a shake of the head and an explanation that this is the price we have to pay for freedom of speech under the First Amendment. Anything else would be censorship. After all, the highly acclaimed "Saving Private Ryan" is graphically violent. Nightly news shows report violent acts every evening. In fact, the same day Kip Kinkel was arrested after shooting a number of schoolmates in Oregon, three boys in Missouri were foiled in an attempt to imitate the massacre in Jonesboro, Ark., wherein two boys shot fellow students from a nearby hillside after pulling the school fire alarm. (It is telling that those boy killers have been described as dressing like Rambo or looking like a Clint Eastwood or Arnold Schwarzenegger film character.)

We certainly should not ask that every potentially dangerous scene be deleted from every movie. "Saving Private Ryan" showed viewers how ordinary men could gain nobility in the midst of violence and bloodshed. Nor should we ask networks to cease reporting important news stories. Reporting on a school massacre helps the audience to analyze a serious national problem of juvenile violent crime and realize the sad truth that some young boys believe it is cool to be viewed as psychotic.

Nonetheless, a film like "American Psycho," if it is as vivid as the book, undoubtedly will test some people's views on the limits of First Amendment protection. In fact, First Amendment speech protection is not absolute. After all, we have seen how cigarette advertisements can be curtailed. One constitutional axiom was set forth by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes when he stated that a person falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater is not protected by the First Amendment. The notion is that, if you say something when you know it is likely that people will be hurt reacting to your speech--the Supreme Court used the words "clear and present danger"--those words may not be protected. I predict that some alienated person (or persons)-impulsive, self-destructive, and full of rage--will see "American Psycho" and believe that, through its teachings, he can become Master of the Universe for a time. If I know it, so do the filmmakers. Indeed, these kinds of movies may be particularly enticing to people who feel powerless and on the margins of society. Through such pictures, they learn that, if they do something that is utterly depraved, they may get at least some recognition, some attention, that will make up for whatever else is missing in their lives.

To be sure, millions of those who see the picture will harm no one as a result. They merely will watch the chronicle of a psychotic killer and go home, perhaps to view yet another set of grisly murders depicted on television. It also is true that, as the National Rifle Association proclaims, guns don't kill people; people kill people. Yet, many argue--in spite of the Second Amendment's protection of the right to bear arms--that certain kinds of guns should be outlawed because they may get into the hands of the wrong people. Moreover, most individuals who drive alter consuming an excess of alcohol or break the speed limit do not harm others either; but there are laws that regulate and punish such conduct--laws that many want to make even stricter.