Readers View Media as Reason for Violence

I wanted to respond to the quote by Irwin Winkler (“Hollywood: Ground Zero,” May 1) in which he says “We’re living with [violence] all around us” and “The easiest thing is to target one group and say the entertainment industry is filling our airwaves with all this garbage when it’s really all around us in every possible form.”

I think that Mr. Winkler is really overlooking the fact that many people don’t have any direct contact or exposure to violence in their whole life, aside from the images that one is exposed to in the media. I seriously doubt that, aside from the violence that they saw in the movies, on TV and on video games, the boys who slaughtered those people in Littleton, Colo., would have ever conceived of that kind of violence or would have ever lived with that kind of violence “all around” them.

JENNIFER SOBEL

Los Angeles

Irwin Winkler’s defensive comment begs a reality check. Surely Mr. Winkler must realize that “it’s really all around us in every possible form” precisely because of the entertainment industry.

JOHN BROCK

Redondo Beach

It seems the majority of media spokespersons are quick to excuse violence in their product, saying “it’s all around us.” Then I look at the pop music charts and see that Andrea Bocelli has the No. 1 album in Southern California for at least the second week, proving there is a market for nonviolent entertainment.

It’s time to stop blaming everyone and everything else for the present violence-tolerant climate. All adults must shoulder a responsibility toward the health of the generations following us. More important than laws or money spent on younger people is the time we spend with them, exposing them to activities and experiences that will mold their lives more than material goods or hours spent in front of today’s TV and movies. When different media have the quality to contribute to this nurturing, they should be part of the moral environment every one of us must work to develop for all America’s children.

EILEEN PALSULICH

Torrance

The commentary in the May 1 Calendar section focused on the media’s role in promoting, or at the very least desensitizing us to, violence, but the packaging of the stories may have unknowingly pointed out a far more subtle factor: gender.

All eight pictures on the page showed men holding guns. All of the killers in these school shootings have been male. Let’s be more specific when we say that the media and video games are “desensitizing teenagers to violence.” They are desensitizing boys. Movies such as the ones featured in this coverage are perpetuating the dangerous gender stereotype that boys need to be violent to be cool.

I’m sure these movies affect many girls as well. However, we cannot deny that these movies, and most action movies in general, target young men. As with the Littleton shooting, no one person or group can be held responsible for the gender roles that continue to damage our society. But we must investigate how to weed them out of our world before the combination of male aggression and access to the weapons that will execute that aggression costs us another life.

JUDY COLEMAN

Northridge