First let’s look at some of these examples. In the ‘90s there were several copycat killings after people had watched Natural Born Killers and, allegedly, were influenced into murdering by the film alone. One victim, left paralysed after being shot, attempted to sue the movie’s director, Oliver Stone, and Time Warner (and was supported by the author John Grisham, of all people). The case was eventually dismissed by a Judge, which is a good result for us all because otherwise we’d be watching nothing more daring than Toy Story Part 624 by now (although I’m sure there’d be something in there which would be construed as psychologically damaging by someone).
Time Warner already had experience of this attitude. In 1992 they took a huge amount of flak when the band Body Count recorded a song entitled Cop Killer. Even the US President, George Bush, waded into this one, deriding the song and publishers. Ironically, some Warner executives were sent death threats. Way to prove a point guys… Eventually the album was re-released without the track. Lead singer Ice T defended the song:
"I'm singing in the first person as a character who is fed up with police brutality. I ain't never killed no cop. I felt like it a lot of times. But I never did it. If you believe that I'm a cop killer, you believe David Bowie is an astronaut."
He makes a perfectly valid point. Do we want movies and songs which are only truly accurate about their depictions of the author’s exploits? If that’s the case we’d better remove ninety percent of published material from shelves.
Switching formats, I’m sure everyone is familiar with Grand Theft Auto, even if you’ve never played the game. That’s the power of controversy. In third person perspective you have the ability to steal cars, beat people to death, rob money, shoot the police and, generally, create absolute bedlam. The series has been around since 1997 but it only seemed to cause a real stir when the perspective switched from a top-down view. This is presumably due to it looking more realistic when you bounce a prostitute off the bonnet of your stolen Corvette before getting out and finishing her off with a chainsaw. Like Natural Born Killers, the game has been linked with violent crimes and the publishing house has had to deal with a number of legal cases.
That’s just a few examples, from the many available. What would the campaigners have us do, stick to romantic comedies and music from Justin Bieber? Do me a favour, shoot me now. I’m generally against censorship for adults. Sure, you don’t want children watching the latest ‘hack ‘em to death’ slasher movie but once you become an adult you should be trusted to make the decision for yourself. This viewpoint is open to an obvious retort: “What about those who cannot be trusted to make that decision?” It’s a fair question, to a point. After all there will always exist a certain percentage of people capable of committing heinous crimes given the (smallest) incentive. Two questions though:
1. What percentage of the population is that?
2. Should the rest of the population be censored due to their existence?
Answers: very small and no.
The Grand Theft Auto series has sold more than one hundred and twenty million copies and is linked with half a dozen violent cases. That’s 6 violent cases from more than 120,000,000 copies of the game. Statistically that’s such a small percentage that a mathematician would probably discount it altogether as an abnormality, which is what it is.
Staying with software, let’s take a more extreme example. The terrorists who perpetrated the attacks on the New York Twin Towers apparently practiced flying airliners and got used to the city’s geography using Microsoft’s Flight Simulator program. That’s right, almost three thousand people killed with the aid of an innocuous simulation game. Ban that too then, eh?
Where does it end?
People with violent and impulsive disorders will not lose them by repeated viewings of Notting Hill (although, to be fair, Hugh Grant might start looking over his shoulder). If your brain is wired in that way then any number of things could act as a trigger. I completely accept that watching Hostel is more likely to send someone over the edge than Finding Nemo but I contend that these people were already teetering on the precipice. I don’t want to give them a shove but I don’t want to punish the 99.9999% of people who have no likelihood of ever going berserk either.
Personally, some of my favourite films are violent (Pulp Fiction and Fight Club for example). I own most of the Grand Theft Auto games and I wilfully opened fire on the civilians in the controversial airport scene in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I’ve been known to enjoy some ‘gangsta rap’ but nothing I’ve learned from Ice Cube has prompted me to shoot a cop in the face. I suffer from guilt if I run a kamikaze rabbit over in the car.
Surely I’m impatient and irritable enough, with an enjoyment of fictional media violence, to construct the perfect fall from sanity into a bout of mass murdering hysteria? But here I am, in my thirties, and mellowing more by the year. Yet, as I appreciate the complexities of human nature, I would not think to apply my case to the remainder of the population which is how you should react the next time you read about the case of a ‘copycat killer’.
