Because
of the real-life devastation that tornados caused in Oklahoma yesterday, CBS
decided to postpone the finale of the sitcom “Mike & Molly,” which
dealt with a tornado hitting Chicago.
Following
the mass shootings in a premiere showing in Aurora, Warner Bros., the
distributor of the violent movie “The Dark Knight
Rises," canceled gala premieres in Paris, Mexico and Japan, and some
television advertisements. The company instructed cinemas to stop showing a
trailer for a film “Gangster Squad” which preceded “The Dark Knight Rises”
screenings in some cities because it contained a scene involving the main
characters shooting at a movie theater audience with machine guns.
Why
are disastrous and violent events entertaining to so much of the American
public, when if they happen in real life, we think of them as tragic? Have we
separated ourselves into different groups on hierarchies to such an extent that
as long as tragedy and violence is happening to someone else, we don’t feel
their pain, and enjoy watching them suffer and/or die?
What
if we, for a week, imagined that every violent and unkind act we see on TV or
in the movies were happening to us or to our sister, brother, mother, father,
son, daughter, partner, friend. Would we find it entertaining to watch such
pain and suffering by ourselves or someone we love? Would that exercise help us
to overcome the divides that hierarchies have caused, and instead, build the
community that our country craves?
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2013/05/cbs-pulls-mike-molly-tornado-themed-finale/
