A few years back, researcher Julia Lippman helped conduct a study that examined if TV and film influences the way people view their own romantic relationships. And the answer was yes, it does.
Obviously movies and TV shows aren’t the only factor. But the more marriage-themed reality shows you watch, the more you might be inclined to believe in love at first sight. And the more sitcoms you watch where the jokes spring from spousal bickering, the less optimistic you may be about the possibility of happy marriages in general.
In other words, the entertainment we watch can shape our expectations in subtle ways.
Which is so strange, because we know that movies and TV shows (even reality shows) are fiction — and yet the subconscious effect is still there. And that’s true of pretty much anything we watch.
According to Lippman: “Anybody who studies this takes for granted the fact that media has the potential to affect the way we think about things. We pretty uncritically accept that people are influenced by advertising, for example, otherwise why are companies spending so much money on it?”
A remake of 1974’s “Death Wish” opens this week with Bruce Willis in the Charles Bronson role, playing a man who turns vigilante after his wife and daughter are victims of a brutal crime. Roaming the city (New York in the original, Chicago in this version) he doles out justice, gun in hand.
I wondered how Lippman’s research might apply to different genres. Like “Death Wish.”
There are two trailers for the new movie and the difference in tone is fascinating (one is scored with AC/DC’s anthemy “Back in Black,” the other is considerably less rollicking in spirit), but what’s consistent is that both are the embodiment of the “good guy with a gun” trope stripped down to its essence.
That trope — the hero armed with hardware — is entrenched in pop culture. Filmmakers go back to it over and over again.
Lippman is a research fellow at the University of Michigan and she studies media effects. I asked her if movies actually do help shape how we think about what’s plausible or realistic in our own lives.
Because in the wake of each new mass shooting, often what follows is a debate that more or less centers on the idea of “good guy with a gun.” And what I found especially striking these past two weeks were the number of military veterans and firearms experts on social media explaining why this trope so rarely translates into reality.
You need extensive training. And even then, accuracy during a crisis is actually pretty low. That’s because shooting in stressful, chaotic conditions is extremely difficult. Especially when you have to make split-second decisions about who is a threat and who isn’t. Adrenaline does all kinds of things to the body. Sometimes, no matter how extensive your experience, you freeze in the moment. And sometimes you’re just outgunned. Brandon Friedman served as an Army infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan and wrote an op-ed for the New York Daily News about his own experiences shooting under stress and one line stuck out: “It’s not as easy as it looks on TV.”
Movies like “Death Wish” tell a different story. The bad guys are out there, Willis says in the trailer: “I’m going to hunt them down, one by one.”
We know this a fantasy. And we know that when we watch the Netflix series “The Punisher” or any of the Liam Neeson “Taken” movies or Keanu Reeves in “John Wick.” It’s heightened and stylized to such a degree that none of it actually looks real. And we consciously understand that.
But do these TV shows and movies create even a small space in the back of our minds where to think: Maybe this would work?
Here’s Lippman: “If you watch enough movies like this, you might be slightly more likely to see using guns as an acceptable means of conflict resolution.”
Just this week the Tribune reported that a man in nearby Kendall County who witnessed a stabbing “grabbed an AR-15-style rifle from his house and stopped the attack without firing shots.” In that circumstance, he was the good guy with the gun— but what if the man he confronted had not only a knife but a rifle as well? What if they exchanged gunfire? What if there were children nearby? What if innocent people were shot? What if another good guy with a gun heard the commotion and came out armed but assumed neither party he encountered was a good guy with a gun?
What if there was simply another way to stop the attacker?
It’s complicated.
In the movies, not so much.
“And that’s what is appealing,” Lippman said, “because justice is being served. The lines are clear. Most of us want to believe we live in a just world so if we’re seeing, hey, this is a way we can achieve this desirable outcome, then great. So that’s a lot of positive reinforcement. Also, I think all of us at times have harbored some sort of fantasy of avenging a wrong. And when you’re watching a TV show or movies, you can almost sort of be that — temporarily and vicariously — as you get lost in the world of the film.”
Let’s go back to “Death Wish” because I think the trailers are instructive. These are the images and words that the studio and director Eli Roth are emphasizing — this is what they want us to know about the movie.
“If a man really wants to protect what’s his, he has to do it for himself,” we hear in voice-over. That’s going to be appealing, Lippman said, because “it’s bound up in this idea that as Americans, we tend to admire self-reliance.
“And it’s bound up in ideas of masculinity and what it means to be a man: Being self-reliant, taking care of the family, protecting others. A movie can do the work of reinforcing those ideas by saying, ‘You can live up to those ideals by using a gun.’ But how different would ‘Death Wish’ be received if the Bruce Willis character was a woman? Or a black person? Or a Muslim who was avenging in the name of justice? I think we’d be looking at a very different film.”
“Somebody has to do it!” Willis says, and moments later we see a pretty blonde behind the counter at a gun shop winking as she tells him: “You’re cocked, locked and ready to rock.”
Over time, Lippman said, “repeated exposure to media tropes does tend to shape how you see the world. But if you saw these movies and everybody around you was saying, ‘Well, that’s stupid. Of course it wouldn’t work that way,’ it probably isn’t going to be as powerful. But if you’re surrounded by people who are already saying those things and you’re hearing it from politicians, then it becomes part of your reality over time.”
We go to the movies, especially big fat meatball movies like “Death Wish,” because they feature a swaggering action star saying impossibly stupid lines that we’ll repeat back to each other afterward. We want to shove popcorn in our faces and escape instead of analyzing everything so much. Even a terrible movie can be fun.
I get it. So does Lippman. “I don’t want to have the critical part of my brain on all the time when I’m watching things either!” she said.
So there’s a tension there. Of wanting to let a big noisy movie wash over you for a couple hours — and stopping to think about whether it’s affecting how you see the world.
As journalists, we’re doing a good bit of the shaping and framing ourselves, so I’ll leave you with this: Last year Collider put together a listicle of the “21 Best Shootouts and Gun Fights.” It’s a rich cinematic tradition, writer Haleigh Foutch notes — and she’s right. It is.
One that’s as popular and entrenched as ever.
Twitter @Nina_Metz
RELATED: Working hard, working long and working dangerous — films that tackle labor issues feel as vital as ever »
When women are abused on screen — and how that shapes opinions about whose stories we believe in real life »
It’s time Hollywood’s male stars use their power to level playing field »
Let’s block ads! (Why?)
