and crushing their heads with rocks, might have had some influence in this case.

In what ways are movies in the United States substantially different from movies in Canada, Europe, South America or Japan?

It's not as if they are watching different stuff, since US movies dominate box offices around the world.

Do you have any factual support for the proposition that the content of entertainment differs in places with lower rates of violent crime?

Or, on the flipside, in what ways does entertainment differ in countries which have higher rates of violent crime?

Violent media is everywhere.

Rates of violence vary wildly around the world.

Those two things don't seem to have a lot to do with each other.

Has been for a long time. One of the lowest homicide rates in the world.

I for one, know nothing about Japanese entertainment or homicide issues. Very curious comparison that maybe we can learn something from. Do they have gun laws like ours?

for a private citizen to legally own a firearm.

With the homogenization of cultures I suspect the relative difference in most OECD countries with media violence is not that great.

The Japanese reporting of homicides is a wee bit more restrictive than the rest of the world too. It does genuinely have a low rate, because it's a country with a decent social safety net, mostly homogeneous population, collectivist culture and yes low access to firearms, but it's not as low as they say. For a start that suicide rate massively higher than most places isn't really a hangover from seppuku culture; it's just a common classification used by cops investigating suspicious deaths without an easy suspect. The eye-popping conviction rate of their few murders is a clue to why.

The excuses for radical extremists are getting tiring at this point.

We are the land of the High Church of Redemptive Violence. Our society is so awash in violence that we barely even recognize it in a lot of instances. The cumulative effect is to discount violence in entertainment or diversion as not real, and of no significance to the sophisticated minds that distinguish between actual and depicted violence.

Being expose to violence, DAILY, in our "entertainment" will have effects on our psyche; individually and collectively. How could it not?

Ok, so, even if that was correct, let's say it is, even though that could be debated with different studies, what is the solution?

Ban violent video games, or violent entertainment? Not gonna happen. Not in a free country, anyway.

I go to the movies a lot, and yea, almost every trailer for the big budget films has violence featured in it to a ridiculous degree.

Still, unless we are talking about some kind of utopian enlightened science fiction-like based society, I don't see how this will change any time soon.

This has nothing to do with Islam. Nothing.

You have zero evidence to support your 'cleanse the culture of sin' thinking. None. You want to preserve the right of religious fuckers to berate LGBT while censoring films and books?

Very well said.

I am merely raising a point regarding the violence in "entertainment".
Curious though, where your own thoughts brought you by my OP. The points you raise were not in this OP. You did.

That's because you just want to shift discussion from religion to 'sinful culture'. Fuck that. No motion picture ever called me names. No piece of music ever rejected its own kid for being gay. People do that, religious people, straight bigoted people. Let's talk about that.

I will have to leave it at that, because I don't understand. Maybe you read something in this thread I do not see. I merely am bringing up the point about violence in "entertainment".
Sorry something has offended you, that was not the intent.

entertainment is a problem too

But if you want to start censoring literature can we start with the ultra violent Koran and Old Testament? Of course that's not what you or the OP have in mind.

In my world, you make a point by showing evidence not by preaching a sermon.

You are blaming the arts for what religion does. And doing so without a shred of evidence but with lots of personal insults.

Those who can't respond to actual points of discussion should just admit they are wrong.

I am saying there are many contributing things, including but not limited to glorification and acceptance of violence, as the OP says.
Period.

the blame from the source.

it seems that the imam that was in Orlando calling for the deaths of gay people, the man's homophobic father, the religion that says 'death to homosexuals', might be more of a factor than say 'Die Hard'.

It is a problem.

It is part of the problem.

vary drastically between nations, Japan happily consumes all sorts of violent media, and is also an exporter of the same, from Movies to Video Games, yet their rates of violence are way down compared to ours. Same is true worldwide. The world absolutely loves media with lots of action and violence in it, yet the places with the most violence seem to have it linked, rather directly, with lack of social safety nets, a reactionary culture, and easy accessibility to guns.

You bring up interesting points I had not considered.

media we consume that isn't sourced in the United States at all.

There are quite a few TV shows and movies made in Japan and South Korea that have a lot more explicit violence than what would be allowed here for broadcast, to give an example. Similarly, a lot of TV shows and movies in Europe, particularly the UK, for English media, is much more sexually explicit, and these are prime time programs, not our equivalent to "Skinemax" or HBO produced programs. Oh, and most of them that call for violence are just as violent as American media. But in many ways, American media is actually tame in regards to both sexuality and violence compared to other parts of the world. Tarantino is considered edgy here, his movies purposefully adopt the styling of many of Japan's, and Hong Kong's media.

when its relatively easy to watch a TV show produced in the UK for a British audience in prime time that is as violent and much more sexually explicit than anything on American television.

So by "in past years", you mean what, exactly? Since 1900?

Never had the urge to kill anyone.

Something, you know, easy.

This is always a fun topic on DU since going by responses on other topics that involve entertainment, nobody here watches TV or goes to the movies or listens to music, so they're the authorities on what we should be listening and watching.

US culture glorifies anger and confrontation. Daily entertainment and news media glorify conflict. The standard format for cable infotainment is to have two oppositional representatives argue. Entertainment media has devolved into reality TV where arguments are promoted, and runs series about law enforcement where people of color are overrepresented in the criminal character pools.
It has become so normalized that USAers accept the practice of people walking around brandishing guns and believe it is an unconditional right to own tools specifically designed to kill people.
When someone challenges the influence of media, I point out how old romantic movies so frequently showed violence as part of a romantic relationship and that when spousal abuse was finally taken seriously it was finally viewed as a sign of dysfunction. I think media reflects and feeds cultural acceptance and naturally perpetuates our ugliest facets.

It's that it is ADVERTISING for guns.

24/7 advertising - for every hero wannabe that thinks guns solve problems. Because the hero always has the best guns.

It normalizes and promotes guns as solutions. It glorifies them. It shows what happens to the hero if you don't have a gun (ohhh, bet you wish you had a gun when the bad guys come). Better get a gun. Or two. Oh, what kind of gun? Web search for "what gun was used in xxx movie", etc, etc.

We've been down this path. Cigarettes anyone?

Pretty soon it becomes part of the culture, and people who have no business owning one, who have no sense of responsibility or the effort it takes to learn how to use one and be safe with it are walking around with a concealed weapon. And that "power" they feel is intoxicating - leading to willing soldiers willing to oppose any and all sensible measures that actual responsible owners should be screaming for.

the millions of murderous home intruders that flee at the Holy Brandishing of the Arms, the billions of rabid coyotes and rabid Mexicans everyone's cousin's cousin has to deal with that soft urbanites know nothing of, of massacres prevented by one armed Hero--that guns are Freedom, that guns are Safety, that the first thing everyone does after a mass shooting is get more AR-15s

"Sangre por Sangre" is hugely influential among maras, but just conveys a certain sense of honor the mareros like

the real problem is that money has an absolute lock on policy, all Congress cowering like it's in the dock

only 22 states have so much as voiced objections to the national plan of "give the rich everything while

we stepped foot on the continent.

Violent movies, TV shows, and video games don't make people commit violent crimes anymore than Tom and Jerry turned Baby Boomers into serial cat killers.