Souvenirs of the Apocalypse

Abstract

A week later Donald Trump blamed movies and video games for creating the violent culture that led to the shooting, saying: "I don't know what this does to a young kid's mind, somebody growing up and forming and looking at videos where people are just being blown away left and right. .. the level of craziness and viciousness in the movies, I think we have to look at that too." 1 Trump's remarks are in sync with the NRA's take after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. As a means of explaining the killings, Wayne LaPierre called the movie business "a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people." He pointed to "blood-soaked slasher films like American Psycho and Natural Born Killers that are aired like propaganda loops." 2 And yet, in 2013 the NRA's magazine The American Rifleman ran a story about the top ten "coolest gun movies." 3 Some of these, like The Alamo (1960), draw on Western themes and celebrate the survivor who uses his gun for masculine adventure. Others, like Terminator (1984) and Red Dawn (1984), imagine an alternate dystopic future in which guns are the only means to survive against hostile foes. Zombieland (2009) and Tremors (1990) stray into fantasy, imagining monstrous enemies that threaten all of civilization. The Road Warrior (1981) celebrates the violent vigilante, scraping out an existence in a dismal post-apocalyptic future. All celebrate the manly pluck of the shooter who knows when to kill and doesn't hesitate.