Jamie Foxx Responds To School Shooting: ‘Violence In Films’ Plays A Role
Dec. 22 2012, Published 10:35 a.m. ET
In the wake of the tragic Sandy Hook elementary school shooting,one star says the entertainment industry should take some responsibility for the violence in America.
Oscar winner Jamie Foxx said actors can’t ignore the fact that movie violence influences people as he promoted Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming ultra-violent film about slavery, Django Unchained.
“We cannot turn our back and say that violence in films or anything that we do doesn’t have a sort of influence,” Foxx said in an interview with the Associated Press, “It does.”
In true Tarantino fashion, blood pours from the characters as they are shot or shredded to pieces by rabid dogs in Django Unchained.
Despite last Friday’s mass shooting, the press junket for the film, which opens in theaters Christmas Day, continued in New York the following day as scheduled.
On the one week anniversary of the tragedy, executive director of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, echoed a similar response to Foxx in a bizarre news conference where he also called for armed guards in schools.
LaPierre took aim at “movies such as American Psycho and Natural Born Killers.” He scolded, “violent music videos” and lashed out at anyone who “has the nerve to call it entertainment.”
Meanwhile, Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino, whose credits include the violent Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill volumes, said he was tired of defending his films each time the U.S. is shocked by gun violence.
He said “tragedies happen” and blame should fall on those guilty of the crimes.
Foxx’s co-star Kerry Washington said she believes the film’s explicit brutality serves an important purpose in educating audiences about the atrocities of slavery.
“I do think that it’s important when we have the opportunity to talk about violence and not just kind of have it as entertainment, but connect it to the wrongs, the injustices, the social ills,” she said.
In the Newtown, Connecticut massacre, gunman Adam Lanza killed his mother and then went to an elementary school, where he killed six adults and 20 children before committing suicide.
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