I am extrapolating, you understand:
A day after he announced he was going to make a film taking on the NRA with Meryl Streep, Harvey Weinstein — the producer of several violent films — told CNN’s Piers Morgan in an interview to air tonight that he has had a change of heart about violent content in film. Asked by Morgan about his hypocrisy of making these violent films, Weinstein said, “They have a point. You have to look in the mirror, too. I have to choose movies that aren’t violent or as violent as they used to be. I know for me personally, you know, I can’t continue to do that. The change starts here. It has already. For me, I can’t do it. I can’t make one movie and say this is want I want for my kids and then just go out and be a hypocrite.
I do not know what is actually the ‘optimal’ amount of violence that one should see at the movies*. But I do know that partisan polemic movies designed to go after legitimately popular organizations and groups typically end up leaving a smoking hole in the ground. Which means that Weinstein will discover fairly quickly that voluntarily giving up producing movies that gross over 400 million domestically for those that will, um, not will have a fascinating effect on his ability to get work. Which is irrelevant if he’s really decided to embrace ahimsa, of course.
If.
Moe Lane
PS: I can’t wait to see what Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is going to look like under this new set of principles. Seven months should be plenty of time to take out all of the violence from a Frank Miller project….
*Presumably there should be some: we’ve been telling each other stories involving conflict and violence for our entire history as humans, after all. And truly totally nonviolent humans are rare (and ones that comment on the Internet, rarer still).
At least he’s not using taxpayer money (that we know of) for this disaster.
“…and say this is what I want for my kids…” Not much of a movie watcher, and don’t watch violent films simply because they’re more about special effects than actual acting and suspense, but I wonder what he thinks about his kids being flooded by the sexual decadency that he and his peers put out.
To use the old Tanya Tucker song yet again, It’s A Little Too Late To Do The Right Thing Now.