Movies triggering real crime

Yeah, I think violent movies can cause actual crimes. Or stupid acts that probably aren't actual crimes.

Reportedly, people started trying to crawl out onto the prow of cruise ships so they could do whatever Leonardo DiCaprio did in Titanic. I don't know what the death toll is from The Deer Hunter's Russian Roulette scene. There were murders triggered by Natural Born Killers. 

A Matrix fan adopted the movie's solipsism as a philosophy, decided that everything was imaginary and murdered someone. Now he's imagining that he's in prison.

"No, no, you see, nothing exists outside my mind!" he probably told the judge.

But it can be unpredictable.

Millions of people saw the trailer for The Program, a movie about college football players who, among other things, lie on the yellow line in the middle of a busy street at night in order to prove their courage. Some young people tried this after seeing the movie and discovered that cars drift over the center line all the time. People point to this as an example of how irresponsible filmmakers can destroy people's lives, but none of the millions of people who saw the movie or saw the scene in previews predicted this would happen.

In Lincoln City, Oregon, two morons murdered a couple taking a walk on the beach. They did it because they wanted to be like Dick Hickock and Perry Smith in In Cold Blood, two violent morons who spent most of their lives in prison. Hickock was a child molester. They both wound up being hanged. It was grim, depressing movie. Detectives couldn't imagine anyone wanting to be like those guys.

And now, another example.

I watched Akira Kurosawa's High and Low with commentary on The Criterion Channel. It was a kidnapping story. Kurosawa made it in large part because there had been a wave of kidnappings in Japan. The victims were all children, preschoolers in some cases, and a large number of them were murdered.

Kidnapping wasn't treated as a serious crime under Japanese law at the time. High & Low called for increasing prison sentences for the crime.

It was an anti-kidnapping movie. So what happened?

Some Japanese guy went to the movie then kidnapped a four year old off the street, murdered him and then demanded a ransom for him.

Years ago, I was sitting in my car at a railroad crossing. The train had come to a stop and was just sitting there and I was in a line of cars so there was no getting out. I was listening to the radio. The technical adviser for Breaking Bad was on. They asked if she was worried that she was showing people how to set up a meth lab. She said it didn't matter----no one would ever be stupid enough to imitate such a grimly violent TV show. I didn't have her faith.

One time, at work, I was marveling that Battle Royale, a Japanese movie so shocking it was unavailable in the U.S. for years, was directed by an old guy. He had a long liste of credits including Tora Tora Tora and Message from Space. A co-worker told me about his dim-witted friend who said he'd LOVE to have been forced to fight to the death with all his classmates in high school.