Up until this point, besides short prefaces to two articles that I wrote about The Dark Knight Rises, I haven’t written about the tragedy in Aurora. Why? Because over the last several days I’ve grown more and more disgusted by the media’s reporting of the tragedy. I am tired of reading the headlines of “BUT HOW DID THIS AFFECT THE OPENING?” and “POSTERS AND OTHER SHIT FOUND IN CRAZY GUY’S APARTMENT.” I am tired of seeing that man’s sex site profile, his past lectures on science and the vague statements from “people who knew him.” I am tired of hearing that this shooting is going to be Obama’s big case for anti-gun laws (a past legislative “effort” that has seen no traction), tired of the assumption that film’s violence is to blame or even the fact that midnight screenings in general are to blame (that makes me seethe to the depths of my soul). Basically, the only good reporting has come from sites that want to remember and respect the victims, rather than glorify an evil killer who wants to be glorified.
In the front of this faulty media bonanza is Nikki Finke and the future of Gangster Squad. If you’ve seen the trailer for the next Ryan Gosling/Emma Stone project (oh and Sean Penn is also in it) you know that there’s a scene where gangsters stand behind a film projection screen, shooting bullets to make way for their path. Finke went on a war path about this trailer (the highly edited post is here), shaming Warner Brothers for not pulling it because it was “insensitive.” Keep in mind, this was one of the first lecherous reporters to write about The Dark Knight’s possibility of a less financially impressive opening weekend.
Side note: If you really want to see how much everyone hates Nikki Finke, it’s not hard to Google. She’s the worst.
But Finke, as well as other “journalists,” had their way because not only has Warner Brothers pulled the trailer, editing out the movie theater scene, but has decided to take out the scene completely. They’re going back into reshoots soon, to navigate around the sensitive tragedy.
Some of you may think that can be considered appropriate damage control for Warner Brothers. I don’t fault you for thinking so. I just can’t help thinking that this action is not only offensive in its extent of “damage control” but also a bigger argument on artistic integrity.
Feel free to roll your eyes at me, just hear me out.
Yet again, I compare something DKR related to 9/11, but I still think that it’s relevant. When terrorists attacked our country we held strong to the fact that we were still going to be champions, refusing to let ourselves be affected by such a horrific event. We were to become stronger and that strength would spit in the face of the goal of Al Qaeda. Of course, in reality, everything changed, but we still built a tower higher and the mere promise of strength to ourselves united us as a country, at least for a time being. The point is, the best way to mentally process such a senseless tragedy is the promise to “never forget” but also never falter. To acknowledge that something has jarred us so completely is letting the action, person and organization win. That’s what they wanted, because psychological warfare is just as effective as actual warfare.
To me, to change the course of The Gangster Squad is just as offensive as making comments about the box office opening because in reality, it has nothing to do with what happened and only lets the pain of the event win.
Why is it so hard to focus on the fact that James Holden was a mentally sick individual who did something completely unforgivable? That what happened wasn’t because of video games or movies? And why does Warner Brothers and Nikki Finke think that seeing a scene, in a 1930s set gangster film, will make the audience so uncomfortable that it borderlines on being offensive?
Do we pull every scene about rape because nearly 20% of all women have been sexually assaulted? Do we not go see war movies during the longest war in our nation’s history? Then there’s the fact that there has been numerous films about 9/11, most notably United 93 and World Trade Center and people went to go see them.
I understand that with this tragedy there are certain considerations. First, it’s fresh in our minds, and will be for a while. Second, some could argue that the aforementioned actions are sadly part of “every day life” and this event is an anomaly (then we can talk all about the gun laws and statistics in the United States). But going off on a purely film based topic, why do we need to feel that a scene needs to be adjusted because the audience can’t handle it?
Sometimes the purpose of art is to make people “uncomfortable,” due to introspection of the past. But that isn’t even the point here. Gangster Squad was written and filmed before the tragedy, so the context of the scene doesn’t exist anywhere near the massacre in Aurora. It exists in a different universe, in a different time. Sure, we’ll think about it, but should we already discount the film because this scene- in which we don’t know it’s surrounding context- will take us out of it?
(It should be mentioned that there have been some rumors about how the film is going back into reshoots because apparently it’s not testing well. But this is a rumor and the publicized reason for reshoots is what we’re talking about here).
I just hate to see us affected by this. I hate to see that despite whatever artistic and creative vision that Gangster Squad director Ruben Fleischer had it can be trumped by a maniac and some overzealous bloggers. I hate to see that Warner Brothers will lie down in the wake of this tragedy despite actually being one of the “bolder” giant production companies out there.
Yet more importantly than this diatribe, here is a beautiful slideshow about the victims of Aurora. They were film fans just like us and we will forever keep them and their family in our hearts.
UPDATE: It's been reported that Warner Brothers will push the release of Gangster Squad to early 2013. Rumor has it that the intended release date didn't give any time for the planned reshoots. I do hope that maybe they'll keep the scene as the script intended and sensitivity to the scene in question will die down by then.
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