Colorado Shooting Not About Midnight Movies
I have a request. Please stop talking about taking kids to midnight movies in relation to the horrible Colorado shooting.
I’m saying please.
This isn’t directed at anyone in particular. And of course by writing this I am doing exactly what I’m asking others not to do.
My point is that while it does seem like a bad idea to take very young children to a midnight movie, especially one like The Dark Knight Rises, which in my opinion is not a kid-friendly superhero movie the way The Avengers is, that just isn’t a fair topic to bring up right now. People have been killed. Many more have been wounded. Take a breath and stop thinking about this awful occurrence as something that has anything to do with superhero movies.
I’m not even sure this is a good time to discuss guns. I’m serious. Is it really such a bad idea to let the victims have a couple of days of mourning before everyone uses this horrible event as a jumping off point to discuss, well, anything?
I’m not talking about censorship. I’m talking about restraint.
[...] After reading the Times’ story, I sampled some opinion pieces. Roger Ebert did a good job of making his point without going over the top, and I was surprised to find that Gail Collins did as well. Ms. Collins is my favorite columnist at the moment, in part because she’s usually quite funny. I wasn’t sure that she would find the right tone with this topic, but in my opinion she did. I may try to read more opinions later, once some time has passed and there’s less screaming about topics like taking kids to midnight movies. [...]