Thanks to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, Hollywood is taking a faux look at violence in movies and video games. There is little to no chance that Hollywood will actually tone down such violence, but at least while the microscope is on them, they’ll pretend to. Leading that pretend charge is Bob Iger of Disney, who says he is going to begin monitoring levels of violence in Disney’s video games. He said he told company executives “to take stock in everything we’ve got that can be considered near the line or over the line.”
Of course, Disney isn’t exactly ground zero for violent video games. Iger said as much: “Fortunately at Disney there’s very little [violent content], but I still want to make sure we’re asking ourselves the right questions in terms of that standard, and also [ensure] we’re willing to be a part of a dialogue in today’s world that I think is pretty necessary in terms of what our role is and what our role should be.”
Don’t look for any substantive changes from Hollywood. They’ll be too busy posturing for the cameras. After all, that’s what they do for a living.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the book “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).