Shooting in Aurora

In an Op-Ed in Tuesday's Washington Times by Charles Hurt (An open letter to Christopher Nolan, Sean Penn and Warner Brothers), he seemingly includes those mentioned in his header as, at least, partially responsible for last weeks horrible shoooting in Aurora, Colorado. He makes this connection because of the violence and gore included in their movies.

Now, I can understand the underlying message in Hurt's Op-Ed and I am certainly no apologist for Sean Penn, but - c'mon - Nolan, Penn and WB did not commit this crime; James Holmes did.


Peckinpah movies are tremendously bloody, Tarantino seems to love bleeding head wounds. For their day, E.G. Robinson movies were horribly violent; my mother is still afraid to see a movie with him in it. Psycho, a classic and highly regarded film, terrified viewers. There was more detailed and realistic blood and dismembered bodies in Saving Private Ryan than any Batman movie invented.

I understand, but Hurt should not distract from Holmes' responsibility for this crime by diluting it with assertions of culpability by those who did not commit the act.

As for the little girl, though she by no means deserved to die, what parent with at least two brain cells to rub together would allow her to go to a Nolan interpretation of Batman in the first place, let alone a midnight showing? That was the height of irresponsibility, even had there not been yet a mild disagreement within the walls of the theater. This movie was aimed at a specific demographic that does not include a six-year old little girl.