Unpopular Opinion: Hollywood Has Conditioned Us To Be Less Empathetic

One of the biggest problems we face as a nation is getting back to the sense of community we once had.  There was a time when we thought about "the greater good" and worked towards it together.  We wanted to have better schools where now it seems to be all about how we can shrink the budgets and provide the bare minimums.  We wanted nice parks and recreational facilities, where now it seems to be "I don't use it, why should my tax dollars pay for it?"  The prevailing notion among many lately seems to be "nothing matters unless it happens to me."  

There are a number of factors that have led to that.  Selfishness and greed are at the top of the list.  These have always been present in society but it seemed like the many who were compassionate and community-oriented outnumbered the greedy and selfish.  More and more I see people I once thought were decent human beings not care that the child down the street might not have health care or might be going to bed hungry.

The movie Wall Street gave us the mantra "Greed is Good."  It was never the intention to make that a positive.  It was uttered in the film by the film's villain of sorts.  Couple that saying with the prosperity gospel that began being preached from pulpits once the Republicans and Conservatives became symbiotic with Conservative Christianity as a means to an end, and we were headed down the path of people denouncing the poor with a clear conscience.  It had to be their fault.

I don't put the blame on Hollywood there.  In fact, what I am calling them out on is something that no one would think about twice, normally.

In Hollywood, movies have to have a happy ending.  People have to leave the theater feeling good.  There have been some great books turned into films that end up horrible because Hollywood changes the ending of the book because it's not "happy" enough.  The same is true of some foreign films that were excellent and lose something when they are "adjusted" by Hollywood for American audiences.  The movie The Vanishing comes to mind.  If you haven't seen the foreign version of it, I recommend it, then view the Hollywood version and you'll see what I mean.

Thus began the conditioning of the American audience in disaster and thrillers put out by Hollywood.  I enjoy them as much as the next person.  Disaster movies are sort of a guilty pleasure for me, as are some of the schlocky thrillers such as Olympus Has Fallen.  The problem is when Hollywood tries to give us a "happy ending" when hundreds, thousands, or even millions have died in whatever disaster or terrorist attack Hollywood dreamt up.  At the end of the film, we're supposed to walk out of the theater happy because the protagonist(s) of the film survive.

That is where I believe Hollywood's culpability lies.  Instead of us mourning the dead, we are cheering the ones who survive and ignoring the rest because we want to feel good.  Those nameless, faceless people don't matter, much the same way the nameless, faceless poor and homeless in our communities and country don't matter.  Everything is an abstract concept, until it happens to me.  

The defense of "it's just a movie" has merit.  It's true.  However, repeating over and over again in film after film the same way where we watch so many people killed and aren't expected to shed a tear yet hang on and cheer this small group of people or a single person for living through whatever event has desensitized us to the very thing we need more of.   

I know a lot of people will disagree.  There's a lot of talk about the violence in films and video games desensitizing people.  I don't think it's the violence itself.  I think it's the fact that we don't see what happens as a reason to mourn, only a reason to cheer when "the more important people" survive.  Perhaps if we were given a glimpse of all of the funerals and the families torn apart by the event, it would help.  Perhaps more of these protagonists should not survive.  Perhaps we should expect less "happy endings" and realize that in movies, like in life, it doesn't always happen.  And we should mourn people's deaths whether it was something entirely preventable or a natural disaster.