In a public service announcement that aired on television several of Hollywood’s biggest stars spoke out against gun ownership. Among them were Jamie Foxx and Jeremy Renner. Facing the camera with dead serious expressions they asked how long our country would continue to countenance gun-related violence.
Among the movies Jamie Foxx has starred in are “Django Unchained,” “Collateral,” “White House Down,” “Jarhead” and “Miami Vice.” The movie poster and DVD cover for every one of those movies shows someone, usually Jamie Foxx, holding a gun. And in all of them, guns are fired and people die.
Among the movies Jeremy Renner has made are “The Bourne Identity,” “The Hurt Locker,” “The Town,” “S.WA.T.,” and “Fish in a Barrel.” The movie poster and DVD cover for every single one of those movies shows someone, usually Jeremy Renner, holding a gun. And in all of them, guns are fired and people die.
Supplying guns to Hollywood is a huge business, especially in the last decade as gun use in big box-office movies increased by 51 percent over the previous decade. Hollywood’s leading gun supplier is Independent Studio Services (ISS), which is staffed by “armorers,” who work with Hollywood directors, not only in providing them with the guns they need to tell their stories, but also to create unique new guns when the plot — usually a science-fiction plot — requires it. One ISS armorer, Larry Zanoff, says that in big-budget movies today, “Seventy-five percent of the time there’s at least one gun involved.”
Not incidentally, at the National Rifle Association’s Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Virginia, “Hollywood Guns” is the most popular exhibit, with Dirty Harry’s (Clint Eastwood’s) Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 caliber Magnum Revolver (“Go ahead, punk, make my day.”) the most popular gun.
Bottom line: Guns are integral to the success of Hollywood, and many studies have shown that the violence prevalent in movies can cause gun-related violence among people, especially angry and mentally imbalanced people, watching those movies.
Does that make Jamie Foxx and Jeremy Renner sound hypocritical? Not according to Dustin Black, a screenwriter, who actually believes Hollywood’s profiting from guns legitimizes its outspokenness against guns. “As storytellers who use guns in our stories and who should be aware that manufacturers do benefit from them, it’s all the more reason to advocate for common-sense gun reform,” he says.
Actor Tom Arnold (who co-starred with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the ultra-violent “True Lies”) is more realistic. “Everyone talks about ‘liberal Hollywood,’ but I don’t think that’s the case, particularly with guns,” he says, adding that Hollywood’s politics are about the money. “This is an industry where, if the tax credits were right, we’d probably be shooting movies in Syria right now.”
