Comedian Demetri Martin tells a joke during his stand-up routine about creating a video game called “Super Busy Hospital” in which you take care of characters who get shot in every other video game. He jests, “I’m performing surgery on a man who was shot in the head 57 times.”

Though funny, it’s frightening how true this joke pertains to gun violence in American pop culture, and how much audiences enjoy it.

Regardless of whether Congress passes stricter gun regulations in the near future, we need to address gun violence as a fetish in its fictional form.

Take “Django Unchained” (2013) for instance. When Django shoots Calvin Candie’s sister, Lara, she’s blown into the next room — much to the theater’s amusement, or at least the one I was in. Scenes like this are a Quentin Tarantino trademark, and many of his films are considered classics.

But the pinnacle of gun-blasting action movies has to be “Shoot ‘Em Up” (2007). As the title suggests, it’s essentially an hour and a half of Clive Owen littering bad guys with bullets.

I’m not saying all forms of gun violence should be banned from film, and I understand these movies are fiction. But it’s the brutal excessiveness and approval by audiences that is unsettling.

I’m not above it — war movies are my favorites, though they often include gruesome scenes. “Saving Private Ryan” (1998) is one of the goriest war movies there is — men are burned alive, shot in the head and blown to pieces. Yet the Normandy landing scene exemplifies the gratuitous violence.

After Americans take out a bunker, the German soldier inside tumbles out toward the beach as an entire U.S. platoon pumps rounds into his flailing body. Sgt. Horvath says with regretful sarcasm, “It’s a God damn fire squad.”

In the middle of the greatest military engagement in history, Horvath notes how unnecessary it is to use that many bullets to kill the German. He recognizes that, at a certain point, it’s sadistic. His response rightfully indicates that in this movie and others that, yes, gun violence is sometimes necessary, but there should be a limit.

Music is also characterized by excessive firearms use. Hip-hop, more specifically “gangsta rap,” romanticizes gun violence. Though groups like N.W.A. tried to increase awareness of the violence in their neighborhoods, they perpetuated the cycle of fans idealizing “thug life”.

Eminem says it best in “Sing for the Moment”:

“See what these kids do is hear about us totin’ pistols/ And they want to get one cause they think the sh*t’s cool/ Not knowin’ we really just protectin’ ourselves/ We entertainers, of course the sh*t’s affectin’ our sales.”

Rappers are often judged not by their musical talent, but by their street cred. That is, where they’re from, their incarceration history and if they’ve ever been shot. Their association with gun violence is ingrained in their star personas.

Like in movies, this mentality often goes too far. And when it permeates into real life, it leads to tragedies, as was the case for artists like 2pac, Notorious B.I.G., Jam Master Jay and too many others.

The problem is not that gun violence exists in pop culture. What’s concerning is the degree to which it exists and how much we as a society enjoy its portrayal.

Gun violence is not just a legal issue, it’s a societal one, and by embracing its depiction in entertainment, we hinder our capability of preventing it in real life.

I get that it’s fiction, imagination, make-believe, that you can simply turn it off anytime the violence becomes too brutal. But when similar events happen in real life, there’s not a power button you can simply press and make everything go away.

James O’Hare is a senior history and political science major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at [email protected].

Published on April 16, 2013 at 1:24 am