Tom Hanks has done his fair share of films, but here’s one thing you might not know: he really doesn’t like violence in movies. He thinks it’s become far too glamourized in recent years and just isn’t feeling it. Let’s let him take it away, shall we?
From The Daily Mail:
‘When I was growing up, Westerns, by and large, were kind of violent movies in which every argument seemed to be settled with either a gun or a fist in the face and those are sort of mythic examinations of the same stories that Shakespeare and Sophocles were telling,’ he says.
‘And then we got into another era where it becomes the kind of glamorous take on how gorgeous it can be to fire guns and blow up buildings and stuff like that.
‘And I understand that to a degree, but even when I was young I wanted to see films that somehow reflected my world or the world as I understood it or an authentic take on how complicated we all are.
‘And while there’s always room for a fabulous James Bond movie with a great action sequence in it, there is without doubt another type of film out there that is not that interested in it, there’s no moralisation that goes on, and I simply don’t choose to see them.
‘There have always been movies like that and it’s just that now they are part and parcel of the grand commerce of the motion picture industry.
‘I remember seeing Zulu when I was a kid. A very violent movie, it was all about gunfights and battles and massacres, but it ends up being a very different sort of movie, a time-capsule experience. I don’t think you can say that about some of the movies that come out today. But it’s all about a specific, personal choice.’
I mean, I’m not someone who subscribes to the idea that it’s the media’s fault that people are going on shooting sprees, to be honest. I think it comes down to a) ease of availability of the weapons used – the fact that you can purchase guns at a fucking Walmart might be a good place to start looking and b) lack of mental health awareness and care for those who need it. Someone who’s not already inclined to go on a murderous rampage isn’t suddenly going to do it because James Bond blew up a building – that’s just not reality. But I do think it’s an interesting dichotomy that the number of these incidents has increased as the media showcasing these actions is increased. Ah, who knows? It’s a complex issue.
The bottom line is that Tom Hanks is a big sweetie, right?
It’s interesting how we can all agree that we’ve become a more violent society, yet totally dismiss the fact that it could *possibly* be due to exposing our children to it at a younger and younger age along with the massive amounts we see on the news and watch on TV.