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@@Did the Beatles make the Manson family kill Sharon Tate? Did "Beavis and Butthead" force 5-year-old Austin Messner to start a fire that killed his sister? Is Martin Scorsese's film "Taxi Driver" responsible for John Hinckley Jr.'s shooting of Ronald Reagan?

In light of last week's tragic shooting at Columbine High School, questions about how much entertainment influences children's behavior have again been raised in earnest. @@Sociologists agree that any time a tragedy of this magnitude occurs, the fingers of blame begin to point. And often they point toward popular culture. Violent movies, violent music, violent video games — many believe they have combined to erode the moral fiber of today's youth, turning some into ruthless killers.

In response to Tuesday's shootings at Columbine High School, Denver radio station KBPI canceled its "Birthday Bash" concert scheduled for Friday. The show's scheduled headliner was shock-rocker Marilyn Manson, alleged to be a favorite of shooting suspects Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

"It's tragic and disgusting anytime young peoples' lives are taken in an act of senseless violence," Manson said in a press release issued Thursday. "My condolences go out to the students and their families."

This sentiment comes from an artist who took the name of a serial killer as his stage name and routinely tears up Bibles and simulates sexual acts on stage.

Laurie Trotta is the executive director of California-based company Mediascope, a nonprofit organization that studies the issues of media in society. She says that there is an indirect link between violent imagery and violent behavior.

"In a society that is inundated with media images of violence, Mediascope believes that the cumulative effect, especially for people who are a little unstable, can be a contributing factor (to violent behavior)," Trotta said. "Especially with an adolescent who's going through all these hormonal changes, who feels unwanted and unloved."

Trotta said that while Mediascope's only video game research has been on older games that are not nearly as violent or realistic as today's sophisticated shoot-'em-ups, she expects that the effects of violence in video games will be similar to those of movies, maybe even worse.

"Common sense leads you down that path," Trott said. "Film or TV has violent images washing over you; video games put you in the action."

Also drawing criticism after the Columbine shooting is German hardcore electronic band KMFDM, whose final album, Adios, was released last Tuesday. Excerpts from KMFDM lyrics were posted on a Web site that allegedly belonged to shooting suspect Eric Harris.

KMFDM stands for Kleine Mitleid Fur Das Mehrheit, a phrase that translates loosely as "no pity for the majority." The band has courted controversy in the past for lyrics like, "If I had a shotgun, I'd blow myself to hell."

The lyrics "What I don't say I don't do. What I don't do I don't like. What I don't like I waste," from KMFDM's 1997 song, "Waste" were posted on the Web site. Other lyrics from Adios include lines like "Destroy what destroys you. Do or die" and "A new revolution/the ultimate war."

Heavy words, but are they catalysts for murder? That's a conclusion University of Colorado professor Janice Peck calls "easy."

"Vast amounts of media research have been unable to find causal effects for anything," said Peck, who teaches classes on media in CU's journalism department. "I'm not suggesting there's not a relationship between media and culture; there is. Media plays a role in shaping our view in what is considered normal and what is considered deviant."

Peck said the idea that Harris and Klebold listened to the wrong kinds of music and watched the wrong TV shows is ridiculous, a theory driven by fear.

"Anytime anything really awful happens, there is a desire to simplify what is so complex because it makes it less threatening and more understandable," Peck said. "It seems to be an attempt to identify and purge whatever it is that seems to be the evil. (It puts the evil) outside the schools, outside the families."

In a scene from the 1995 movie "The Basketball Diaries," teen heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio, dressed in a long black coat, shoots students at a high school. While Trotta says it would be simplistic to say that the movie caused the Columbine shootings, some believe that such scenes may provide a catalyst for kids already prone to brutality.

Keith Mann, a local filmmaker whose just-completed film, "Boulder Daze," will play in Boulder on May 20, believes a person must have some predisposition toward violence to be spurred to action by a violent film.

"The best analogy I can think of is a fly-fishing magazine," Mann said. "A fly-fishing magazine isn't going to cause a non-fisherman to take up fly-fishing, just by leafing through it. But if someone has a predisposition toward fly fishing, and is already a little bit interested in it, the magazine might cause them to go fly-fishing. If you have that tendency, (the magazine) might push you over the edge."

Mann says that certain actions are more attractive in movies when they are portrayed as fun, or as having no consequences. He notes that the shooting scene in "The Basketball Diaries" is part of a dream sequence.

"Nobody eats people because Hannibal Lecter eats people, because he's depicted as being evil," Mann said.

Dan Vaughn, who has been a youth pastor at Rocky Mountain Christian Church for the past 10 years, says that violent media play a part in incidents like the Columbine shootings.

"They plant ideas in kids' heads," he said of movies like "The Basketball Diaries." "There are images there that are so stark you can't forget them. For kids who are struggling with a variety of things, I think it's fodder for them to contemplate dealing with their own issues."

Local music publicist Ariel Hyatt believes that blaming Manson or KMFDM for the actions of two individuals is a form of scapegoating.

"There's always a trend in society that needs to point the finger," Hyatt said. "Let's blame this on the NRA and the fact that I can't buy a 2-Pac record at Wal-Mart, but I can buy a machine gun. There are more disturbing things on the Internet or at the library."

Among the KMFDM songs not quoted on Harris' Web site is "Terror." In it, the band sings, "Our societies are saturated with bloodlust, sensationalism and violence as a result of alienation from oneself's reality. How much longer do we tolerate mass murder?"

April 28, 1999

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