Hollywood’s Passion for Guns Remains Undimmed

Almost a year after the theater shootings in Aurora (CO) and a half-year after the killings in Newtown (CT), one of the things that hasn’t changed is Hollywood’s enchantment with the gun, at least when it comes to selling the big movies.

As the blockbuster film season unfolds, every major studio has firearms of one sort or another in its marketing arsenal. After the discussion of gun violence and pop culture at a January meeting between Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and a number of entertainment executives, the Motion Picture Association of America, an industry trade group, bolstered its ratings system with a campaign to remind parents of the content advisories that accompany a movie’s letter rating. But don’t look for any move to change the movies, or the high-caliber images used to sell them. “We believe our role is to help parents be informed of a film’s content, not to dictate the content in any way,” Kate Bedingfield, an MPAA spokeswoman, said.