As Hollywood has responds to the rampage at a Connecticut elementary school by pulling back on its offerings, one star says the entertainment industry should take some responsibility for such violence. Jamie Foxx, one of the industry’s biggest stars, said Saturday as he promoted Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming ultra-violent spaghetti Western-style film about slavery, “Django Unchained,” that actors can’t ignore the fact that movie violence can influence people.
“We cannot turn our back and say that violence in films or anything that we do doesn’t have a sort of influence,” Foxx said in an interview on Saturday. “It does.”
In true Tarantino form, buckets of blood explode from characters as they are shot or shredded to pieces by rabid dogs in the soon-to-be-released “Django Unchained.” Despite Friday’s mass shooting, the press junket for the movie, which opens in theaters Christmas Day, continued in New York as scheduled on Saturday. Tarantino, whose credits include “Pulp Fiction” and the “Kill Bill” volumes, said he was tired of defending his films each time the nation is shocked by gun violence. He said “tragedies happen” and blame should fall on those guilty of the crimes.
He said, “I just think, you know, there’s violence in the world, tragedies happen, blame the playmakers. It’s a Western. Give me a break.”
Foxx’s co-star Kerry Washington said she believes the film’s explicit brutality serves an important purpose in educating audiences about the atrocities of slavery.
“I do think that it’s important when we have the opportunity to talk about violence and not just kind of have it as entertainment, but connect it to the wrongs, the injustices, the social ills,” she said.