The Long Walk takes moviegoers into a dystopian America, where every year, a handful of boys and young men sign up to walk as far as they can, night and day, without stopping. And if they do stop, or even slow down, they’re killed.
When its two main protagonists hear another gunshot behind them, one turns to the other and essentially says, I thought I would get more used to this part.
That’s what I’m afraid of, the other answers.
I was thinking about that exchange when I heard about the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Moments after the 31-year-old was shot by a sniper Sept. 10, the bloody video landed on social media platforms, sweeping through newsfeeds like a tsunami. Anyone who wanted to see the video could find it. And those who didn’t want to see it? Tough luck.
How many kids and teens saw Kirk die? It’s hard to say. But we know that, for those who did see it, the impact will likely leave a mark.
USA Today interviewed several mental health professionals in the wake of the Kirk shooting, and the consensus is clear: Violent videos and images can impact us deeply.
“The repeated posting of graphic images can lead to desensitization and dehumanization, where people become numb to what they are watching, stop seeing victims as individuals who have lives and families and stop caring,” Sarah Parkinson, assistant professor of political science and international studies at Johns Hopkins University, previously told the paper.
But it’s not just real-world violence that can be an issue. Countless studies suggest that on-screen violence, be it real or simulated, can be linked to aggression and desensitization.
And that brings us back to The Long Walk—a violent movie that decries violence.
The young men participating in the Walk are victims, the movie tells us. People lining the streets to watch the contestants pass are called vultures. The fact that every step is being televised is treated as loathsome. How can a society show such horrors? We’re supposed to ask.
And we ask ourselves such questions as we sit in a theater, grabbing another handful of popcorn, watching another teen receive a bullet to the skull.
Is context important? Of course it is. We know the blood and bone we see in The Long Walk is the product of a competent Hollywood visual effects department, and studies suggest that does make a difference. But even if fictional violence doesn’t have the same impact on us as the real thing does, such exposure still numbs us, bit by bit. And as that desensitization grows, so does the film industry’s desire to make its violent movies ever more violent—to try to shock desensitized moviegoers into feeling horror. Revulsion. Something.
Earlier this year, a study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that violence in entertainment has gone up—way up—in the last 20 years. In fact, rates of firearm violence in the most popular films have increased by 200% since 2000. That coincides with a rise in gun violence over the last two decades, especially involving teens.
“Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the portrayal of guns in popular entertainment may play a role in promoting their use for violent purposes among young people,” said Dan Romer, the study’s lead author.
We cannot speculate what was in the killer’s mind when he pulled the trigger. But the society in which that killer lived and learned is growing angrier and more desensitized than ever.
Many around the country are questioning how we have arrived at this horrific point. David Chalian, a reporter and analyst for CNN, said, “I think we are broken, potentially beyond repair.”
As Christians, we know the answer to brokenness: Jesus. But we are an increasingly secular society—and one that often tries, not to fix what’s broken, but to mask it. We try to forget our troubles through entertainment. We try to salve our pain through social media.
But what if entertainment and social media are breaking us more? What if we’re literally paying to break?
We’re exposed to a lot of violence now. And thanks in part to Hollywood, we’re getting pretty used to it.
4 Responses
While I don’t believe there’s anything inherently wrong with violence in entertainment, that it usually depends on the context, I can’t imagine someone who consumes nothing but increasingly violent media being well-adjusted as a result. However, I would argue—especially in regard to young people—that the internet is a far more significant risk than traditional media. Obviously independent content on sites like YouTube typically don’t have the same standards that movies and TV are still (generally) held to, but you also have social video sites like TikTok and Instagram where content comes at you fast with little to no moderation or warning.
I remember when teens used to share LiveLeak videos of people being killed or mutilated, or when there was an entire board on Reddit specifically for watching people die. Now it’s just a fast and constant feed of all manner of depravity randomly slotted in between everything else. That would already have a seriously damaging psychological effect on most adults, but what about the millions of children who use these sites daily? How many of them witnessed Charlie Kirk’s unspeakable murder without their friends even having to send it to them? We already know what kind of sexual depravity results from desensitization by pornography, would this not have the same kind of effect on how we view violence and death?
The critical thing is that fictional death is never the same as real death. Even the most “realistic” depictions are still glamorized and hyperbolic. Real death is not glamorous or dramatic. It is ugly and disturbing. It’s little wonder as to how so many have come to so callously disregard the sanctity of life and dignity of others, or find it so easy to convince themselves that murder is an acceptable course of action for disagreement or discomfort.
I think this is a good question. When Hunger Games came out I felt very uncomfortable about it, which was the point of the franchise. Now, with most things not appearing on broadcast TV, the boundaries seem to be pushed, or it will be like Stranger Things which becomes progressively more violent with less prior warning to look away as the seasons count higher.
I am very fortunate that I came across a blurred version of the Charlie Kirk murder. However, it has still made me feel very sad this week along with the other murders and remembering September 11th. I feel like there is an increasing conflation of differing views with violence. Just this past semester, I went back to take a college class as part of a hobby. I am a Millennial, but I’ve found college has changed. There was a transgender Gen Z student who threatened violence on anyone who says anything against lesbianism and also made other violent comments throughout the semester and complained about the “straight man” student until he left. Another student later brought this to the teacher and the teacher did nothing. I am an R.N. so I’m used to having mental patients threaten harm against me or try to punch me, however, as the other Christian student later pointed out, this was not in a hospital setting where we have coworkers to protect us and I should take threats more seriously.
We need to pray because the way our country is set up, it depends on free speech in order to function.
Unfortunately it doesn’t even take social media to show a kid just how violent the world can be. I broke down in tears at the start of yesterday’s homeschool lesson. My 12 year old son will be learning modern history this year. Until now, I’ve done my best to shield him from the violence of history. Wars of knights on horseback and trebuchets breaking castle walls seem so distant and removed that while they were violent, they didn’t feel as visceral. And they were usually interspersed with long periods of relative peace and rebuilding afterward. But the 19th and 20th centuries are comprised entirely of war upon war upon war and the worst that humanity has to offer on display. Slavery. Genocide. Trench warfare. Weapons of catastrophic destruction. Nuclear threats. Rioting in the streets. Revolts and dictatorships. And I had to tell him, “I can’t shield you from it anymore. You need to know. Because you’re gonna have to go out and live in it. And you need to realize that until people learn how to fix the evil within themselves (through Jesus), you’re never gonna fix the evil out there. Every revolutionary and politician who promised otherwise eventually fell prey to the evil in his own heart and became that which he vowed to destroy. The ones that swore all the violence would be justified if they could just ‘get rid of those in the way of our progress’ merely turned the guns on their constituents the moment they questioned why the promised utopia hadn’t materialized. The violence isn’t justified. And it’s not how Jesus wants us to do things.”
And it kills me that he’s gonna have to go out and face a world that’s not totally on board with those ideas. That want to see him suffer for doing the right thing. As a mom, it breaks my heart because we try so hard to protect their innocence. And I’m not sure there’s an easy way to prepare them for a world that would gladly dance on their grave if given the chance. All I can do is help him built a foundation centered on Christ and pray that God helps with the rest.
Have received some long comments here ^^
Here is something that kind of bugs me, maybe you could clarify.
Most conservatives: we need to emphasize personal responsibility for our own choices and actions, instead of having a victimhood mentality and blaming society;
Also most conservatives: the media is influencing us too much, and is to blame for rising behavioral issues, and we’ll support the government regulating the media, but we won’t support the government asking for a background checks on guns or banning certain types of guns, or other such measures
I don’t totally get it. Is society broken, I think Yes. Is entertainment breaking it? I think largely no, and it’s far from the most concerning thing in society right now. I think what is really breaking society is at the core our inability to come together and find common ground on some shared reality we can acknowledge is true, even among many christians, let alone non christians. The problem is too many people believing what they want, and then only looking at any news and evidence that agrees with what they already decided to believe (confirmation bias). And the “news” and social media and algorithms that cater to giving people what they want to hear instead of what they should hear. Seems like many people have lost the art of being “objective and rational”, but have convinced ourselves we’re right to the point where we close our minds to hearing any other point of view or considering the possibility we could be wrong. That’s really what is breaking society; Baseless confidence/arrogance in thinking we know what is right, so we don’t need to learn anything more
Sometimes I am not sure I really understand what being sensitized or desensitized actually means, or why being desensitized is a bad thing. If you feel like crying every time you see violence in media, is that what it means to be sensitized? Is that really more healthy than the alternative?. If one person feels nausea at the sight of gore in a movie and another person does not, is the first person more moral than the second?
I thought the Long Walk was the best movie of the year so far. I thought there was a lot of beauty and truth mixed in with the horror and pain and tragedy, and that made it all the more moving. The Long Walk is not a movie that is desensitizing me, I think it was actually an exercise in “re-sensitizing” me in a way. The movie shows the humanity of those boys so fully, that it makes the violence all the more tragic and affecting. I cried in the movie, not because the violence scared or disturbed me; I cried for these characters in a horrible tragic situation that they can’t escape or do anything about, and what they are forced to endure. I cried for Pete telling Ray not to choose vengeance in his life, and the tragedy that in the end he was so hurt he couldn’t even take his own advice. I cried for Garretty almost losing his life just out of a desperate desire to hug his mom one more time, and I definitely cried to see Garretty and Pete both try to give their life so the other could live.