In a surprise Twitter-bomb, Jim Carrey has withdrawn support for his upcoming film Kick-Ass 2. His reasoning after the cut.
I did Kickass a month b4 Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence. My apologies to e
— Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) June 23, 2013
I meant to say my apologies to others involve with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart.
— Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) June 23, 2013
Creator and writer Mark Millar had this to say:
As you may know, Jim is a passionate advocate of gun-control and I respect both his politics and his opinion, but I’m baffled by this sudden announcement as nothing seen in this picture wasn’t in the screenplay eighteen months ago. Yes, the body-count is very high, but a movie called Kick-Ass 2 really has to do what it says on the tin. A sequel to the picture that gave us HIT-GIRL was always going to have some blood on the floor and this should have been no shock to a guy who enjoyed the first movie so much…Â Kick-Ass 2 is fictional fun so let’s focus our ire instead of the real-life violence going on in the world like the war in Afghanistan, the alarming tension in Syria right now and the fact that Superman just snapped a guy’s fucking neck.
I have to point out the inconsistency of decrying criticism of fictional violence only to turn around and criticize fictional violence (let’s be real– when it comes to onscreen blood and body count, Superman has nothing on Kick-Ass), but Millar does present one side of the ongoing debate over violence in popular media.
This “change of heart” came to the surprise of just about everyone. Considering that the film opens August 15th, the press circuit for the movie has just begun to ramp up– and, whether it was intentional or not, he has been receiving a lot of coverage since the tweet was published.
In the wake of tragedies like Sandy Hook and by hyper-violent films like Django Unchained, more people are thinking about how violence is used in the media. The border between what should and shouldn’t be acceptable to portray on film is a very hazy one, particularly in a world where sex and pleasure on screen are given NC-17 ratings and violence is promulgated as far as the PG-13 ratings.
I would love to think that Carrey is trying to do some good and call attention to this issue with his fame, but everything done in the public eye must be taken with a grain of salt.
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