On Saturday, a 21-year-old male entered a classroom in Anantapur with a power chainsaw, killing a girl. Netizens opine that ultra-violent movies are responsible for this dastardly behaviour, the kind of which is on the rise. Social media users also mentioned movies such as Marco, Toxic, KGF, and many more. A netizen named Shruti blamed a series of blood-soaked films across languages, including Vikram, Leo, Kaithi, Salaar, Pushpa, Pushpa 2, RDX, Asuran, Vada Chennai, Mahaan, Jailer, Garudan, Aavesham, Bheeshma Parvam, Devara, Akhanda, Saripodhaa Sanivaaram, Petta, Sarrainodu, Thuppakki, Arjun Reddy, Ugramm, Mufti, Tagaru, Kabzaa, and Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana. The Paradise can't be forgotten, by the way.
Here are some of the opinions shared by X users, both for and against the perspective that bloodletting actioners alone are responsible for the menace.
1. Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal has a scene where Ranbir Kapoor walks into a classroom with an AK47. The Anantapur-type incidents are what such movies lead to. When will filmmakers be held responsible for poisoning young minds?
2. We don’t hate on these movies enough. People who call out this crap are called oversensitive, but we should remember that we are a country of young, impressionable minds and a society easily influenced by film culture.
3. The main problem is in the audiences who outsource their moral judgment to cinema and then imitate fictional characters without understanding the distinction between fiction and reality.
4. If depicting violence normalises violence, should every action game developer be held responsible for real-world assaults committed by people who play their games? Where do we draw the line between depicting something and endorsing it?
5. Hollywood has a million movies that are far worse. The average Indian dude has zero media literacy and can't differentiate between fiction and reality. For every violent movie, there are ten movies that preach goodness, yet these same people never seem to be influenced by them
6. Films like Animal come with a 18+ tag. If children are able to access them somehow, the blame squarely lies with parents/elders. In the age of the Internet, keeping juveniles away from content depicting sexuality, violence, and brutality has become hard.
