Hot Topics: Are Celebrities Hypocrites for the ‘Demand a Plan’ Video?

A video called “Demand a Plan” has been making the rounds on the Internet. It’s based at DemandaPlan.org, which features celebrities demanding that President Obama and Congress come up with a plan to end gun violence. More specifically:

• Require a criminal background check for every gun sold in America
• Ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines
• Make gun trafficking a federal crime, with real penalties for “straw purchasers”
• Demand that your members of Congress and the president support these legislative priorities.

Here’s the original video:

But as an entertainment writer, I see a lot of movies every week. And a LOT of them feature guns, in one way or another.

It just has me wondering whether the entertainment industry needs to re-think what they’re putting out there.

Movies being released this month, for example, include Gangster Squad, The Last Stand, Broken City, Parker, and Hansel & Gretel, all featuring gun violence. And, of course, Django Unchained, currently in theaters, is rife with gun violence, including a huge bloodbath at the end of the movie.

I’ll say it: There’s too much gun violence in movies. 

So are the celebrities in the above video hypocrites for demanding a plan, when they’re making money off the gun violence in their movies? Am I a hypocrite for seeing the movies and then promoting them on this site (even though my reviews including parent details about violence and other iffy content)?

I even named gun-heavy movies like Skyfall, Hit & Run, Lawless and Django Unchained one of my Top 20 Movies for Grownups. Admittedly, they ARE good movies, but they feature guns.

Here is the same video, edited by FoundersIntent.org to include the hypocrisy of the celebrities by including some of the gun scenes in their movies: