We should be mindful of how we portray death

Following up with what I said regarding death threats the other day... I feel it's a shame how cavalier we've become in entertainment with showing people dying. In many movies and TV shows there are people dying left and right—random extras being taken out almost every episode—and usually in a way that could have been avoided. It's one thing if it is portraying natural death (of old age, or an incurable illness), or completely unavoidable death (say, in self-defense where there was no other option)... but especially when it's death that was the result of the protagonist's incompetence or recklessness, we are subconsciously ingraining the idea in people's minds that collateral damage in the form of lost lives is normal and/or something to be expected as a necessary consequence of progress. It's become so common in shows that when some random extra dies, it registers almost no response from most of us. Is that the way we want things to be?

If instead we nurtured a deeper respect for the value of life, if shows were engineered such that the characters were always looking out for others and protecting the lives of those around them, I feel like we would see far fewer death threats than we do today and people would not be so quick to violence...

Edit 2022/06/16: Some argue that it might even be better to show the full extent of violence, rather than just the implications.

If “America’s storytellers” really want to change public perception of guns, they should consider being more honest on-screen about what bullets do to bodies. The issue isn’t really on-screen violence — it’s bloodless on-screen violence, the sort of violence in which guns fire and bodies simply fall to the ground in what could just as easily be sleep as death.

....

Realistic violence in movies is often jarring when we see it because we see it so rarely. The only time I’ve seen an audience watching an installment of the “John Wick” franchise flinch had nothing to do with the abundance of gunplay. Early in the third film, a brawl ends with the titular assassin jamming a knife into the eye of an assailant. It’s intimate, bloody and horrifying — more so than every gun shot that preceded it.

If television and film luminaries really want to change the discussion of guns, they’ll pursue a bloodier type of filmmaking. Make standard the use of squibs — little explosives that create geysers of fake blood — during gunplay. These practical effects not only heighten the impact of the violence we see but also slow down productions that rely too greatly on cheap kills, causing a bit more thoughtfulness about when on-screen violence should be deployed.

If Hollywood wants to help reduce suicides, which constitute the majority of gun-violence deaths in the United States, it should show people what happens when a bullet goes through a head. Show the aftermath. The cleanup. That it’s not like a light softly going out, that it’s an extremely violent act, one that will leave a mess for your loved ones.

I think that may help. Death should be portrayed realistically so people really understand the gruesomeness and horror of it. If at the same time we do not treat instances of death lightly in storying-telling, we will nudge our society towards respecting the value of life a little more, and perhaps every once in a while we will convince a would-be mass shooter that violence is not the answer.