As so often happens surrounding a senseless tragedy, in response to the Aurora theater shooting, there have been a lot of symbolic gestures of dubious symbolism. Premieres were canceled. Studios postponed reporting box office totals for a day. (Doesn’t postponing the reports for one day just bring attention to how pointless the gesture is? I mean one day? Come on.). Snooki sent a condolence tweet. Then of course, there’s all the chicken little morons writing about how we need to ban midnight screenings, or violent movies, or video games, or public gatherings, or hands. Thing is, spree killers want attention. They like it when people make a big deal about them, so it seems to me the most effective thing we can do is just refuse to make them a big deal and just go on about our business. That’s why I think shooting survivor Justin Davis makes a much more powerful statement than any of the corporate PR think tanks or the screaming pundits.
Less than one day after he escaped the chaos and carnage of the Aurora, Colo., theater shooting, lifelong Batman fan Justin Davis was back at the movies with a sense of purpose.
Davis, 16, was accompanied by his brother and a friend to a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” at a different Colorado movie theater.
“I just want to finish it, and for all those men, women and children that didn’t get to finish it, I want to finish it for them,” he said. [Yahoo/ABC]
Good.
Not for nothing, but I’m glad The Dark Knight Rises had a strong ending. It’d be a bummer if this kid had to go back to the scene of the crime for the ending of The Sopranos finale or something. “Wait, you mean he’s just walking through a diner in slow motion, then a song plays, and then it cuts to black? What? What the f*ck was that? Jeez, maybe life is meaningless after all…”