Rush Limbaugh Also Thinks Movies Played Deadly Role In Isla Vista Killing

Proving once again that the search for easy
scapegoats in the wake of a national tragedy is a cross-ideological
phenomenon, Rush Limbaugh is now blaming the Isla Vista killings on
violent imagery in The Hunger Games.

The killer, Elliot Rodger, had a loose connection to the

The Hunger Games: His father worked as an assistant
producer on the films. Rush noted this link on his radio show, and
surmised that the films’ stark depiction of teen-on-teen violence
was a “crucial” detail in understanding Rodger.

“Why not blame Hollywood movies here?” he
asked, according to Politico. “Oh, we can never, ever go
there.”

Unbeknownst to Rush, Hollywood movies are taking
the blame, and newspaper liberals are the ones
doing the blaming. Washington Post film critic Ann
Hornaday criticized actor Seth Rogen’s films—specifically his
latest, Neighbors—for embracing the college male archetype
and reveling in sex and glory and fun. Since Rodger was a
self-described virgin driven insane by constant sexual rejection,
the lifestyle celebrated in Neighbors is implicitly
responsible for his actions, according to Hornaday.

Rush and Hornaday make different arguments, but they seem to
agree that the movies they don’t like are not merely
bad—they pose an actual danger to society.

When tragedy rears its ugly head, culture warriors on both the
right and left are certainly eager to fault whatever media they
don’t like—be it movies and television, violent video games,
pornography, comic books or something else. Inevitably, the
moralizers end up looking ridiculous, because a lot of people who
like all those things don’t
kill people.

Read more about agenda-driven reactions to the Isla Vista
killings
here.