4/20/2008: It’s been nine years since Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold decided to honor Hitler’s birthday their way. Nine years since they made a mockery of school safety by barging into Columbine High School with shotguns, slaughtering 12 and wounding 23.
And has anything really changed? Sure, I mean of course things have, but have they changed enough?
The Virgina Tech massacre happened less than a year ago, and several school shootings have come up since, riding its coattails like ticks crawling onto the back of a rat.
But yes, things have changed. Michael Moore’s made his movie. Charleton Heston has died–to the the sadness of some, to the relief of others and to the apathy of most. And Hollywood’s sort of taken its foot off the violence-in-school-is-actually-kind-of-cool pedal it used to press when it made films like “Heathers,” “Pump up the Volume” and “The Basketball Diaries.” Maybe that last part’s a shame; the first two are of my favorite films. But, Hollywood, despite its usual insensitivity and moral bankruptcy has, for whatever it’s worth, done that.