By William Albritton
The Oracle
U. South Florida

(U-WIRE) TAMPA, Fla. -- On April 20, 1999, two boys entered their high school and opened fire on students and faculty, leaving dozens dead. The word "Columbine" will forever remain in the minds of Americans as one of the country's worst days in modern history.

In the wake of the tragedy, fingers were pointed and blame was placed. But was blame placed on the students who committed the crime? No, other kids made fun of them, so it's understandable.

Was blame placed on their parents? Well, for some part, but they are busy people, and they didn't know what their kids were doing.

Was blame placed on the arts? Why, yes it was. It was Marilyn Manson's music that caused these boys to do what they did. Oh wait, it was that movie The Matrix, which glamorized violence by dressing the actors in black leather and dark sunglasses. Or maybe it was the scene in The Basketball Diaries, in which Leonardo DiCaprio had a dream about killing his teacher. Yeah, that was it. It was Leonardo DiCaprio's "dream sequence" that inspired the mayhem.

Either way, it certainly wasn't the parents or the kids themselves, or the fact they committed mass murders on the same day that Adolf Hitler was born. No, it was the influence that art has on the youth of America today.

Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman championed the cause to blame movie studios for violent nature in today's films.

Both Republicans and Democrats agreed on an issue for the first time ... ever ... to point the finger at artistic endeavors.

But why is America so sensitive? It's a movie. That's all it is. You know it's a movie when you walk into the theater and purchase the ticket and see how badly Keanu Reeves can act on a 20-foot screen. You know it's a rated-R film when the box office person asks the teenager for his or her I.D. before the ticket is sold.

The problem here is simple. Censorship. It is censorship when you blame a piece of art, whether it be a song, a movie or even whatever you call what Keanu Reeves does, for influencing the psyches of two deranged boys with too much money and time on their hands.

This is just another excuse to not actually put the blame on the parents.

And because parents are not being blamed, the finger is being pointed at influences, such as video games, music and movies.

Film studios are already feeling the pressure from America's newfound hypersensitivity. Teaching Ms. Tingle was originally titled, Killing Ms. Tingle, but after the Columbine tragedy, the title was changed because it could have been considered offensive. Also, the Catholic religion-inspired satire Dogma was not released by Miramax Studios because Disney, the film studio's parent company, was getting pressure from religious groups boycotting the film. The troubles that these films ran into may serve as a precursor for what is to come.

Even the release of the new update O, based on William Shakespeare's play Othello, which has a high school setting, is being delayed because of the recent school violence in America.

The insistence that art is to blame for violent acts sets a precedent that Hollywood, along with the U.S. government, believes that the people of America are too sensitive for their own good.

Hollywood produces violent films because art reflects life, and if violence did not exist in society, then Hollywood wouldn't make films with violence. It's that simple.