After making headlines several weeks ago while promoting the violent Django Unchained, on Saturday, actor Jamie Foxx said he believes Hollywood violence prompts tragedies like the one that unfolded on Friday in Newtown.
“We cannot turn back and say that violence in films or anything that we do doesn’t have a sort of influence,” Foxx said. “It does.”
In Django Unchained, Foxx plays a slave-turned-bounty hunter in the antebellum South. While reviews of Quentin Tarantino’s new film have been favorable, many have noted the amount of violence and excessive use of racial expletives in the film.
Despite the tone he took this past weekend, it was just weeks ago that Foxx, during his opening monologue on Saturday Night Live, gushed about “how great” it was that his character in Django gets to “kill all the white people in the movie.” In a trailer, audiences hear the Django character say, “Kill white folks and they pay you for it: What’s not to like?”
On Saturday, the premiere of Jack Reacher, a violent film starring Tom Cruise, was postponed out of respect for the Newtown tragedy. There’s no word yet whether or not the Christmas Day release of Django Unchained is being reconsidered in light of the recent events.