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The Media Made Them Do it
After the 1966 NBC-TV thriller The Doomsday Flight depicted an airplane hijacking, the nation’s major airlines reported a dramatic rise in anonymous bomb threats (some of them considered teen pranks). The network agreed not to run the film again. (Richard Cambpell, Media and Culture, page 415)
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A five-year-old set his baby sister’s bed ablaze with a cigarette lighter, killing her and destroying his home. According to the boy’s mom, he got the idea from MTV characters Beavis and Butt-head, who play with fire and say things like "Fire is cool." In Ohio, three girls set a house on fire while attempting to copy a scene in which Beavis (or possibly Butt-head) sets fire to his buddy’s hair by igniting spray from an aerosol can. The girls, however, used the technique to set clothing on fire, not hair, and ended up burning the house. (Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1993)
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During a holdup of an Ogden, Utah, stereo shop, Andrews and Pierre Dale Selby forced five employees and customers to drink liquid Drano. The men said they got the idea from the Clint Eastwood movie Magnum Force, in which a pimp kills a prostitute by making her drink the product. (Newsday, August 10, 1992)
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A gang in Manchester, England, tortured a 16-year-old girl, set her afire and left her dying, while one of the attackers repeated a line from Child’s Play 3: "I’m Chucky– wanna play?" (The New York Times, July 10, 1994)
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After watching a genie on TV slap someone on both sides of the head, two children in England copied the stunt and suffered perforated eardrums. Other children, in different parts of the country, were also injured in what became known as "the slapping craze." (The Guardian, March 12, 1992)
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After watching the film Natural Born Killers, which portrayed serial killers Mickey and Mallory on a rampage across America, Nathan Martinez, 17, shaved his head and began wearing tinted spectacles like Mickey (played by Woody Harrelson). Martinez then drove to Salt Lake City, Utah, and murdered his stepmother and 10-year-old half sister. (The New York Times, November 5, 1994)... A southern Georgia couple, Ronnie Beasley and Angela Crosby, watched the movie nineteen times, then embarked on a crime spree of carjacking, theft, kidnapping, and murder. Beasley also shaved his head like Mickey’s, and the two lovers used the names Mickey and Mallory in correspondence with each other after they were apprehended. Another couple, Ben Darras and Sarah Edmonson, reportedly watched the movie six times in one night. Setting off in Sarah’s car, they robbed and killed a cotton gin manager in Mississippi, then shot and paralyzed Patsy Byers, a convenience store clerk in Louisiana. (Robert Brent Toplin, Oliver Stone’s USA: Film History and Controversy, 2000)
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A man convicted of multiple murders in suburban Orange County, NY said he killed the first of his six victims in the manner he’d seen in Robocop. Referring to a character in Robocop II, Nathaniel White told WNBC: "I seen him cut somebody’s throat then take the knife and slit down the chest to the stomach and left the body in a certain position. With the first person I killed I did exactly what I saw in the movie." (Newsday, August 6, 1992)
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After rugby stars Matthew Ridge and Marc Ellis were shown jumping off a waterfall in a television commercial in England, at least 14 people died trying to replicate the stunt. (The Dominion, December 30, 1997)
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After the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., the number of threats against prominent government figures jumped more than fivefold. The number of homicides increases significantly after publicized prizefights "in which violence is rewarded" and drops significantly after publicized murder trials, death sentences, life sentences, and executions "in which violence is punished." Suicides increased after Marilyn Monroe’s death, as they do after the media coverage of just about any suicide. (Leo Bogart, Commercial Culture, 1995, page 171)
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Imitating a popular wrestling move, a 17-year-old boy threw a 3-year-old boy on the ground and then dropped down to elbow him in the midsection (The Fort World Star-Telegram, July 14, 2001). In Florida, 14-year-old Lionel Tate, imitating a wrestling hold he saw on TV, bear-hugged six-year-old Tiffany Eunick, lifted her, and dropped her on the floor, killing her. (Los Angeles Times, March 10, 2001)
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After watching the film Braveheart, a Scottish teenager attacked an English schoolboy because of his accent. Paul Rennie copied his idol, William Wallace, by shouting the battle cry "Freedom!" as he and two other teens punched and kicked the 15-year-old boy in the head. (The Ottawa Citizen, August 20, 1997)
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Leonardo DiCaprio’s "king of the world" stunt in Titanic–in which he spreads his arms and appears to be flying from the front of the ship–led dozens of young men to risk their lives on cruise liners in a bid to imitate him. The rash of mimics prompted the United States Passenger Vessels’ Association to issue a "Titanic Alert" to its members, urging them to close off the bow areas of ships. The alert was no help for a Swedish woman, however, who was presumed drowned after falling from a ferry while attempting to copy the suicide attempt of Kate Winslet’s character. (The Daily Telegraph, June 25, 1998)
The effect of the film on cruise ships wasn’t all bad. Industry sources say the film–ironically enough–inspired more people to go on cruises. The increase in sales was particularly evident among twentysomethings. (The New York Times, March 29, 1998)
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Two teenagers from Pennsylvania and another from Long Island suffered dire consequences after imitating a stunt from the movie The Program. Like the college football hero in the film, the teens tried to prove their mettle by lying down in the middle of a road at night. Unlike the film’s star, however, one was killed instantly, the other rendered in critical condition. According to the mother of the teens, other kids said that about 30 kids were playing the "game" a few miles up the road the same night. (The New York Times, October 19, 1993).
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After the release of Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange in England, young men were seen marauding the streets dressed like the ultraviolent "droogs" in the film. A 16-year-old boy said to be "obsessed" with the movie was convicted and sentenced after he kicked a 60-year-old to death. Another 16-year-old–dressed as the star of the film, in white overalls, a black bowler hat, and combat boots–savagely beat a younger child. And a 17-year-old Dutch girl was raped while camping by a gang who chanted, "Singin’ in the Rain." (Vincent LoBrutto, Stanley Kubrick: A Biography, 1996)
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A 13-year-old poured gasoline on his feet and legs and lit himself on fire, imitating a stunt he’d seen on the appropriately titled MTV series Jackass. (Daily News, January 30, 2001)
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After watching a television movie about a woman who burned her abusive husband to death, a man doused his estranged wife with gasoline and set her ablaze. The man, who was dressed for combat in fatigues with a mud-smeared face, told the police that the The Burning Bed, starring Farrah Fawcett, had inspired him to "scare" his wife. Meanwhile, in Quincy, MA, a husband angered by the movie beat his wife senseless, telling her he "wanted to get her before she got him." And in Chicago, a battered wife watched the show–shot her husband. On a perhaps slightly more positive note, battered-women’s centers from Boston to Los Angeles were inundated with calls for help after the program aired. (The New York Times, October 10, 1984; Newsweek, October 22, 1984)
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Following a Tonight Show episode in which host Johnny Carson was "hung" by professional stuntman Dar Robinson, Shirley and Nicholas DeFilippo found their son Nicky hanging from a noose in his bedroom–the television still tuned to NBC. (Cynthia A. Cooper, Violence in Television: Congressional Inquiry, Public Criticism and Industry Response, 1996)
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After Rob Reiner’s 1986 film Stand by Me depicted hooligans leaning out of car windows to whack mailboxes with baseball bats, kids across the country followed suit, (Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1993)
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So many kids hurt themselves playing Evel Knievel that members of Congress once pressured the networks to stop televising his stunts. An article in Pediatrics medical journal discussed the "Evel Knievel syndrome." (Frank Mankiewicz and Joel Swerdlow, Remote Control: Television and the Manipulation of American Life, 1978, page 53)
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In the 1970s, an investigation by Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin found that millions of children turned to pill-popping in response to television commercials. Nelson’s concern grew after his children–a six-year-old and an eight-year-old–asked him for sleeping pills. Nelson’s work was bolstered by a compendium of articles on "Television and Human Behavior" issued by the Rand Corporation, which lists more than 20 studies showing a positive correlation between heavy viewing of television commercials and children’s use of over-the-counter drugs. In 1973 there were 4,275 cases of children’s aspirin poisoning (and even more vitamin poisoning) reported to the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. (Remote Control, pages 240-41)
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After watching Tom Selleck jet around in a red Ferrari on Magnum PI, Mel Spillman grew obsessed with the car and did everything he could to buy similar ones. In the late 1980s, Spillman embarked on a 15-year crime spree, looting the estates of 122 deceased residents in San Antonio, Texas, to pay for his Ferrari habit. By the time he was caught, Spillman had acquired six Ferraris and a $450,000 mansion, which he filled it with artwork based on Ferrari’s rearing-horse logo. (People, July 9, 2002)
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Following the Los Angeles Police Department’s shootout with the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974, ABC launched a program about a paramilitary-style police force, S.W.A.T [Special Weapons and Tactics]. Subsequently, SWAT teams–armed with submachine guns and other heavy gear–began proliferating in local jurisdictions across the country. In 1975, there were more than 500 SWAT units, many in affluent areas with scant violent crime. (Remote Control, 262)
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When James Dean and Corey Allen played "chicken"–a game to see who can speed closest toward the edge of a cliff before jumping out of the car–dozens of teens went plummeting to their death trying to imitate that scene from 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause. Interestingly enough, when it first marketed Rebel Without a Cause, Warner Bros. anticipated the copycat incidents. To allay criticism and distance itself from any problems, the studio produced a clip of star James Dean urging kids to "Take it easy driving out there. The life you save might be mine." The clip was never used, however, because Mr. Dean was killed in his speeding Porsche shortly before the movie was released. (Boston Globe, October 20, 1993, The Wall Street Journal, July 21, 2001)
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Circa 1987, after Beastie Boy Mike D started wearing a hood ornament around his neck, teenagers across the U.S. started stealing ornaments from cars, in imitation of the rap star. Though Mike D wore a Volkswagen symbol, kids seemed to prefer those of Mercedes and other luxury vehicles. (Washington Post, June 23, 1987)
