In an interview with the
Bolivian newspaper 'La Opinión', Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (whose nation saw 16,000 murders in 2012, and another 3,400 in the first quarter of this year), said there’s a correlation between youth violence and the idolization of superheroes. He feels that superhero worship leads to a "factory of antivalues."
This kid, at 14 years old, carries a 9mm with a mind filled by thousands of hours of shows where people are killed. I start to think how many thousands of hours of violence that kid will have consumed, in the end, stimulated by consumerism and violence when he grabs a 9 mm and goes to kill.
Maduro said he made this connection after watching Spider-Man 3 with his wife.
That’s the trouble, from the beginning until the end there are more and more dead. And that’s one of the series small children love most … because it’s attractive, it’s from comics that are attractive, the figure, the colors and movements… so much so that we finished watching it at four in the morning.
On a related note, Pittsburgh police say they nabbed a student dressed as Spider-Man trying to rob a convenience store yesterday. No, I'm serious. Jonathan Hewson, 21 and a University of Pittsburgh student, was cuffed after he tried to rob a store while wearing a Spider-Man costume. Hewson allegedly stormed into the Atwood Express and demanded money about 1:10 a.m., cops said. So not only does Spider-Man movies cause violence, but people dressed as Spider-Man rob convenience stores...? And let's not forget about the guy caught vandalizing an Ohio High School wearing nothing but Spider-Man undies, the other guy dressed as Spider-Man who attempted to steal $6,000 from a Hollywood tour guide, and the countless other crimes committed by people dressed as many of our beloved comic characters.