Jim Carrey: I Denounce Myself and Kick-Ass 2 for the Violence Therein Depicted

After cashing the check, Jim Carrey is feeling remorseful.

Jim Carrey has shocked producers of forthcoming comic-book sequel Kick-Ass 2, in which he stars as a baseball-bat-wielding masked crimefighter, after denouncing the "level of violence" that permeates the film in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings.

Carrey, who has been an outspoken proponent of increased gun control in the wake of the shootings by gunman Adam Lanza in December, tweeted on Sunday that he could no longer support the film. He wrote: "I did Kick-Ass 2 a month b4 Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence. My apologies to others involve[d] with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart."

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"[I'm] baffled by this sudden announcement as nothing seen in this picture wasn't in the screenplay 18 months ago," [executive producer and writer of the original comic Marc Millar] wrote. "Yes, the body count is very high, but a movie called Kick-Ass 2 really has to do what it says on the tin. A sequel to the picture that gave us Hit Girl was always going to have some blood on the floor and this should have been no shock to a guy who enjoyed the first movie so much …

"Like Jim, I'm horrified by real-life violence (even though I'm Scottish), but Kick-Ass 2 isn't a documentary. No actors were harmed in the making of this production! This is fiction and like Tarantino and Peckinpah, Scorsese and Eastwood, John Boorman, Oliver Stone and Chan-wook Park, Kick-Ass avoids the usual bloodless bodycount of most big summer pictures and focuses instead of the CONSEQUENCES of violence … Our job as storytellers is to entertain and our toolbox can't be sabotaged by curtailing the use of guns in an action movie."

I suppose he's attempting to be consistent, and bowing to the logic of those who argued he couldn't both appear in violent movies and also agitate for gun control.

I don't think it's dangerous for law-abiding people to have guns, and I also don't think it's particularly dangerous to make movies depicting gun violence. I guess Carrey has decided all are too dangerous.

At least he's taken some kind of step to embrace the logic (or illogic) of his position. This will of course warn people off of hiring him for similar movies in the future.

posted by Ace at 11:32 AM

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