Why You Point Guns in Movies, Not Real Life

There some universal conventions in the movies, if you take the time to notice them. One of those conventions involves cars and garbage cans. If you see a galvanized steel garbage can and a car in a movie, the car will crash into the garbage can. Similar to market fruit stands, whether on wheels or on a fixed position.

There is also a convention on the pointing of guns in a movie. In order to move the plot along, or to explain what is going on, Shakespeare used to do soliloquies, where the actor turns and speaks to directly to the audience. Today that is almost never done (except "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and a few others). Instead, one character just pulls out a gun and points it at another character. Then the character with a gun either explains his or her motivation in doing whatever crazy things they have been doing, or the pointee explains their own thoughts, or both. Sometimes, in a double pointing episode, both people point the guns at each other. Sometimes it goes up to gang-pointing orgies, although those usually end with one guy breaking out in a big grin and saying something like "let's just put the guns down and do business"

Sometimes the gun pointing is kind of funny. Two big guys come in and intimidate some little guy. One big bad guy holds the little guy from behind, the big bad guy in front talks to the little guy. You would think that no gun is necessary, wouldn't you? Little guy should be intimidated enough by now. But no, big bad guy number one pulls out a huge pistol and points it directly at little guy before the talking gets serious. This is absolutely typical in the movies, but not real life.

What is the problem here? Well for one thing, would you want to be the big bad guy number 2? If Number 1 misses, you're dead. Actually, even if number one hits, that bullet is probably coming through at a slightly reduced velocity, and you are seriously injured, enough to go to hospital. And what if you don't have health coverage?

But the convention is that one person is pointing the gun, the other one has to do as told and be respectful and tell then truth. So this is a great way to wrap up a movie plot and come to a happy ending. But it is just not realistic, and it definitely plants subconscious ideas in the heads of insecure people who then rush out to buy guns, thinking that they will be able to gain the same kind of respect that the movie actors do.

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