After the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, a scene from the forthcoming film Gangster Squad, showing a shooting in a movie theater, was cut. Following the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, the release of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained was delayed, and cuts were made to violent scenes in Jack Reacher.

This seems to me to be antithetical to art. What purpose does it serve for films (or any other art form) to scurry away from the realities of violence and suffering?...