Something I've noticed more and more is how prevalent killing, murder and death is in Hollywood produced media. The vast majority of popular movies and series either start, involve or end with somebody being killed. And its almost laughable how high the disregard of human life is portrayed to the masses. Look at any other motion picture productions, say Korean, Indian, French, British, etc., even a single person dying in a story is seen as a very huge deal. Same thing goes for violence in general. Even if the character decides to take the high ground and not kill their nemesis, they still die in the end by other means.
I think this image of death has led a lot of Americans to adapt the attitude of "It's fine, as long it doesn't happen to ME.", which in return can be capitalized on by telling them "It's fine we're not talking about YOU but about a THEM.". They've seen people die on a screen so many times that if it happens for real and is shown on the news, it is regarded as entertainment rather than a horrific tragedy.
Seriously, in classical storytelling often times the whole story revolves around a single death. But in Hollywood the scenes often involve something along the lines of [good guy takes out a bunch of bad guys]. This could also be why US gun culture has gone absolutely insane over the last 30 years. They all want to be the cool action hero taking out the bad guys, but forget that their hero is a sociopathic murderer by all standards.
