Violence In Entertainment And Its Effect On Society Essay Example For Students

Violence In Entertainment And Its Effect On Society Essay Matchmaker.com: Sign up now for a free trial. Date Smarter!ViolenceIn Entertainment And Its Effect On SocietyDoes entertainment influence societysattitude towards violent behavior? In order to fully answer this questionwe must first understand what violence is. Violence is the use of onespowers to inflict mental or physical injury upon another, examples of thiswould be rape or murder. Violence in entertainment reaches the public byway of television, movies, plays, and novels. Through the course of thisessay it will be proven that violence in entertainment is a major factorin the escalation of violence in society, once this is proven we will takeall of the evidence that has been shown throughout this paper and cometo a conclusion as to whether or not violence in entertainment is justifiedand whether or not it should be censored. Television with its far reaching influencespreads across the globe. Its most important role is that of reportingthe news and maintaining communication between people around the world. Televisions most influential, yet most serious aspect is its shows forentertainment. Violent childrens shows like Mighty Morphin Power Rangersand adult shows like NYPD Blue and Homicide almost always fail to showhuman beings being able to resolve their differences in a non-violent manner,instead they show a reckless attitude that promotes violent action firstwith reflection on the consequences later. In one episode of NYPD Bluethree people were murdered in the span of an hour. Contemporary televisioncreates a seemingly insatiable appetite for amusement of all kinds withoutregard for social or moral benefits (Schultze 41). Findings over the pasttwenty years by three Surgeon Generals, the Attorney Generals Task Forceon Family Violence, the American Medical Association, the National Instituteof Mental Health, the American Psychiatric Association, the American PsychologicalAssociation, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other medical authoritiesindicate that televised violence is ha rmful to all of us, but particularlyto the mental health of children (Medved 70-71). In 1989 the results ofa five year study by the American Psychological Association indicated thatthe average child has witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 other acts ofviolence on television by the time he or she has completed sixth grade. In further studies it was determined that by the time that same child graduatesfrom high school he or she will have spent 22,000 hours watching television,twice as many hours as he or she has spent in school (Bruno 124). In a study by the Centers for Disease Control,published by the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), itwas shown that homicide rates had doubled between the introduction of televisionin the 1950s and the end of the study in 1994. In that same study otherpossible causes for the vast increases in violence were studied, the babyboom effect, trends in urbanization, economic trends, trends in alcoholabuse, the role of capital punishment, civil unrest, the availability ofguns, and exposure to television(Lamson 32). Each of these purported causeswas tested in a variety of ways to see whether it could be eliminated asa credible contributor to doubling the crime rate in the United States,and one by each of them was invalidated, except for television. Childrenaverage four hours of television per day, and in the inner city that increasesto as much as eleven hours a day, with an average of eight to twelve violentincidents per hour. It is also interesting to note that violence occur ssome fifty-five times more often on television than it does in the realworld (Medved 156). FBI and census data show the homicide arrest rate forseventeen-year-olds more than doubled between 1985 and 1991, and the ratesfor fifteen-and sixteen-year-olds increased even faster. Movies also addtheir fair share to the problem of violence in society. Researchers haveestablished that copycat events are not an anomaly. Statistically-speaking,they are rare, but predictable, occurences. Television shows, novels, butespecially movies-all can trigger copycat violence (Medved 72). As recentlyas November of 1995, New York City officials believed that the burningof a toll-booth clerk was a result of copycat violence, resulting froma similar scene in the movie Money Train. In 1994, Nathan Martinez shotand killed his stepmother and half sister after watching the movie NaturalBorn Killers at least six times. Later, Martinez, who had shaved his headand wore granny sun glasses like Natural Born Killers main character MickeyKnox, reportedly told a friend, Its nothing like the movies(Purtell57). In a 1993 film, The Program, there was a scene showing college footballplayers lying in the center of a highway in an attempt to show their courageand dedication to their sport. This movie was later blamed for inspiringreal-life imitators; (one of whom died). In numorous experiments basedat pre-schools, researchers have observed children playing before and afterseeing violent movies and television shows. Following the violent programthe childrens play is invaribly more aggressive. They are much more likelyto hit, punch, kick, and grab to get their way. In other words, violententertainment teaches children how to use aggression for personal gain(Medved 75). It is also hard to believe that movies like Rambo III withone hundred and six killings and Terminator 2 which showed countless killingsplus a nuclear holocaust have at one time had their own line of childrensaction figures even though bot h movies are rated R. One must seriouslyconsider the idea that the movie studios are targeting a younger and easilyinfluenced main audience. The ancient Greeks believed that violence shouldnever be shown on stage, because people imitated what they saw. Becauseof this they would only show the results of violence in order to deterany violent activity. The Greeks slowly but surely moved away from thisidea as did other playwrights, and by the late 1500s a new writer witha new view on violence was beginning to write plays. His name was WilliamShakespeare. Many critics were bothered by Shakespeares failure to followthe rules of the ancient Greeks, especially the rules concerning violence,but they also objected to Shakespeares comic sexual passages, which theyconsidered vulgar. Shakespeare was a writer during what has historicallybeen called the Elizabethan era. Shakespeares plays reflect the shiftfrom optimism to pessimism in Elizabethan society. Elizabethans were keenlyaware of death and the brevity of life (Info Find), but death and violencefascinated the Elizabethans. They flocked to the beheadings of traitorswhose heads were exhibited on poles and watched as criminals were hanged,and they saw the rotting corpses dangle from the gallows for days (TheStudent Handbook 2: 591). Elizabethans, literature and lives were veryviolent. In Shakespeares play Hamlet all the main characters die throughmurder or suicide, all of which is shown on stage. Those critics who sayexcessive violence has only become a common occurence in todays entertainment,should watch Shakespeares Titus Andronicus with its stage direction,Enter a messenger with two heads and a hand (Klavan 98), or they shouldwatch as quarts of stage blood are poured all over the victims in thatsame play. Bioterrorism EssayWorks CitedLamson, Susan R. TV Violence: Does itcause real-life mayhem?, American Rifleman July 1993: 32. Leone, Bruno. Youth Violence. San Diego:Greenhaven Press, 1992.