FREE ESSAY ON VIOLENCE IN ENTERTAINMENT

VIOLENCE IN ENTERTAINMENT

Violence In Entertainment And Its Effect On Society
Does entertainment influence society's attitude towards violent behavior? In order to
fully answer this question we must first understand what violence is. Violence is the use
of one's powers to inflict mental or physical injury upon another, examples of this would
be rape or murder. Violence in entertainment reaches the public by way of television,
movies, plays, and novels. Through the course of this essay it will be proven that
violence in entertainment is a major factor in the escalation of violence in society,
once this is proven we will take all of the evidence that has been shown throughout this
paper and come to a conclusion as to whether or not violence in entertainment is
justified and whether or not it should be censored. 
Television with its far reaching influence spreads across the globe. Its most important
role is that of reporting the news and maintaining communication between people around
the world. Television's most influential, yet most serious aspect is its shows for
entertainment. Violent children's shows like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and adult shows
like NYPD Blue and Homicide almost always fail to show human beings being able to resolve
their differences in a non-violent manner, instead they show a reckless attitude that
promotes violent action first with reflection on the consequences later. In one episode
of NYPD Blue three people were murdered in the span of an hour. Contemporary television
creates a seemingly insatiable appetite for amusement of all kinds without regard for
social or moral benefits (Schultze 41). Findings over the past twenty years by three
Surgeon Generals, the Attorney General's Task Force on Family Violence, the American
Medical Association, the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Psychiatric
Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics,
and other medical authorities indicate that televised violence is harmful to all of us,
but particularly to the mental health of children (Medved 70-71). In 1989 the results of
a five year study by the American Psychological Association indicated that the average
child has witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence 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 graduates from 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), it was shown that homicide rates had doubled between the
introduction of television in the 1950's and the end of the study in 1994. In that same
study other possible causes for the vast increases in violence were studied, the 'baby
boom' effect, trends in urbanization, economic trends, trends in alcohol abuse, the role
of capital punishment, civil unrest, the availability of guns, and exposure to
television(Lamson 32). Each of these purported causes was tested in a variety of ways to
see whether it could be eliminated as a credible contributor to doubling the crime rate
in the United States, and one by each of them was invalidated, except for television.
Children average four hours of television per day, and in the inner city that increases
to as much as eleven hours a day, with an average of eight to twelve violent incidents
per hour. It is also interesting to note that violence occurs some fifty-five times more
often on television than it does in the real world (Medved 156). FBI and census data show
the homicide arrest rate for seventeen-year-olds more than doubled between 1985 and 1991,
and the rates for fifteen-and sixteen-year-olds increased even faster. Movies also add
their fair share to the problem of violence in society. Researchers have established that
copycat events are not an anomaly. Statistically-speaking, they are rare, but
predictable, occurences. Television shows, novels, but especially movies-all can trigger
copycat violence (Medved 72). As recently as November of 1995, New York City officials
believed that the burning of a toll-booth clerk was a result of copycat violence,
resulting from a similar scene in the movie Money Train. In 1994, Nathan Martinez shot
and killed his stepmother and half sister after watching the movie Natural Born Killers
at least six times. Later, Martinez, who had shaved his head and wore granny sun glasses
like Natural Born Killer's main character Mickey Knox, reportedly told a friend, It's
nothing like the movies(Purtell 57). In a 1993 film, The Program, there was a scene
showing college football players lying in the center of a highway in an attempt to show
their courage and dedication to their sport. This movie was later blamed for inspiring
real-life imitators; (one of whom died). In numorous experiments based at pre-schools,
researchers have observed children playing before and after seeing violent movies and
television shows. Following the violent program the children's play is invaribly more
aggressive. They are much more likely to hit, punch, kick, and grab to get their way. In
other words, violent entertainment teaches children how to use aggression for personal
gain (Medved 75). It is also hard to believe that movies like Rambo III with one hundred
and six killings and Terminator 2 which showed countless killings plus a nuclear
holocaust have at one time had their own line of children's action figures even though
both movies are rated R. One must seriously consider the idea that the movie studios are
targeting a younger and easily influenced main audience. The ancient Greeks believed that
violence should never be shown on stage, because people imitated what they saw. Because
of this they would only show the results of violence in order to deter any violent
activity. The Greeks slowly but surely moved away from this idea as did other
playwrights, and by the late 1500's a new writer with a new view on violence was
beginning to write plays. His name was William Shakespeare. Many critics were bothered by
Shakespeare's failure to follow the rules of the ancient Greeks, especially the rules
concerning violence, but they also objected to Shakespeare's comic sexual passages, which
they considered vulgar. Shakespeare was a writer during what has historically been called
the Elizabethan era. Shakespeare's plays reflect the shift from optimism to pessimism in
Elizabethan society. Elizabethans were keenly aware of death and the brevity of life
(Info Find), but death and violence fascinated the Elizabethans. They flocked to the
beheadings of traitors whose heads were exhibited on poles and watched as criminals were
hanged, and they saw the rotting corpses dangle from the gallows for days (The Student
Handbook 2: 591). Elizabethans, literature and lives were very violent. In Shakespeare's
play Hamlet all the main characters die through murder or suicide, all of which is shown
on stage. Those critics who say excessive violence has only become a common occurence in
today's entertainment, should watch Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus with its' stage
direction, Enter a messenger with two heads and a hand (Klavan 98), or they should watch
as quarts of stage blood are poured all over the victims in that same play.
Novels, just like television, movies, and plays can cause violence. Throughout history
novels have been the cause of violent behavior. Those who say people can't be influenced
by books, should really look into the influence that a book called Uncle Tom's Cabin had
ten years prior to the Civil War. In 1851 Uncle Tom's Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher
Stowe was published. The novel told of the hardships and cruelties faced by
African-American slaves in the south. The novel popularlized the abolitionist movement
and is believed to have been a major cause for the Civil War, which even though a noble
cause, resulted in over 500,000 deaths (The Student Handbook 2: 592). In 1980 Mark
Chapman, a former mental patient, shot and killed John Lennon. When asked why he did it,
he indicated that he got the idea to kill Lennon from J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher
in the Rye (590). He felt that he and the main character in the story, Holden Caufield,
were very similar because they were both angry social outcasts, who were recovering from
a mental breakdown (590). Violence is prominent in children's novels too. R.L. Stine's
novel The Babysitter III, tells of decapitating a baby and in Christopher Pike's novel,
Monster, there is a graphic description of the effects of a shotgun being fired at a
person's head at close range. Roderick McGillis, a professor of English at the University
of Calgary and author of a book on children's literature, has written that, What disturbs
me is that we're developing in our culture, in our cities, a kind of siege mentality. A
lot of thes books reinforce this, make it sort of normal to think that the world is a
place in which violence can erupt at any moment (Gray 54). With all of this evidence it
is hard to ignore the fact that violence in entertainment can cause violence in society.
This paper has now shown that there are copycat kilers who get the idea for their crimes
from entertainment. It has also been shown that the more violent movies and television
children watch the more likely thay are to become aggressive and violent. Violence in
entertainment and society is not isolated to the present, it was also very prominent in
the writings of Shakespeare. With the evidence showing that violence in entertainment
causes real life violence, it is very hard to say that violence in entertainment is
justifiable. When little children and adults alike, fall victim to entertainment's
violent influence it is not justifiable and it is especially not justifiable when violent
entertainment creates real life victims.
Is censorship the answer to the problem of violent entertainment? Should we tell people
what they can or can't read or watch? The simple answer to this question is no, we can't
censor violent entertainment. The First Amendment clearly states that: Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
therof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people
to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. The
instinct to censor is the tragic flaw of utopian minds. Our first job, said Plato in his
classic attack on the democratic system , is to oversee the work of the story writers,
and to accept any good stories they write, but reject the others (Klavan 96). If the
government ever did censor violent entertainment who knows where they would stop, or even
if they would. Perhaps they would try to censor violent speech or try to censor the
speech of those who disagreed with the actions of the government. The simple message is
don't promote censorship, because it could easily get out of hand, and as the old saying
goes the road to hell is paved with good intentions. There are then only two ways to get
rid of the violent entertainment in our lives: we could shame those who make the violent
movies, television shows, books, and plays, into having a social conscience, making them
be less prone to creating violent entertainment; or we could simply solve the problem
ourselves, with a push of a button, or the turn of a page.
Works Cited
Lamson, Susan R. TV Violence: Does it cause real-life mayhem?, American Rifleman July
1993: 32.
Leone, Bruno. Youth Violence. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1992.
Bibliography
Lamson, Susan R. TV Violence: Does it cause real-life mayhem?, American Rifleman July
1993: 32.
Leone, Bruno. Youth Violence. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1992.