Deep Thought

Originally, I was just going to make a topic about violence in video games, Jack Thompson, and all that stuff. However, I decided to broaden my range and make a topic about violence in general media, whether it be music, TV shows, movies and the like.

What are your opinions on violence in media? Do you think that it is too much? Too little? Do you agree with the people who want violence in media dulled or do you think they are full of shit? Do you think that TV shows are fine, but music is perhaps getting too "lyrical"? Do you think that video games are the most corrupt branch of media in terms of violence? You get the drill.

I don't have much to say on the matter since I'm not exposed to too much media, but I thought that this would be an interesting topic regardless.

Anyway, that's enough of my babbling. Feel free to discuss.

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SSJBulma

I've noticed that these days, well on UK televison anyway that the stuff you would of usually shown post watershed i the past is now being shown from 1st thing in the morning.
Violence, sex...anything goes. Of course the most gruesome scenes in a show or film at that time of the day are cut, but that doesn't mean the main violence as a whole is.
The problem I have with this is that kids who are at home at young ages will surely come across this sort of thing as they channel hop looking for their fav cartoons and shows ect.
And thought some may call it harmless I'd rather a 3 year old not see a bloodied body or a man beating his wife on television. They may not 'know' what it is...but that's hardly the point. You wouldn't watch the Exorcist with a toddler sitting on you rlap would you? ....Would you?

Videogame violence...well that's another matter that'll I'll come back too in a short while. But I dout anyone will share my opinions on it.

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Lisa

Meh, I like my violence in TV. I just think that parents should stop using the TV as a babysitter and instead make their children read more books or something.

And the video game thing, I don't think that this really affects the people who play it. I mean, you know that when you shoot/slice/smash your enemy, that it's nothing but a game. I never really thought of a target as a human being. People who react extrem and start a massacre have other psychological issues IMO, otherwise there would be a shooting every other day.

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Masked_Felix

There is a shooting every other day, but it's not media induced. I just finished a rambunctious round of Postal2, which included massacring the patrons and security of a Mall to save Gary Coleman, and being in the majority of the world as a mentally sound person, I'm not going to take a machete to Walmart and hack up the customers in reality. People are able to draw differences from virtual world and the real one, some of the more common ones being that you can't make 5 gunshot wounds disappear by applying a band-aid and you can't skip 30 years in prison by pressing the spacebar on your office computer.

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Chibi Mystic Gohan

Concerning video games, Jack Thompson and all of those other guys (and gals! I'm looking at you, Hillary Clinton) are idiots. I mean, some people tried to blame Columbine on games such as Doom, which Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were avid players of, but they said in one of the videos they left behind that games like Doom and music had nothing to do with it. They just thought people sucked and killed them for the lulz.

If violent media made people into killers, we'd have a planet full of them. I think violent people are just attracted to violent media. Does food make people become obese? No, potentially obese people are just attracted to food.

Well, that's just my rationale. I'm no expert. >_>

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"Words don't exist so that we can tell the truth; they exist so that we can conceal the truth"
- ZOMBIEPOWDER. Volume 02

Ivan

Video games are not accurate depictions of real-life violence and are not able to prepare somebody for executing such an act. I mean, shit. I wish I could find assault rifles laying in the corners of empty office buildings, but life just isn't that convenient.

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Kumikana

I think it's hypocrite to blame media for all violence. I mean; it's just entertainment for normal work or school going people. They know what is fiction and what is not. They continue their lives without any murderous intentions day after day. Those who get any influences from media, are already mentally sick/unstable and in need of psychiatrist or something. As for little kids... It's clear that, let's say GTA IV for an example, isn't suitable for six years old. Kid that young still gets influences from media. So it's at parent's responsibility to overlook what games theri kids play and what movies/tv-shows they watch. 12 yeas old kid should be already old enough to understand differences between fiction and real life.

As for music; I find it hilarious that some religous groups still protest against rock and metal music, because "it's from satan himself and leads to satanism."

Actually, that is pretty well said, IMO.

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SSJBulma

For me the difference between the influence of a tv show with extreme violence and a computer game with extreme violence is that watching something and than doing something/re-inacting it are different things.

When you play games that give you different sadistic not your run of the mill FPS ways of killing 'humans' and if you've been prone to that sort of violence then surely it's not unfair to say that it could influence a young person or older to re-inact something similiar in real life or at the very least do something violent to someone else.
e.g. you're pulling a trigger on a controller-similiar to pulling trigger on gun.

I'm just saying that t's not hard to see why people blame video games. I like playing shooters ect that would be considered violent ,though I don't play types like Mahunt, GTA ect. But that doesn't mean I'm blind to the entertainment industry.
Yes parents shouldn't let their kids buy this stuff, but shops should be stricter selling the to underag people.
I don't see the hamr in not making games that depict your character smothering a guy over the head with a plastic bag.
I'm not saying ban games and don't blame the idividual or parents, but I'm saying that taking blme ompletely from the content is a bit wreckless.

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Madness

Ah more ideology!

Violence in the media is a multi-faceted thing and it eventually boils down to the effect that the media has on people. There are basically two different types of audience: "passive" audiences who act as a sort of "media sponge" absorbing everything that the media preaches and acting as the media tells or suggests. The second is an "active" audience who is not affected by the media and is not in any way influenced.

So which is the right one?

Neither and yet, both.

No-one is either fully passive or active. People are a mixture of both. Sure, you may not be influenced to go out and commit dreadful acts from playing GTA4, but you may have your mood changed by a certain song or film. This in itself shows people as being both passive and active.

As for the case of violence in the media... well it depends on who you are. Everyone is affected differently by the media, as shown in Stuart Hall's Reception Theory. Everyone has a different background, age, sex and race, so therefore their reaction to certain media is different.

The bottom line is, if you're a nutter you're gonna commit acts of violence anyway. The media creates vast moral panickes based around "contraversial" media such as games, or films. A lot of the time this is simply the media taking a case and running with it, hoping to sell more papers and to increase ratings etc etc.

So yes, the media affects people. But only people inclined to do violence anyway are going to be influenced by scenes of violence.

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TobiGoodBoy

If it's an advert about how bullying is a bad thing then yes. Other than that. No.

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Madness

So you think that people should be shielded completely from all violence through the medium of the media?

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TobiGoodBoy

Yep that's right.

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Madness

But... why?

For a start it's violating our human rights, and the HUMAN RIGHTS BRIGADE will come and smash your door down

But secondly, and most importantly, it's shielding us from things that actually do happen and it's making us ignorant to the dangers of the world.

Violence happens. Taking it out of the media won't change that.

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Beautiful Illusion

I agree with what Madness is saying about it being present in the real world. It is. You can't stop people from witnessing violent acts. However, I also agree with the point about young children seeing it anytime. My philosophy is usually 'let them learn' to an extent (just not a dangerous one), but sometimes, it goes too far. I wouldn't want my 4-year-old child watching the Saw movies. That's too much. But at the same time, what if a person was to get beaten up in front of them? (say if we're out as a family) ... I mean, it's easy enough to sugar-coat things, but it still happened, and they'll come to learn the truth.

Basically, what I'm saying here is I don't like the idea of giving kids the impression that we live in a perfectly harless world. Why? Because that's how I was brought up. My grandmother and mother (dad wasn't around enough to 'bring me up' as such, because he worked a lot) taught me all the 'good' things, and told me 'happy' stories, but they neglected to mention that the world isn't always nice to you. So, when I reached the age of about 7 or 8, and people weren't all nice to me, it made my life hell, because I couldn't deal with an insult. And to be honest, that's gotten better, but hasn't got away. However, there's also the opposite end of the scale - my sister's been exposed to a lot more then I ever was, and my parents actually tell her the TRUTH ... I mean, hell, the amount of times she's sat half-awake with them while they've been watching various movies that aren't generally aimed at 4-year-olds. And to be fair, she's a bit of a hell raiser.

I guess my belief here lies in a happy medium. I prefer the truth over candy-coating things. I don't believe that iolence in the media, generally drives people to kill - I know plenty of people who can sit and happily watch a horror movie without wanting to go out and kill people, but I also know that it does, sadly, drive some to do so. But it's sad that the majority gets compared with the minority. People are all different, and deal with things in different ways - something shouldn't be stopped or banned because one person couldn't control themself, but we could limit what we show, perhaps. Limit it, but not take it away, because let's face it, you can't take the things that happen in real life away, either.

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