In my Gender, Race and Class in the Media class we watched a video about WWE wrestlers and the awful thing it has become. Boxing and wrestling used to be a sportly healthy 'fighting' sport. Where in this horrible depiction of wrestling, even tho its fake, it portrays brutal, embarrassing and degrading kinds of fighting even towards woman. Examples being men kissing or licking other men's butts, name calling, making fun of Gay's, girls told by men to take their clothes off and act like dogs that they can just beat around and control. It really made me sick to my stomach.
After watching this i began to think about the people watching shows like these and other shows with unnecessary brutality. How is this affecting kids? Can they really understand the difference between reality and fantasy? Children are so impressionable, seeing the violence especially portrayed in a good light by WWE makes them see those violent wrestlers as hero's and that they should be like them not realizing that they are trained professionals and its all a show. Kids and even teens don't understand the danger of this. Violence on TV isn't any better.
~In the USA an average of 20-25 violent acts are shown in children’s television programs each hour
~Violence (homicide, suicide, and trauma) is the leading cause of death for children, adolescents and young adults, more prevalent than disease, cancer or congenital disorders (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2006).
~61% of children’s television programs contain violence and only 4% have an anti-violence theme
Reading that made me really sad, not really knowing just how much kids are subjected to violence not necessarily physically but the emotional damage it does, Violence does effect Children it always will. Children see the characters they love on TV and they wanna be them, who doesn't? but when 61% or Children's TV programs contain violence, how many characters are children wanting to imitate who portray that violence?
What can we do? Children and teens will never not be affected by it. Even worse they will become desensitized to it and even think that is they answer to problems. Although parents can re-ensure that most of that violence is not real and talk to their kids about being safe.. it still isn't really enough. There are things out there that can help, using V-chips, cable, TV boss, or satellite controls to mediate what your kids can and cant see. Those can be really helpful but sometimes aren't in the price range a lot of families can afford. I feel the government needs to recognize how serious this is, and make things more attainable for more families. These children are the kids of the future! what kind of leadership will there be when kids are so numb to acts of violence? When it seems to be their way of problem solving? when homicide rates increase and increase...
I think your point about children and violence is important, and the impact that violence has on children but I also think you're going a bit over board with your end statements.
ReplyDeleteI am stuck in the middle of this debate where I think freedom of expression is important and that if the gov't was so worried about violence and its impact to the point where it would ban such things would be devastating for some of the artist merit out there. I don;t think violence is artist but more the story and lessons that it has and many times violence is use to create a deeper meaning. Rare as it might seem.
I think it's important to make people more responsible and not just the government. If you expect the government to run everything then you are opening a Pandora box. The problem in my opinion is that parents do not parent anymore. Also we live in a society with a messed up government that uses glamorize images of soldiers as a way to justify wars and violence. All which is displayed at the top of newspapers and nightly news. To think violence will disappear is a bit immature, human nature is violent, and because of that we need to make sure to know how to regulate these emotions. By teaching children how violence can hurt others and the impact of it we are doing a better service to them then just banning what we deem "violent". It's a large world out there with many different opinions.
I really liked your post regarding violence representations on television. It is everywhere and on any station. My nephews watch SpongeBob and they repeat things that he says like "stupid" or "idiot". I believe that it is verbal usage as well as action that are portrayed on these shows. I understand that adults can laugh and think this stuff can be funny or cute, but the young viewers do not know the difference. The sad thing is that this is the material that sells and makes these producers money. I do not think that this will ever stop and only continue to get more explicit with time. Regulation would help but parents are unable to monitor children every second of everyday. Unfortunately I think that this is something that we need to accept. I wonder if mothers and fathers have different opinions about this idea. Do people think that it is even a big deal?
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