Should sex and violence in television and movies be restricted?
On December 14th 2012 Adam Lanza killed 20 children and 6 staff members of Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown Connecticut. He also killed his mother before the shooting rampage, and ended the day by killing himself. James Holmes, a Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience, entered a movie theater in Aurora Colorado and killed 12 people and injured 58 others on July 20th 2012. On November 5th 2009 Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan murdered 13 people and injured another 29 at Fort Hood army base in Texas.
These unfortunate shootings have left Americans wondering what, if anything, could have been done to prevent such horrible crimes from taking place. The reasons behind these killings may evade us, but we have to attempt to somehow curb the urge for this type of violence. There are several factors that could have contributed to the reasoning behind why a well-educated man, an army psychiatrist, and a young boy all chose to pick up assault weapons and use them on innocent people in shooting sprees that look like something out of a movie. In fact, the root cause could very well be that as a nation we are subjected to graphically violent imagery on television almost on a daily basis. Sex sells, and so does violence. Should we attempt to eradicate such scenes from movies and tv? Should we also be concerned about how our children will grow up becoming more desensitized to sex as well? Is there any truth to the idea that perhaps seeing these images splashed across our screens could somehow lead a person to think it is OK to act these out in real life?
A recent study published in the December 2013 issue of Pediatrics states that there is more gun violence in high earning PG-13 m...
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Even the American Academy of Pediatrics states “exposure to violence in media, including television, movies, music, and video games, represents a significant risk to the health of children and adolescents.” They go on to explain that it can desensitize children to violence, and potentially contribute to aggressive behavior.
With facts like these it is obvious that we need to invest more into protecting our children from risk factors that can desensitize them at a young age and lead them down potentially dangerous paths to violence. Much the same way we teach them about the problems associated with drug use and early sexual experiences in grammar school. As with drugs and sex, early education and preventative measures will help to curb their appetites for more gratuitous violent imagery and hopefully prevent atrocities like these from happening again.
The deadliest school shooting to have ever happened in the United States at a high school or grade school, happened less than two years ago. On December 14th, 2012, Adam Lanza, who was twenty years old at the time, shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, four times and then brought firearms to his former grade school Sandy Hook Elementary, and fatally shot twenty children and six adults. Then the shooter put his own gun to his head and fatally shot himself. All of the children were between the ages of six and seven years old, and all six adults who were shot and killed were females who worked at the school. Lanza's father believed that if he were there himself, his son would have had no trouble shooting and killing him too. He also theorized that Adam shot his mother four times for each of them; himself, his mother, his father, and his brother. After the tragedy, the school was torn down and many gun-control debates heated up and schools greatly improved their security to prevent anymore potential attacks. To this day, the motive of Adam Lanza, is still unknown but the effects are still felt in the world today.
...P., Vorrasi, J. A. (2002). Effects of Gun Violence on Children and Youth. Journal Issue: Children, Youth, and Gun Violence, 12(2). Retrieved from http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=42&articleid=166§ionid=1068
"Children, Youth, and Gun Violence: Analysis." Princeton. The Future of Children, n.d. Web. 27 Jan. 2014. .
The controversy over whether or not violence portrayed on television actually affects children or not has been playing itself out for nearly three decades. When some of the first results came out in the 60s and 70s that made the first connections between aggressive behavior and viewing televised violence, the TV and movie industries denied that there was a connection. When studies found the same thing in the 80s, the FCC opposed any regulation (Hepburn). A writer for Direct Ma...
In December 2014, an elementary school was attacked by an armed gunman. The shooter’s name was Adam Lanza. He killed twenty first graders and six faculty members before he took his own life in favor of being arrested (CNN).... ... middle of paper ...
Family environment and the press are two major influences resulting in the recent tragic school shootings. As much as society continues to focus the killing rampages on factors such as television and music, what children are exposed to in reality contributes to the violence. The most recent school shooting in Michigan involved a six-year-old first grader who killed a classmate with a .22 caliber pistol. The news coverage had vanished after two or three days, and I was left wondering what had happened. Considering the fact that the media wore the Columbine incident out, I wanted to know why they did not pay more attention to this school shooting. As evidence did arrive, it was discovered that the child lived in a household where cocaine, heroin, and many other illegal drugs were commonplace. Also in this “home” guns were easily accessible to the child. Children growing up in this type of environment certainly are likely to be held accountable for future violence. Even though I am against the news media presenting too much school violence, Americans should have been deeply disturbed by this shooting because of the child’s young age. The Michigan shooting should have enlightened Americans to the dilemma we face in this country. Two weeks after the Columbine High School shooting, information on the mass murder was still being broadcast on television. The press was feeding young viewers ideas on how to kill their classmates. News was reported how the teenage murderers acquired information regarding building bombs, obtaining guns, smuggling guns into the school, and proceeding to kill their classmates. A mentally unstable teenager could simply watch these news reports and write a book entitled, “How to Slay Your Classmates”. This onslaught was ridiculous and the news coverage should not have been permitted to continue for countless weeks. Society has determined three reasons on which to blame the shootings. First, the nation blamed it on television’s violent programs. Following that, Americans gave the music recording companies the evil eye as well as attacking the gun manufacturers. All of these reasons involve material objects that are unable to think for themselves. Televisions and CD players do not control themselves, people control them. Finally, boundaries controlling the television programs children view should be set by the parents. The same explanation applies to firearms. How can it be a gun’s fault that a person killed another human being?
Gun violence, have the tendency for youths to experience hardships of violence by other youths. Continuous studied on firearm show the increase of death that’s occurring with children in the U.S., ranging from ages 0-20 needs to be rectify (Children Defense Fund). In 2007, more recent studies by Children’s Defense Fund provided more statistical information on children and young adults of all races, who are subjected to gun violence, has triple since 2007. These finding suggest that vulnerable children are dying from the lack of gun control. Adolescence is a time for continue growth development, which many of the risk factors involving teenage violence is becoming more prevalent with children of all ages. More children and young adults are killed by firearms than from all other death related issues combine (Irwin, Berg & Cart, 2002). In other words, the numbers of violence inflicted upon children are generated by oth...
Before a person reaches the age of 18 they will have witnessed over 40,000 murders, and over 400,000 other acts of violence. One research study concluded that just one hour of television everyday will increase the chances of a person committing an act of violence by four times. Violence depicted in movies will leave an impression on the viewer and the feelings they had about violence will slowly and subtly begin to change as the person becomes desensitized to violence. Witnessing repeated acts of violence raises a person’s level of hostility and lowers empathy. The violence that is portrayed in movies and television has long been known to influence crime and violent behavior in our society.
This brings about another issue: children’s protection from this kind of content. More needs to be done to protect children’s eyes from inappropriate things on the TV, billboards, music, and other forms of media. Unfortunately, because society has gone as far as it has today, it will be very difficult to take a step back and re examine the effects violent media will have on children. People seem to care less and less about what children see. The need for protection from this type of content relies solely on the parents. Parents must take it upon themselves to guard their children against things on the media that they should not be seeing. Parents should be given different options with technology to help monitor the content their kids are allowed to see and what they are
“Although the perpetrators of the school shootings at Littleton and other campuses have been surrounded by dangerous influences, such as television and the Internet, to which they do not know how to respond, they are responsible for their own behavior. The way to improve society is to improve individuals. Society, in particular parents, must take steps to ensure that children know the difference between right and wrong” (The Absence of Public Morality Causes School Shootings). While knowing the majority of shooters are strongly influenced by their surroundings, parents should be wise as to monitor what their children read, watch and view on the internet. The ability and ease to access a firearm should be sustained as well. Although guns will not directly harm anyone, if the weapon falls into the hands of an adolescent – whom has never handled a gun before – a very serious problem may arise. Parents need to learn to respect the age and development of their child and peach about gun safety, what is right and what is wrong, should their child start showing interest in
addition the average American child will witness over 200,000 acts of violence on television including 16,000 murders before the age of 18 (DuRant, 445). Polls show that three-quarters of the public find television entertainment too violent. When asked to select measures that would reduce violent crime “a lot”, Americans chose restrictions on television violence more often than gun control. Media shows too much violence that is corrupting the minds children, future leaders of our society. In a study of population data for various countries sh...
Friday December 14th, 2012 the media shared an unpleasant story that happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. A man named Adam Lanza, murdered twenty children in the ages of five to seven. Six adults were murdered and two others were injured. Lanza’s mother, who name was Nancy was found, shot multiple times at their home. He then killed himself after killing all twenty-six people.
Some people believe that violent video games can cause behavioral problems. This is not true; it is only their opinion. They may say people that play violent video games start having behavioral problems, and what was that cause? It is only people and it has no effect on them, only their own action and their weak mental health issues. The violent video games for computers and consoles’ sale rate went up but violent crime offense went down. Video games are for players to have fun without causing any harm while they are playing. Why do they believe that behavior problems were caused by violent video games? They do not seem to realize that television and movies also have violent scenes. Some examples of popular violent movies include First Blood, Expendables, Dark Knight, Spiderman, and Superman. All action movies have shooting, explosions, and fighting. Horror movies are filled with violence as well, such as Halloween, Scream, and Saw. Horror shows and movie are showing stabbings and serious harm. Even Television shows, like the Three Stooges, Cops, wrestling and America's Funniest Videos! Children's cartoons have violence as well; Disney animated films, Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Watership Down.
The quarter of the children with the heaviest exposure to violence in 1960 at ages nine and ten were found to be convicted of of criminal offences during their adult lives 150% more often than the quarter of children with the smallest exposure to violent entertainment.
Furthermore, television violence causes aggressive behavior in children. Many people believe that children who watch violent television programs exhibit more aggressive behavior than that exhibited by children who do not (Kinnear 23). According to the results of many studies and reports, violence on television can lead to aggressive behavior in children (Langone 50). Also, when television was introduced into a community of children for the first time, researchers observed a rise in the level of physical and verbal aggression among these children (Langone 51). The more television violence viewed by a child, the more aggressive the child is (“Children” 1).