junk and shit

Reflection or Fabrication?”

Since the beginning of civilized society, man has been infatuated with entertainment.

From the ancient Grecian Plays and bloody Roman gladiators to Hollywood productions and

Broadway musicals, people have always loved to be entertained. The forms of entertainment have

changed, but not the effects that they have on the spectators. Movies, Television, Musicals, and

even Music itself, all have a profound effect on the people who loose themselves in the magical

(and sometimes hypnotic) charm of the entertainment. It is a way to escape the everyday hustle

and bustle of the sometimes chaotic “real world” and just get lost in the story. Here in lies the

problem. It seems as if society has forgotten about the story and has started to believe its own lies.

Sex and violence are more popular on television than educational programing. Violence also

occurs fifty-five times more often on television than it does in the real world (Medved). Is this a

reflection of our society, or is it merely a fabrication; a distorted view of our reality that has been

created by our own “storytellers”? Violence in entertainment has become a major factor in the

increase of violence in today’s society, and something must be done about it.

Violence is defined as the use of one’s powers to physically or mentally inflict injury on

another. It is spread throughout the world by many different medians. The main ones being:

television, cinema, video games, and music. All of these have useful and very beneficial qualities.

The potential for educational and informative programing is phenomenal, yet we still choose to

poison our minds with useless information and meaningless trash. Television programs have

turned from entertainment and are now filled with worthless melodramas that supposedly

“entertain”. Instead, now all they do is annoy. The cinema used to attract one and all, now many

wouldn’t waste their time, let alone their money, to go and see a mindless work of “art”. Violence

has corrupted the entertainment industry like a virus infects a computers hard drive. The only

answer to the problem is to remove the virus or scrap the old system and start again, hoping not to

get another infection.

The te...

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...” to regurgitate it right back onto us. We have caught ourselves with our own hand in the

cookie jar (Jack Johnson)We will deny it until we are blue in the face, but it will not change the

facts: we can not blame anyone but ourselves for the violence of today’s society. We pay for the

violence to be created because it seems we can not get enough of it until it hits too close to home.

When the violence in entertainment leaks into and causes violence in society, we suddenly

become aware and want to point fingers, when all we have to do is look at ourselves.

The great philosopher Plato once said, “It is our first job is to oversee the work of the

story writers, and to accept any good stories they may write, but reject the others...”. We then

have only two solutions to our problem. The first is to remove those who make the violent

movies, music, video games, or television shows; shaming them into creating something with

substance and meaning. The second way to fix the problem is easy. We can simply choose not to

pay them for the violent entertainment. We can fix it on our own with just a push of a button or

the closing of a wallet.