Violence In America Essay, Research Paper

Violence

What do all of these scenes have in common: a small figure jumping on another figure?s head, a man stabbing a woman with a pencil in the hand, and a man punching another man in the face? Violence. What is the difference between these three scenes? One is a scene from a video game, another is from a new, popular movie, and one can be seen in real life.

In a popular video game you have a little character named Mario who is supposed to rescue Princess Toadstool. In doing so he has to jump on certain characters? heads in order to kill them. It is scenes like this that the government wants to outlaw. How can the government limit the amount of violence a kid sees in his or her childhood because the only way is to remove the kid?s eyes just so he or she couldn?t see the violence? Of course the kid can still hear the violence, so what are they going to do, cut off the kid?s ears too? After that, the kid would be safe from seeing and hearing violence. What could the kid do after that? Violence is just a part of human nature; it may be a part that civilized humans suppress in order to try to have law and order. Law and order are two things that just seem like guidelines from which a kid bases his or her rebellion. Just like in Columbine High School there was a small group of kids who were willing to break the law because there were restrictions on what they could do. And because they were teased by some of the kids, and to them it might have felt like the whole school was coming down on them, they got their revenge in one way possible. Although we will never know exactly why, even though they left a note, they rebelled against the system like they did; we will never know because they are now dead from their suicide pact. From now on, I think that someone should take threats a little more seriously when it comes to kids like they are. In video games you could be, as the government puts it, trained like a killer just from video games. I don?t believe that statement to be true, because if it were then we would have a ?holodeck? from Star Trek. A holodeck is a virtual reality device, in which you are in a room where you can actually touch everything, and it all smells and feels real. Whereas, when it comes to a computer, you can?t actually touch anything, except the keyboard and mouse to control what is happening. That is why it is called virtual reality. Virtual reality is just a sub-form of reality, meaning that it isn?t true reality.

All movies fall into four categories to me: love, violence, humorous, informational/educational, or any combination of the four. Violent movies are the slasher movie type, to me. Of course all types of movies have violence. A love movie could have a woman slapping a man in the face, or a humorous movie could have a group of screw up cops who do the funniest things and, of course, they keep their badges. And in the informational/educational movies you could have a lion eating a whale. All forms of movies have a piece of violence except a slasher movie has a couple of scenes more, and so it is deemed bad by some.

Then you have the recent shooting in Colorado. In the aftermath a note is found that says something about video games being part of their problem. After that, the media just takes such a liking to that, and they call for a political uprising just for ratings. When the government gets involved, then things get all messed up and teens usually are the ones that usually get screwed by it. That is why I hate the government and don?t want to get involved. The only reason that the government got involved is because of the media making a big deal about this small factor, in doing so, getting the public attention so that the government will have to do something about it and in doing so making laws that restrict kids from even more things. I believe that the government takes too big a part in some of our lives like in the ratings of movies but that should only be a guideline for parents to go by. Just like the drinking age of 21, the only reason that there is a problem with that is just because it is a rule, and most kids don?t like rules, and so they think that they have to drink.

In conclusion I believe that the media is too influential upon normal people since they believe everything that they hear on the news. The news is too known to tell the ?truth? but you have to also consider that they also have to report upon what is going to get ratings. So with that in mind you need to look at what is put on the news from now on and look at how much more the bad things are broadcast than the good. If the media weren?t here, then the video games and movies wouldn?t be so disputed in government and society.

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