The Violence We Absorb Essay, Research Paper

There is a large question of whether or not there is too much violence on television and in movies today. Parents are becoming more aware of what their kids are watching and it may worry them. And rightly so, do you know what your kids are seeing on TV and in the movies?

The fact that the entertainment industry uses violence to attract viewers isn’t such a bad thing. They spend millions of dollars to entertain different audiences, and we all have to except the fact that some people are going to be attracted to violent acts. The same as some people like to watch sappy love stories. There is also the argument that if violence is suppressed that it would be violating the people’s freedom of speech. “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” (First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution).

But plain and simple there are just some things you just don’t show for a form of entertainment. “NEAR – DEATH EXPERECNE: A man burns on Fox’s ‘reality’ special,”(Susan Miller 60). This act of violence, burning a man, what is that teaching the future generation? We all tell our children never to play with matches. TV is taking the lesson’s we are teaching our children and corrupting it. Another scary fact of reality is some of the things that children see on TV, they take it as if it were a reality for them.

For example, the JonBener Ramsey case, the little beauty queen murder. Kids watch and hear about what happened to her, and it scares them. “What if this happened to me?, Mommy you would never let anyone kill me, right?” (Sandy Keenan 76). We’ve managed to scare our youth with the truth. Sandy Keenan had a thought on how we could change our intake on violence, maybe even limit it. “We can turn off the TV and the radio; we can keep magazines and newspapers out of the house – but there’s still no way to ensure that our children are protected from the knowledge of every ugly crime or fighting event.” (Sandy Keenan 76). The fact that people can’t escape violence scares people. So they came up with a solution, “they want to mandate that television sets carry “V chips,” which, when activated by parents, it would block out all programming carrying a “violent” rating, regardless of violent content.” (William Barbour 152). Those are our options to keeping our children from the scary messages that media can carry. You have to be careful with your chose, you wouldn’t want a mutiny to spark.

Good luck escaping violence if you don’t like it. But if you do, there shouldn’t be too much of a problem finding enough to suit you appetite. But remember to be careful, you might not be the only one in the house watching; remember kids can hear even when they’re not talking.