Opinion on violence in cartoons and video games?

I'll try to stomic any responce I end up getting. Hopefully...

 

"Stomach"?

Anyway- I look at the issue of violence in cartoons and video games an absurd distraction from the notion that we're somehow supposed to accept that it's normal for people to be exposed to cartoons and video games to a degree that the violence in them would have any real effect.

It's not that I believe games and cartoons should be violent- it's my objection to culturally frame the discussion in terms of regulating the content of entertainment instead of allowing individuals and parents to regulate how much exposure their children have to them in the first place. I'm not objecting to this discussion as it merely reflects what I see as a grassroots disease where people are led to bear no responsibility to monitor the content of what they expose themselves to in favor of institutionally (government) enforced assurances that the content of what people shouldn't be so deeply participating in doesn't include what is deemed to "cause undesirable behavior"... it's almost as though we're being impressed with the notion that a person's moral compass is being set by what is being watched on TV.

Trying to establish the appearance of a link between components of pop culture and tragedy as a precedence for regulating or censoring content is nothing new. As I recall, Ozzy Osbourne was implicated in a suicide as part of a court case that garnered national coverage as the powers that be worked to cultivate popular support for regulating musical content. I think that accepting at face value the innumerable crises conjured up by mass media and the government poses a far greater threat to our freedoms than does the content of games and cartoons imperil our safety. We're ceding far too much of what should be accomplished at the community level and in the home to elected people who have demonstrated beyond any doubt that they do not have our best interests at heart.

Excellent topic.

 

I grew up watching bugs bunny......

Safe to say I'm not dropping anvils on ppl, or playing with sticks of dynamite.

And video games, just people trying to pass the blame on to somebody else lol

 

good thread for a rookie...well done pink...you peaked the professors interest thats for sure lol.....

...i have never enjoyed violent video games...the splashing blood and exploding head graphics were cool for about 2 seconds and then just boring and lame....

 

I think such things have helped lower the shock factor people now have. back when my daddy and his family were growing up it would have been horrifying to see someone getting blown up and brains exploding , but nowadays it seems like those things are so commonplace that they get hardly any reaction. Not so sure if its a good thing or not.

 

that pretty much sums up my stance on the subject.

Cartoons, movies, video games, TV, etc. These things are for entertainment purposes. Not for the purpose of raising our youth. Any time the entertainment industry is where kids go for guidance, regardless of content, it becomes unhealthy.

The bottom line is this....parents aren't doing their job. And when their kids become rotten, they can't stand to look their own handywork in the eye. They look around and try to push the blame onto someone else for how their own child was raised.

The debate on whether there's too much violence in media, not only ignores the real issue at hand, but makes violent media bigger sellers. When they try to label something as taboo, kids are going to flock towards it. The more they fuss about it, the better it will sell, and the more kids are being influenced by it. Meanwhile parents are in the courtroom suing the entertainment industry, while their own kids are left at home glued to the boob tube. They should spend less time trying to regulate virtual reality and more time teaching their kids the difference between that and actual reality.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SgM_acEsqw&feature=youtube_gdata_player"]Penn and Teller: Bullshit! Violent Video Games - YouTube

 

I find it amusing that some folks freak out about kids seeing sexual content , but not blood and gore

 

Haha. That Bullshit vid was the first thing I thought of when I clicked this thread.
One of the best points they make is that people think pretend violence in video games is awful but lets put those kids on a football field and get them to do some real violence - that's ok.

Sometimes I often imagine that there were people in the day before tv and video games going "Cops and robbers leads to violence!" or "Hide and seek leads to deceitfulness!" "Hula Hoops are offensive!" "Ball and Paddle is violent!"

 

While I never believed that cartoon , video game or song lyrics caused violence by users of those medias . Maybe a small percentage of the very mentally unstable population . Who shouldn't be exposed to them perhaps . In normal mind healthy individuals , I don't think they cause violence . Desensitization perhaps , to where nothing shocks us anymore of mans inhumanity to man . I think more of that comes from the news media and graphic real life t.v. shows . While I don't think these things push people to violence .

I do think however these medias portray and glorify violence as a social norm and acceptable in todays society . When young or unstable minds view violence as the way life is supposed to be . Who are surrounded by dysfunction and violence already . With no checks and balances , it does perhaps justify in their mind that violence is not only justified but expected . I believe all of these medias today glorify all that's negitive . Nothing ever positive , and every year it gets worse . The first amendment gives us the right to express what we wish . And with that right comes great responsibility . Words and media images are the most powerful weapons there are . However if used irresponsibily in a society that glorifies violence and negitivity then that's what it's going to continue to promote .

I think the propensity to commit violence is in every one of us . If history shows us anything , it shows us that that's who we are . Long before technology and mass media , we were violent toward each other .

People look today for scape goats and excuses as reasons for violence . Like the media outlets . Sure they're a conduit to bring it right into our homes . Yet our society is the one who glorify it , who watch it , play it , listen to it and drive it's creation to more and more disturbing levels of what's acceptable ,wanted and glorified in todays culture . Violence is increasing because our society is falling apart . Our family structures are falling apart . We are more unsocial and isolated now like never before . Many peoples only social interactions are now through the mass media machines . And the only messages they hear are the negitives driving popular culture . While it doesn't cause violence , it does promote it I think .

 

I recently read a legitimate academic study that showed that playing violent video games DOES increase instances of violence over time, no matter how much people don't want to believe it. I think that it doesn't cause it per se, bur desensitizes people to it somewhat.

 

Interesting posts...

*is still not sure what to comment, really*

Other than portrayals of violence saddening me.


Okay, I might know what to say now...

I just don't understand why it's such a big thing and like you said, glorified soo much...

I think its sick when people try to kill each other/go to war on tv and its shown FOR KID.

Stuff like G.I. Joe and even Transformers is all into that 'killing' theme and 'good vs evil'...

I just don't understand how thats portrayed as 'good'...from what I can see, it really isn't.

The My Little Pony craze with males made me REALLY happy, though. Finally, something accepted as 'manly' that doesn't have to do with fighting and violence!

 

You started a very nice thread here Pink . Very well done . And I think your name is just fine too . :2thumbsup:

 

My little pony.........."manly?"

 

The first post in this thread I fail to understand...

I mean...it's happy and beautiful?......Is there something wrong with beauty that I should know about?

It's the new series, by the way. Friendship is Magic..and, yeah, guys LOVE it....I've seen it all over the place, it kind of reminded me of the type of people who go on here, they sometimes talked about love and tollerence and stuff.....Very interesting community......

This is all true i've seen it myself. Makes me feel proud inside...but it's okay if you don't agree to it, I won't think any less of you.....

 

I'm not saying its wrong, at all. I'm just saying there's nothing "manly" about it. Until now I've never heard of it, but googling it shows all pink and purple, very feminine things. Wiki states that it's spicificaly marketed to young girls.

Although I dont see most of the violence were talking about as a threat, I do see how 'manly' is sometimes equated to 'violent.' But again, this can be avoided by hands on parenting instead of TV remote in hand parenting.

 

Violence in cartoons and video games is a trumped up "issue".

It wouldn't be an issue if people exercised due diligence with the entertainment they made time for.

Peoples failure to control their impulses should not be the basis for regulating any industry- that SHOULD be the role of a market. If something is too violent then it simply shouldn't sell.

Creating victims so industries like entertainment can be cast as villains only serves to foster support for the government to expand on the premise that its role is to protect people.

The government has shown it does not care about people by what it selects to regulate and how it regulates. It is not to be trusted. We need to discuss how to effect the downsizing of government- not on how it is to be expanded. It isn't interested in protecting us- only in seeking precedence and justification to censor us.

We need to discuss social treatments for social ills, not institutional ones. Any discussion about violence in cartoons and video games will inevitably turn to what the government should do about it once it is established that those forms of entertainment are too violent

 

I don't understand how it equal's 'feminine', though..and people seem to act like thats a bad thing, espesally CALLING it 'feminine'....I just don't understand

But that's going off topic now.

Anyways, yeah, the above poster may be making a good point, too...

Wow some topic I started....

 

"It happened so slowly that most men never even realized it happened? I like that quote from THX-1138. Having come from an era that did not allow the word pregnant to be uttered in the media-did not allow married couples to be seen in the same bed-did not allow black folks to even be in media(few exceptions),did not show black and white couples,did not allow "foul" language,would not allow much violence shown as graphically as today--here we are. It's pretty amazing to me just how far society has changed -some would say progressed,in the last 50-60 years. Regarding this violence ,I see it kind of like getting vaccinations. Say a million people get a shot for some particular malady. Let's say 900,920 will be fine,but 80 will die. Same with the violence. The majority of game players will be just fine,but a small percentage will act out with violence. It must come down to environment in the homes of game-players and/or bad wiring in the brain.

I've watched my 14 year old grandson playing the hard core games,but I just don't see the fun in blowing the shit out of imaginary people. I never could have imagined the changes that have ocurred and are accepted now in the media and society in general.
Two examples=The mild violence in Psycho(not shown)to the violence in Taxi Driver=shown and shocking to the public then. From the 50s to the 70s.
Is there some hidden purpose to exposing the youth to these violent games other than making money?

 

It is sad...but it really is something we just got to deal with out of everyday life, I guess.

At least we don't have to play the games if we don't want to. xD; I mostly play video games if I get very bored....

 

It might desensitize them to such a degree that a career as cannon fodder for the military seems less threatening.