Inq. of the Week: For Violence!
Last week’s Inquisition turned out a bit skewed, as some one/thing decided to spam vote for Superman 24 times in a row one morning. Adjusting for this, the end results included 46 votes and I’d like to thank everyone who voted (and didn’t cheat) for participating! It turns out the most of you (28%) would like to see Mr. Twinked Drizzt see a timely end, with Supes and James T. Kirk tied for second place, followed closely by whiney-boy Rand and the unkillable Wolverine in third.
For this week, due to the forgerous events of last week’s poll, we’re going with a classic Inquisition. After seeing 300 on the friday night that it opened, we were strolling out of the theater quite pleased when I noticed an odd pair exiting with us. There I beheld a middle-aged mother walking out of the same theater as us, with a no-more-than 10 year old girl beside her. A flurry of emotions, most of which was disgust, flooded through my mind as I contemplated, “Did that girl really just sit there and watch that movie?”
“Did that mother really just bring her daughter to that movie?!”
These are both quite fair questions, which I’m sure most people would ask (some angrier than others), but they really made me think. I’m the kind of person who grew up watching movies rated for people years older then I was. Predator, Aliens, Terminator, Total Recall, these were the things that I watched through middle school and on. Yes, both of my parents really like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’m not even going to link his wiki or imdb profiles, because you know who he is. I started to feel like a hypocrite, having grown up watching movies far too violent, sex-filled, and vulgar for my age I don’t seem to have turned out any the more socially-deviant.
There are some clear parallels between this and a lot of the hoo-la-hah going on in the videogame industry, pertaining to the ESRB, politicians, and angry parents the world over. It all leads to the most simple question:
Who’s responsible for censoring what children see/read/play?
Perhaps as a sub-question, possibly even a more important one, does violence/sex definitely cause damage to children? Can parents temper this with life-lessons, morals, or simply the understanding that what’s being viewed is fictitious and wrong? I feel that most sensible people agree it is the parent’s responsiblity to control what their children are exposed to, BUT is that said with the unspoken understanding that they’re supposed to prevent their children from seeing the “bad stuff” entirely?
No, and in fact, more and more evidence shows that “becoming desensitized” by watching something on screen is more of a myth- genetic factors play a bigger role, as do how well someone is trained when growing up to deal with the separation of fantasy and reality.
While (crazy) people claim that D&D is bad for you, I think being raised playing D&D gives a greater understanding of the difference between fantasy and reality and is a good way to vent off the bad feelings in a positive way. It just doesn’t teach you good hygiene.
The Game brings up the classic nature vs. nurture argument. Without going down this road to far, nearly every expert agrees that virtually all things socially developmental, are a combination of the two.
Does watching violence and sex DEFINITELY cause damage to children? No. Can it… sure. It should be the responsibility of the parent because nobody knows their child better! Parents will have an idea about the psyche of their child, and they should be making responsible decisions. Now, parents do not always make responsible decisions, and that is a shame.
However, seeing violence and sex is a much safer outlet than experiencing (or being a victim of) violence and sex. There is a strong argument out there about sex and violence being powerful human motivators. Seeing the consequences rather than living them can do more good than bad…. again, depending on the individual.
I think Sparta is responsible for violence and Las Vegas is responsible for sex.
Well, I think your mom is responsible for violent sex, but I didn’t bring that up!
In my very humbled opinion it comes soley down to one thing.
What your parents teach you about right and wrong.
Theres also a factor that alot of people dont take into consideration, the child themselves. Some of us shun away from violence and sex for any given reason.. Morality, Disgust, Feeling uncomfortable…
I think its important to explain to your children about what they see and hear. We live in a society today where “thugs” are considered heroes.. where if your not having sex your a social pariah.. Our societys views and feelings on these things have been turned on thier head in the past decade or so.
The damage comes, when we take no responibilty to teach and explain. When we leave them to figure out these things by watching movies and hearing stories or music.
Take responsibity for what we allow to happen, make an effort to teach and explain and the children will learn to seperate fiction from reality.
Excellent responses so far guys, thanks! I think Steve sums things up very well, with some great insight, that education can be the key. He also touches on another matter, which I was wondering about myself: did that 10 year old girl really WANT to go see 300? What about the trailer for that movie would be appealing to very young girls?
The parents should generally be the ones who determine what their children are allowed to see. It doesn’t become an issue of censorship but sensible education (as Steve says).
It seems to me a poor idea to leave censorship up to a government as it can have terrible effects on many facets of society and leaves education in the hands of relatively few. One of the strengths of a melting pot nation is that there are so many new things being brought to the table all the time and a blandness of education would slowly erode this. There is also the obvious allusion to 1984 as well but I don’t think I need to mess around with that too much here.
I’m generally against official censorship of any sort, especially from self-righteous people who claim they are doing it for the good of another group.
What about the trailer for that movie would be appealing to very young girls?
Uhh, 6 pack abs?
But seriously, the analysts said that the movie didn’t skew as heavily male as they thought, and probably more important to your question, there was heavy advertising on Myspace (including a promotion to increase your top friends to 300 or some such.) As a result the movie skewed younger than expected, though 10 year old is even younger than that audience.
Actually, looking at some images, they’re 8-pack abs.
Shh! Don’t tell people those exist! You’ll ruin it for the rest of us!
We don’t really have the strengths of a melting pot nation because we aren’t one. Despite coming from different cultures and backgrounds, we are still a relatively segragated country along any number of lines (race, class, education, etc.).
That being said, I do not particularly think there would be a dramatic effect on education without censorship. Children and adolescents are learning a lot about sex and voilence from a variety of outlets, including parents, schools, and mass media. But the fact remains that no two individuals will ever have the same exact education with respect to any one topic. It is for this reason that the debate over the most effective method to educate about sex and violence even exists. Otherwise, we would have a practiced method that would be most suitable. Studies suggest it is all about the parenting, but that brings up questions about policing parents, or restricting citizens from being allowed to have children… yet another way to take away rights from the people. This will always be the case unless censorship becomes the issue over parenting.
The biggest problem with censorship is that it also directly correlates with a less free society. The more choices big brother deprives the citizens of, the less free they become.
Censorship is dangerous.
For the most part, I agree with what all of you are saying, but I’d like to share this video I found shortly after reading all these comments (about censorship):
http://emuse.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/17469
I would say that the United States is still a melting pot, but that overly liberal nonsense (read: Multi-culturalsim) has turned curbed that phenomena significantly and in fact poses a major danger to our whole soceity when combined with our illegal immigration issues.
I still do not like the term melting pot anymore. I’m relatively conservative, but I do not think it is too liberal of people to want to preserve their own sense of identity. People want to be recognized for their heritage as much as they want to be recognized as Americans.
I’ll shut up though, because this is a different issue.
[...] Last week we determined that it is a parent’s responsibility to teach a child what is right and wrong, and in so doing may responsibly decide what their child gets to watch as far as violence, sex, etc. on tv and in movies. We also determined that some people dislike the term “melting pot”, that D&D is (in fact) bad for your hygiene, and that Joshx0rfz is somehow capable of making non-smartassed yet hilarious comments! [...]
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