Discussions about media and violence have been circling the internet, classrooms, and dinner tables for years. Many have questioned whether popular video games likeCall Of Duty, Halo,andGrand Theft Autoinfluence children to become more violent. Whether it be video games, horror films, or salacious television series, the same points arise during the debate. Should the media be made to accommodate apprehensive parents who, however understandably, do not want their children to be exposed to violent programs? Or should parents find methods to better monitor their children?
To solve whether movie violence affects real life, it would be wise to answer the overarching question. Does media intake affect real life? Researchers have spent entire decades breaking down the question to its core and analyzing the situation by defining each word carefully.
Media Violence Under a Magnifying Glass
While researchers agree that media violence and real life violence are correlated, the definition of the former is rather shaky. Everyone has a different threshold for what constitutes violence on television. For example,researchers from the University of Pennsylvaniatackled this subject in the 1980s, examining past surveys that were conducted to figure out the definition of television violence depending on the demographics. Teenagers, children with their mothers, graduate students, and psychiatrists are some of the groups surveyed by the researcher. Relying on content analyzers and yearly surveys conducted by grassroots organizations like the National Parent-Teacher Association’s TV Action Center. One of the surveys concluded that for 376 hours of television, there were 2,796 episodes that were considered violent, or 7.43 episodes per hour were violent.
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Contemporary research, such as theAnderson and Bushman experiment in 2018, relied on the General Aggression Model (GAM) to discover how much impact violence in the media has on viewers. The aforementioned researchers stressed that the GAM is a model to track aggression first and foremost, “a general bio-social-cognitive model of how various complex processes combine to influence the likelihood that aggressive behavior will be enacted.” It is a “dynamic theory” that includes group processes, and developmental psychology among other theories.
Children Are Effect Most By Media Violence
For example, Anderson and Bushman propose a scenario where a child playsCall Of Dutyand behaves aggressively immediately afterward. The researchers claim the response is just as, if not more important as how that child deals with aggression. A reward or punishment for the behavior informs the child about what is accepted and what is frowned upon, essentially informing children on how easy it would be for them to get away with aggressive behavior in the future.
Both examples expand our understanding of how violence in media affects children. Focusing on the developmental stages of life allows researchers to pinpoint what exactly allows aggressive behavior to fester into adulthood. The latter assessment concludes that the solution is a lot more nuanced than people are ready to admit. Parents and guardians not only have to be informed and emotionally intelligent to steer their children away from embracing violent behavior. Allowing, enabling, or even rewarding aggression at home is just as detrimental as the violent media consumed by audiences.
Glamour and Greed
Detecting aggression in children and adults is probably the first method of examining violence in movies and its impact on real life. However, the romanticization of violence in movies is another product of movie violence. The violent acts themselves are celebrated if the person performing the violence is conventionally attractive. Given Hollywood’s track record, it would be safe to assume that casting someone likeEvan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmerwas a conscious choice for reasons beyond his talent. Recently, Netflix received tons of backlash for green-lighting and premieringDahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Storyon its platform earlier this year.
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What resulted from the newtrue crimeaddition was a media frenzy. TikTok edits of Dahmer, portrayed by Peters, were filled with comments from viewers expressing their adoration for the infamous murderer as if he were a fictional character. The violence portrayed in the series or other fictionalized movies may not immediately inspire real-life violence;however it allows the victims of a given murderer’s crime to be erased in favor of pacifying the perpetrator.
The romanticization of the Dahmer serieshas laid a dangerous precedent that could negatively influence upcoming cases at the local, state, and federal levels. Furthermore, the prioritization of Dahmer over his victims erases the racial, socio-economic, and orientation-based implications, crucial information that was disregarded in the initial case. Turning violence into a spectacle does nothing but serve the audience’s craving for entertainment, regardless of the intent behind the film.
Movie Violence: The Verdict
So, does movie violence affect real life? While vicious films are not birthing violent murderers by the minute, the carelessness in these films makes it easier for murderers, serial killers, and abusers to get away with their crimes, as people care less and less about them. Researchers have continuously supported the assertion that media violence contributes todesensitization toward real-life violence.
Moreover, violence in movies may have some influence on real life, but it is not as influential as the violence people are exposed to every day. Violence in the media should be accounted for, but the hyper-fixation of violence in movies tends to overshadow the real-life violence people face daily. It is easy to fall prey to manipulative techniques or fail to consider how identity plays a role in violent situations if desensitization to violence occurs. Rather than being handled with care, urgency, and of the utmost importance, real-life violence is consumed in tandem with violence in entertainment. Violence, whether it is real or not, becomes a spectacle to inspire debate, to profit from, and ultimately to disregard more and more until it leaves the news cycle, treating documentation of crime as if they were contenders for box office hits.
