Violent Movie With Their Parents example essay topic

Media violence does not cause children to be violent. If a child is angry, violent movies, television shows, and negative lyrics in music merely add fuel to an already burning fire. A violent world contributes to violent children, but it is not the cause. That is not to say that television, movies, music, and video games do not hold a tremendous power to influence. They do, and in that respect, they can share the blame, but we must not forget the deeper cause of violent children, which is an increasing lack of nurturing adult involvement. It is also true that while guns facilitate the act of killing, guns do not create the mindset for the action.

A recent article in The Washington Post, Lawrence Douglas sarcastically shares his experiences and opinions about the popular violent movie "The Matrix". Douglas first relates how watching the movie seemed to be like watching a dramatization of the killings that occurred at Columbine High School. Douglas continues to say that the killings were caused by the harmful and violent images of movies like "The Matrix" (Douglas). However, this assumption of causation is not viable. Like Douglas, many people agree that the violent images portrayed by the media causes violent behaviors in our society, but it is not the only cause. Aggressive kids who turn into aggressive adults like aggressive media but this is only a correlation not proof of causation (Siano).

Without question, media violence contributes to the breakdown of inhibitions. The repetition of killing seen on television and in movies, desensitizes our youth, and increases the likelihood that someone will gravitate towards a gun to settle a conflict. However, the person has to have a pre-disposition to kill. The issue at hand, which cannot be over-emphasized enough, is that people are raising children to have such a disposition. Murderers are trained. Why Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold plotted, and then stormed Columbine High School with an arsenal of homemade bombs and guns, remains a mystery.

The media asks, was the lack of parental involvement the reason, or should the blame fall on our violent culture? What about the effects of the large numbers of offensive computer games, TV shows, movies and CDs which are filled with death and murder themes in the marketplace? Both Klebold and Harris were reportedly avid fans of the violent video game Doom. Nevertheless, many other teens, who spend countless hours in front of their computer monitors, thoroughly absorbed in this game, say Doom was not the cause (Brown). If you visit many online sties that revolve around violent video games, you can read countless messages from people defending violent games, and proclaiming they should not be responsible for teen violence. Repeatedly, teens visiting the Doom web site state, that while they frequently enjoy gruesome movies and video games, they have no inclination whatsoever to shoot or kill anyone.

They say Doom is just a good way to be entertained. They affirm, if Doom and other violent mediums were indeed the cause of escalating teen violence, then surely a lot more people would be waving guns and making pipe bombs (Fordyce). Although Douglas concedes that a simplistic view for blaming the killings in Columbine solely on the media is wrong, he does not give any alternative reasons for them. Such lack of development in his argument leads one to think that Douglas does not think of the issue from different points of view.

He focuses on blaming the problems in youth violence on the violent nature of the world and the images in movies. There are many reasons why violence shows up in children and society. One such cause involves parenting. It all starts at home.

Violent problems are rooted in home life and not in the media. Parent interaction appears to be the biggest factor in determining whether children turn to violence. Many young people migrate to gangs or cults seeking acceptance, a feeling of self-worth and a sense of identity. However, many times, entertainment, music, movies are the trigger. They are not the cause necessarily; it is the little push that sometimes makes them do something. Additionally, why would kids want to spend hours on video games if they were really engaged in their families and communities?

Do teenagers have anybody they can talk to about how much this hurts? Did Harris and Klebold have anyone to talk to at home? Or did they confess all of their misery onto each other, reinforcing the bad feelings so that there was no escape thus forcing certain thoughts? Searching for answers, people may be quick to find a scapegoat within the media. This would take the blame and ultimate responsibility away from parents, allowing them to continue life as usual. To fix their children, they have to fix themselves.

This explains why many people are placing the blame on everything violent outside of the home. It is much more difficult to acknowledge the violence within the home such as physical, sexual, and verbal abuse and neglect. How many parents made changes in their homes after Columbine? Moreover, if they did, how long did they last. Are parents still spending far too much time submerged in their work and away from their families?

Are they sincerely interacting and listening to their children? Clearly bad parenting is partly to blame. Such is the case in Douglas's article. Douglas states the ease in which children can see R rated movies. All you have to do is buy a ticket with an adult.

In most cases, these adults are the children's parents. So are parents to blame just because they let their children see R rated movies? No, they are not. How many times have you gone to the movies and seen very young children attending a violent movie with their parents? These adults take their kids with them to see a PG 13, or even R rated movie, because the parents want to see the movie. The two hours are filled with guns, bombs, sex and vulgar language.

Why do parents do this? Parents mainly do this for their own convenience, and because they do not care what goes into the minds of their children. If they did, they would not take their kids to see such films. The message kids take away is that their parents are more concerned with their own entertainment.

What really hurts them is the indifference of their parents, not the guns, violence, and vulgarity. The lack of parenting can also be seen in the video game world. With the blame put on video games in the killing of Columbine and others, it obvious that many people feel these games should be better restricted. Often people blame companies for letting mature video games into the hands of children.

However, Douglas Lowenstein, President of the Interactive Digital Software Association states that people should not forget that nine out of ten video games are purchased by someone over 18. Thus showing that parents do have a chance at determining which games their children plays (Lowenstein). Therefore, the task of keeping games not appropriate for children out of their hands starts and ends at home. It is the parent's job to teach their children how the world works and what the real world is like.

The violence portrayed in some movies is essential for understanding the history of conflict. Such movies as "Saving Private Ryan" show the harsh reality of WWII, which is an essential part of history. Parents have the right to take their children to see whatever they wish, but the main thing they should do is teach what is real from imaginary. Such a distinction is what separates a mass-murdering teenager and one who merely enjoys violent entertainment. Douglas' resolution to the violence in media is to fully restrict the viewing of such material by minors. He advocates for more NC-17 rating on movies that show obscene violence such as they do for movies that contain strong sexual content.

Although this is reasonable, it holds no weight. First, the link between the violence on the screen and off is extremely weak. Most people do not take violence seen in a movie or a television show as a license to kill. This shows that only a small percentage of people act out from the violence depicted in the media (Siano). In addition, this type of restriction will be more harmful because it infringes on the rights of parents to decide what too much violence is for their children. Society today revolves around things that touch our primitive nature.

Things like food, lust and violence most often interest us the most thus getting the most attention. This is evident in the world of media. All things that contain sex or violence tend to be more popular and sell more. Sex sells; as does violence. Trying to ban violent media will only make it more attractive and marketable. It is not the responsibility of Ratings Board as Douglas suggests, but that of the need of parents to monitor what their children are watching.