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It's interesting when one views TV shows, Movies etc from 25 to 40 plus years ago as opposed to today ('today' being within the last 10-20 years) and correlates the disparities in content of 'entertainment' to the 'rise in violence'. I have often lamented the loss of positive forces being represented as often triumphant to the 'bad guys' being viewed as somehow "heroic' in taking up drug dealing and other forms of violent crime as a way out of bad situations. I mean, hey, would Rooster Cogburn have took to dealing Meth to make a few duckets to keep his belly full? Granted Rooster was a hard drinker, but he knew right from wrong, and drinkin's legal at any rate. Rolls eyes. Now , taking o the 'dark side' is somehow seen as being a good thing. The lure of easy money and power and the latter two is all that matters. Our heroes are gone, and described as 'to weird' and 'lame' and other such contemptuous language. Back in the day, a hero could have faults, but knowing right from wrong was all that mattered at the end of the day. That and doing the right thing. Things are different now. The end justifies the means, gettin' that dough in hand is all that matters and 'respect' is always gained at the point of a gun. What would Fess Parker, John Wayne, and all the other heros of my bygone youth think of this ...I wonder.....................
I thought of this a long time ago. Even back in the 60's, situation comedies on TV began using "smart-alecky" language and conversations. It was really cool for kids to talk like that to each other. Insults became the gold standard of casual language.
When violence came, the damage had already been done. Sticks and stones were not needed to break bones---names had already hurt people. The Ralph Kramdens, the Eddie Haskells, at first they were the comical exception, but soon, nearly all sitcoms consisted entirely of cutting digs at each other, yelled in shrill voices.
Violence in film simply put more powerful weapons in the hands of the people we had already made hateful.
When people, especially kids, become accustomed to violence and death the line begins to blur between TV and reality. Hence the increase in school shootings, etc. in the past few years. The world is taking a turn for the worse as we get more and more desensitized. One example of this is the porn world. A few decades ago "porn" was completely different than it is now. A PG-13 or R rated movie will have more pornographic material than what was considered in that category not too long in the past.
The way the human mind works, it needs to be thrilled with something new in order to get the same shock value as before. It's the same way that drug addicts begin to need more and more of the same substance in order to get the same rush formerly achieved by a small dose. The body and brain become accustomed to something and then more is required to achieve the same results. Violence is no exception to this rule. We've become so used to death that we no longer place any value on life.
I would say that TV, movies, etc certainly can affect our psyche and behavior, and it affects what’s acceptable in general society. I don’t really buy that it prompts perfectly ‘normal’ people to kill one another, though. There has to be a preexisting metal issue; saying that Johnny, who had previously been an angel, went on a shooting spree simply because he watched Rambo or read a Stephen King novel is quite ridiculous in my estimation.
As for the issue of ‘right and wrong,’ I think declining morals/behavior on the big screen/TV is more a reflection of our society in general. Many of us don’t want there to be a right and wrong--it makes us feel better. I’m not, in general, a binary black/white kind of person, but no matter how much propaganda the poststructuralist types and nihilists feed me, I will never accept that there is absolutely no right and wrong at all on any level. That philosophy is not in harmony with a healthy society. Unfortunately, our civilization continues winding down that road. Hopefully sooner or later folks will have brains enough to see it for what it is (BS)--including Hollywood.
I think we all need to remember that the ‘pendulum’ of our society arcs toward two positions (gotta love polarized cultures). The ‘loose’ attitude of our modern society is somewhat a revolt against the overly puritanical views of previous generations. That pendulum will continue to swing toward nihilism until folks see that nihilism is not really the way to go either... then we will start swinging back toward over-restriction again. The lucky generations live when the pendulum is somewhere in mid arc. Unfortunately, that is not us.
Nothing was somehow astoundingly better in the past, and taking one item in complete isolation to the rest of social factors is an inaccurate view. If TV somehow didn't exist it wouldn't mean everything would be Norman Rockwell paintings, but it doesn't mean it played no part. You can point to pretty much anything invented in the last 50 years that has advanced to today and say "Well, it was more wholesome back then and then some smart monkey invented this PoS"...correlation in time does not prove causation.
I do think that it has impacted people's view of how they place themselves in the world and being outrageously emotional is how you succeed...people react the way you experience most often, just my opinion though. People seem to believe they are the star of their own show anymore, they are the main character and the rest of the people are around to fill secondary roles...people do what they want without regard to others, and when two mains meet one tries and out do the other. Outrageous emotional displays, like watching a grown person have a temper tantrum because things aren't going their way, I think are partially good...mostly annoying to experience, but can be dangerous if some one goes off the handle in anger. It can be a quick display that you can watch some one lose friends and know who's messed up in the head without spending effort.
I think the way TV has impacted people the most negatively is in the way it has fostered snotty talk. In the early days of TV sitcoms, characters spoke civilly to each other. They talked in ways that were meant to be funny, but not mean-spitited. Then, gradually creeping in, came the Ralph Kramdens and Eddie Haskells and Lucy Ricardos. It became cool to talk snotty to people. The dialog became increasingly strident, until an entire episode was people screaming at each other.
To try to combat it, we have invented various device. Have-a-nice-day happy face buttons, rampant PC persecution, but the underecurrent is all still there. An entire cable channel dedicated to stand-up comics insulting the audience or telling the audience about how funny it is to insult somebody else. News channels with pundits who do not come from an educated center discussing issues, but radicals shouting at each other. Daytime talk shows with bouncers to keep guests from going for each other's jugulars.
There is a deepening current of hatred in this country---whipped to a frenzy by TV. Everybody, in their private lives, is rich and comfortable enough that they can let their hatred slide. But when push comes to shove, the people will be waiting right at the edge of "One of these days---Pow, right in the kisser". And TV has brought us there.
It's interesting when one views TV shows, Movies etc from 25 to 40 plus years ago as opposed to today ('today' being within the last 10-20 years) and correlates the disparities in content of 'entertainment' to the 'rise in violence'. I have often lamented the loss of positive forces being represented as often triumphant to the 'bad guys' being viewed as somehow "heroic' in taking up drug dealing and other forms of violent crime as a way out of bad situations. I mean, hey, would Rooster Cogburn have took to dealing Meth to make a few duckets to keep his belly full? Granted Rooster was a hard drinker, but he knew right from wrong, and drinkin's legal at any rate. Rolls eyes. Now , taking o the 'dark side' is somehow seen as being a good thing. The lure of easy money and power and the latter two is all that matters. Our heroes are gone, and described as 'to weird' and 'lame' and other such contemptuous language. Back in the day, a hero could have faults, but knowing right from wrong was all that mattered at the end of the day. That and doing the right thing. Things are different now. The end justifies the means, gettin' that dough in hand is all that matters and 'respect' is always gained at the point of a gun. What would Fess Parker, John Wayne, and all the other heros of my bygone youth think of this ...I wonder.....................
Does art reflect life or life reflect art?
Pre-code, movies had all kinds of sex and prostitution and etc. going on.
Hayes code changed all of that. That was in full swing by 1934. Then there are these huge movie productions that are unrealistic. The drugs are still being done and there is still violence in real life but its not truly depicted on the screen. It may still be hinted at. Out of sight does not mean out of mind.
Movies lose when they try to appeal to everyone. As in, rather than strive for historical accuracy in a movie that would have a larger following with males lets throw in a romance to attract females. Which brings me to chic flick's. Whoever decided that romantic comedy=chick flicks should be beaten. Using only prima donna stars in movies doesn't necessarily ensure good material.
Supremely dark characters are phenomenal when they are done well. I don't like characters that exist to serve one purpose. I don't like it in movies and I don't like it in literature. However, those movies are very fictional. Reality says that, bad guy and good guy is in the eye of the beholder and in great movies you need to be able to question it.
I don't think it's so much just violence, sex and so on in movies and TV that are the problem. I think the problem with it is larger than just that. I think the damage comes from this kind of media in general. Why do anything to excercise your brain when you can have the world spoon-fed to you through the remote control?
There isn't really much difference between literary violence and TV violence other than on the TV it's a more concentrated dose and it's tangible. TV is like the high fructose corn syrup of media.
We have to consider that The modern human has been on earth for around 100,000 years (or less than 10,000 for those of you who believe that - either way, it's been a while) and only lately have we had TV, pictures, movies, cars, computers and all those other modern conveniences. It's all relatively unnatural and so long as there are a few people making mega-bucks off of it all, we'll never really get to know how it affects us all as a whole.
TV and movies have become almost like a commerical in and of themselves. They try to convince us that "Normal" people live an extremely wealthy and frankly unrealistic lifestyle. They work very hard to convince you that you are a looser unless you buy the $%@t! they are pandering to you.
I always get pissed off when I see "hidden" advertisments in movies. I had a hard time stopping myself from yelling at the screen when I watched "The day the Earth Stood still" in the theatre... One scene they are heading out the door and the lady grabs here watch and cellphone; the camera zooms in for a second on the watch so you can clearly see it's a Citizen brand watch and then the same to the Nokia phone. Ads are everywhere... in almost everything I watch, anytime I turn on the radio, drive down the street check my mail or get on the internet. I bet soon they will be radiowaved into my brain 24/7.
STOP TRYING TO SELL ME STUFF I DON'T WANT OR NEED !!!!!
The thing that made Orwell's account of 1984 plausible was that damned TV screen in everybody's house, that had no on-off switch. Orwell failed to take one thing into account. It didn't matter if it had an on-off switch or not, because nobody would ever turn it off. Big Brother could just keep rambling on and on, and nobody would ever turn it off.
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