Monkey Do? Or Monkey Don't?-- Violence in Popular Media

[ouroboros]

The Same MSMD argument can be made for pornography.

"I think society deserves to be protected from itself. As we have been talking, there are forces at loose in this country, especially this kind of violent pornography, where, on one hand, well-meaning people will condemn the behavior of a Ted Bundy while they’re walking past a magazine rack full of the very kinds of things that send young kids down the road to being Ted Bundys. That’s the irony."
--Ted Bundy's last interview with James Dobson just before he was executed on January 24, 1989.

Bundy may not be the best proof of anything.

In a last-ditch effort to be “too important to kill,” Bundy met with Dr. James Dobson, a religious psychologist and crusader against pornography. Despite Bundy’s reputation as a manipulator, Dobson accepted his tearful confession as genuine.

On the video of this interview, Bundy appears sincere as he describes how he became addicted to pornography as a boy through detective magazines. This is what Dobson wanted to hear but it contradicted other accounts. To one detective, Bundy had pointed to cheerleader magazines as his inspiration, while he’d denied to Ann Rule that he’d ever read a detective magazine.

https://nsc2793.wordpress.com/tag/ted-bundy/

[ed2962]

The Same MSMD argument can be made for pornography.

"I think society deserves to be protected from itself. As we have been talking, there are forces at loose in this country, especially this kind of violent pornography, where, on one hand, well-meaning people will condemn the behavior of a Ted Bundy while they’re walking past a magazine rack full of the very kinds of things that send young kids down the road to being Ted Bundys. That’s the irony."
--Ted Bundy's last interview with James Dobson just before he was executed on January 24, 1989.

But again was Ted Bundy's problem that he viewed Porn...or that he didn't have healthy relationships with women outside of porn?

[CSTowle]

You can be desensitized to fake violence or sex, but encountering it in real life is a completely different thing. I remember being in a packed theater for the first "Final Destination" film and when the scene where the blonde girl says something like "I'm out of here", steps off a curb and is splattered by an oncoming bus my buddy and I laughed and the rest of the theater was silent. That showed how desensitized I may be to violence compared to the average person (though I'd still argue that was meant as slapstick humor), but I still get queasy when someone's bleeding around me and as I mentioned I don't like stepping on spiders.

I've viewed enough internet porn to, well let's just say I've viewed more than enough internet porn. It serves a function, but it doesn't hold a candle to even engaging in conversation or holding the hand of a real person you care about. Sane folk can compartmentalize these things. Reality/fantasy. If you can't, then you're the one with a problem. Not the fantasy.

[Old School Ollie 1962]

You can be desensitized to fake violence or sex, but encountering it in real life is a completely different thing. I remember being in a packed theater for the first "Final Destination" film and when the scene where the blonde girl says something like "I'm out of here", steps off a curb and is splattered by an oncoming bus my buddy and I laughed and the rest of the theater was silent. That showed how desensitized I may be to violence compared to the average person (though I'd still argue that was meant as slapstick humor), but I still get queasy when someone's bleeding around me and as I mentioned I don't like stepping on spiders.

I've viewed enough internet porn to, well let's just say I've viewed more than enough internet porn. It serves a function, but it doesn't hold a candle to even engaging in conversation or holding the hand of a real person you care about. Sane folk can compartmentalize these things. Reality/fantasy. If you can't, then you're the one with a problem. Not the fantasy.

Everybody has issues. When your issues spill over into society, society has a responsibility to investigate the reason your issues became society's issue. I think about the gunmen who slaughtered innocent men, women, and children in schools, theaters, churches, and fast food restaurants, or in their own damn backyards! How did these "kids" go undetected? Family, friends, teachers, counselor, priests, rabbis are all complicit on some level. In most cases, implementing preventive measures become a priority after the fact. Hell, the method of these preventive measures can't be agreed upon because of special interest groups from both the left and right. And the madness keeps on keeping on.

[dancj]

(though I'd still argue that was meant as slapstick humor)

Definitely. In fact, all of the Final Destination films are pretty much slapstick humour.

[CSTowle]

Everybody has issues. When your issues spill over into society, society has a responsibility to investigate the reason your issues became society's issue. I think about the gunmen who slaughtered innocent men, women, and children in schools, theaters, churches, and fast food restaurants, or in their own damn backyards! How did these "kids" go undetected? Family, friends, teachers, counselor, priests, rabbis are all complicit on some level. In most cases, implementing preventive measures become a priority after the fact. Hell, the method of these preventive measures can't be agreed upon because of special interest groups from both the left and right. And the madness keeps on keeping on.

But honestly, how do you expect to know when someone's insane that way? You can say after the fact, "we all saw the signs" but really what did you see? A loner? A guy who was a bit off? Someone way too into guns? Congrats, you've just described dozens of folks I know (helps that I'm a nerd and it's a rural area). If for some reason one of them snaps, I could say "should have seen it coming" but chances are unless they say "I'm going to snap and kill a bunch of people" (and depending on context, probably not even then) there's nothing concrete to go on.

Would more attention from family/friends help? Sure, but those folks likely have their own issues and can't be expected to prepare for the worst case scenario, especially when it involves someone they care about and probably think the best of (or at least aren't expecting the worst from). There is no real preventative solution, unless you want to give every kid mandatory therapy. And again, probably not even then. That's why I'd rather go about attacking the problem from the access to weapons of mass murder angle. Get rid of those (or make it so difficult to acquire one really has to plan and jump through hoops that can possibly trip them up as to diminish their chances), and at least lower the body count.

Also, checking to see what's in their Netflix queue will not solve the problem (to stay on topic).

[bloodofthegods]

When does the person that actually commits the crimes or acts of violence have to be responsible? Why is society so intent on putting this on the shoulders of others and people's entertainment consumption? When will it stop? There is a big difference in being a good samaritan or a hero and shouldering the burdens that are beyond your control. If a rapist was addicted to pornography as an excuse of his serial raping, then get him off the street. You don't have to put him in an electric chair, people can help him as he is institutionalized. But his acts are not the responibilty of pornongraphy makers, the internet, his parents or anyone else. They are his choices that he made, and the repercussion of those choices should be his to shoulder.

Yes CS, I agree. Because right next now I have Little Big Top, Home Alone, Dead Ringers, Crash, Grizzly, Justine de Sade, The Nude Vampire and Houseguest in my Netflix DVD queue. If anyone can psychologically profile accurately me from that I'll give you no-prize. ;-)

[t hedge coke]

When does the person that actually commits the crimes or acts of violence have to be responsible? Why is society so intent on putting this on the shoulders of others and people's entertainment consumption? When will it stop? There is a big difference in being a good samaritan or a hero and shouldering the burdens that are beyond your control. If a rapist was addicted to pornography as an excuse of his serial raping, then get him off the street. You don't have to put him in an electric chair, people can help him as he is institutionalized. But his acts are not the responibilty of pornongraphy makers, the internet, his parents or anyone else. They are his choices that he made, and the repercussion of those choices should be his to shoulder.

Yes CS, I agree. Because right next now I have Little Big Top, Home Alone, Dead Ringers, Crash, Grizzly, Justine de Sade, The Nude Vampire and Houseguest in my Netflix DVD queue. If anyone can psychologically profile accurately me from that I'll give you no-prize. ;-)

Can you show me where "society" has convicted a distributor or a director for a murder committed by someone who watched a movie?

At all?

The idea that "society" is absolving violent persons by convicting filmmakers or novelists instead doesn't really reflect even societies that do convict filmmakers or other authors for their works. It's a scary thing, but it's a myth. Not one actor, director, distributor, anybody related to rape-simulating porn has been brought in as accessory to an actual rape because the rapist watched their video, even once, that I can think of. Not even one time.

[bloodofthegods]

Can you show me where "society" has convicted a distributor or a director for a murder committed by someone who watched a movie?

At all?

The idea that "society" is absolving violent persons by convicting filmmakers or novelists instead doesn't really reflect even societies that do convict filmmakers or other authors for their works. It's a scary thing, but it's a myth. Not one actor, director, distributor, anybody related to rape-simulating porn has been brought in as accessory to an actual rape because the rapist watched their video, even once, that I can think of. Not even one time.

Conviction of a crime by anyone in entertainment or people associated with the criminal isn't the only way that others are punished for the actions of others. The existence of this conversation alone is evidence that many people of societies think that others sharing the shame or blame for other's criminal and/or moral actions isn't just on them. If people hadn't been blaming their parents, for instance, for generations, for their adult decisions and how their lives ended up, would we now be on whether creators of fiction should be held in negative light, for what they produce, even if they aren't sent to jail for it. This forum alone (and much more of the internet), is proof that fiction holds way too much importance in people's lives. People that can not compartmentalize fiction from reality. The non-existent legal convictions actually point to the fact that at least our justice system realizes the difference between the two.

[t hedge coke]

Conviction of a crime by anyone in entertainment or people associated with the criminal isn't the only way that others are punished for the actions of others. The existence of this conversation alone is evidence that many people of societies think that others sharing the shame or blame for other's criminal and/or moral actions isn't just on them. If people hadn't been blaming their parents, for instance, for generations, for their adult decisions and how their lives ended up, would we now be on whether creators of fiction should be held in negative light, for what they produce, even if they aren't sent to jail for it. This forum alone (and much more of the internet), is proof that fiction holds way too much importance in people's lives. People that can not compartmentalize fiction from reality. The non-existent legal convictions actually point to the fact that at least our justice system realizes the difference between the two.

You said

When does the person that actually commits the crimes or acts of violence have to be responsible? Why is society so intent on putting this on the shoulders of others and people's entertainment consumption? When will it stop? There is a big difference in being a good samaritan or a hero and shouldering the burdens that are beyond your control. If a rapist was addicted to pornography as an excuse of his serial raping, then get him off the street. You don't have to put him in an electric chair, people can help him as he is institutionalized. But his acts are not the responibilty of pornongraphy makers, the internet, his parents or anyone else. They are his choices that he made, and the repercussion of those choices should be his to shoulder.

and by, "the repercussion of those choices should be his to shoulder," and talk of responsibility, you are implying that entertainment makers are suffering the repercussions of those crimes instead of the criminal. You said, "When does the person that actually commits the crimes or acts of violence have to be responsible? Why is society so intent on putting this on the shoulders of others and people's entertainment consumption? When will it stop?" That isn't happening. Society is not taking the responsibility for crimes off the criminals and putting it on entertainers. They may ask or expect entertainers to also be responsible, and different people may have differing opinions as to what that entails, but society taking the responsibility off the criminals for their crimes and putting it on entertainers would require more than just us having a conversation about responsibility on an internet forum.

"The existence of this conversation alone is evidence that many people of societies think that others sharing the shame or blame for other's criminal and/or moral actions isn't just on them. If people hadn't been blaming their parents, for instance, for generations, for their adult decisions and how their lives ended up, would we now be on whether creators of fiction should be held in negative light, for what they produce, even if they aren't sent to jail for it," sounds good and scary. It sounds like you're drawing a hard, serious line in the sand, but it's a mythical line. "Blaming their parents"? "Whether creators of fiction should be held in a negative light for what they produce"? No "society," meaning a large body of government and civilians is persecuting moviemakers or singers for the violence of people who have watched or listened to their work. Not in court, not in the streets, not with weird taxes or public shaming demonstrations.

There are, and have been societies who are persecuting their artists and entertainers. But, not for that. It just hasn't happened. They may be blamed by individuals or small groups, but by "society"? No. And, nothing in this thread gives credence to that having happened, certainly, in any English-speaking country of late.

[bloodofthegods]

It's going to be inevitable that this is something we will see differently. I don't know too much more to say, as anecdotal isn't fact, but it's fair to say that the things some people feel to demanded from fiction, out of either the protection of the same society, or out of the reflection of reality, seem as though perhaps fiction is reality.

In any event, at least I found this article of violence in entertainment which I found quite interesting. I may not agree with everything the author mentions, but even at the time it was written, it's still seems the case today. Very well written article.

http://www.henryagiroux.com/online_a..._aesthetic.htm

[ouroboros]

T. Hedge,

"Society" need not connote only the official laws that society codifies in response to disruptive activities. I've often heard "society" used in the colloquial sense to mean "whatever set of social mores is dominant at a given time"-- mores that can include "customs" as well as "laws."

I brought up Frederic Wertham earlier. He didn't actually start the anti-comics movement of the late 40s and early 50s, he just became the best known representative of that set of mores, which included the assumption "comics should be for children." There was nothing illegal about crime and horror comics, but when comics in these genres began pushing the representations of sex and violence further than American customs allowed, there ensued a backlash. No one was tried for any crime, but publishers did suffer as a result of this societal backlash. And yes, I would say that Wertham himself tended to blame comic books for nearly every crime committed by a juvenile delinquent, though he officially denied that comic books were the only cause of criminal activity.

[Old School Ollie 1962]

I'll tell y'all something. It wouldn't bother me a bit if all of the violence, language, and sexual content in today's movies, television. and cable shows wasn't any more graphic than an episode of Gunsmoke. Ha. A great story is a great story. And a great character is a great character. James Arness as Matt Dillon. Yes, sir. He was the quintessential hero. So many classic shows and movies back in the day. I suspect I'm the only person who feels as such. Did anyone see Lonesome Dove? Great mini-series. Great book, Anyway. . .

[CSTowle]

You can tell an excellent story without using any of those things. You can also tell an excellent story using all of them quite liberally. Either way, focus on the quality and I'll ignore the rest. And I won't even consider aping the worst behaviors you show me in either scenario.

[t hedge coke]

T. Hedge,

"Society" need not connote only the official laws that society codifies in response to disruptive activities. I've often heard "society" used in the colloquial sense to mean "whatever set of social mores is dominant at a given time"-- mores that can include "customs" as well as "laws."

If "society" is neither the majority of the population or their government, than "society" is a minority of the population with no power or.... a bogeyman.

And Wertham lost in that hearing. Wertham lost. Comics won.

And, comics publishers screwed over other comics publishers by creating a voluntary Code that blocked their competitors comics.

We use that, too, as a bogeyman. It makes a good one. "Society at large hates comics and will destroy them with censorship," but that was comics publishers, not the courts, not the people.

"Businessmen will screw other businessmen" doesn't sound as good, though.