Violence baked into US popular culture
2012-12-21 22:20
-
Us
An old fashioned story by Mary Louisa Molesworth (1836-1921). The author of beloved children's...
Now R150.00
buy now
New York - The Showtime network aired a disclaimer
warning audiences of violent content in the season finales of its dramas
Homeland and Dexter last weekend, just two days after a gunman killed 26 people
in a US school.
The political thriller Homeland featured the burial of a
bullet-ridden body at sea. Dexter, about a serial killer, had a couple of
murders.
Viewer sensitivity, it seems, was not an issue. Homeland
became the highest-rated episode in the two years the series has been on the
air. Dexter was the top-rated episode of any series in Showtime history.
That's just one illustration of how violence and gunplay
are baked into the popular culture of television, movies and video games. While
gun control and problems with the mental health system have grabbed the most
attention as ways to prevent further incidents, the level of violence in
entertainment has been mentioned, too.
In the world of movies, danger is a constant refrain.
James Bond has a personalised gun that responds to his palm print in the
currently popular Skyfall.
The Avengers features the destruction of New York City.
The Dark Night Rises has considerable gun violence,
including the takeover of the New York Stock Exchange.
The Hunger Games has an entire premise based on violence
- a survivor's game involving youngsters.
Games
The top-selling video game in November was Call of Duty:
Black Ops II, according to the NPD Group, which tracks game sales.
For players, "enemies swarm and you pop their heads
and push forward," PC Gamer described.
In third place Assassin's Creed 3, players get points
based on how quickly and creatively they kill pursuers.
Top video games can earn anywhere between $1bn and $6bn
in revenue, said David Riley, executive director of the NPD Group.
TV series
The body count piles up on television, too. Seven of the
10 most popular prime-time scripted series this season as rated by the Nielsen
company are often about violent crimes.
The series are CBS' NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, Person of
Interest, Criminal Minds, Elementary and Vegas, along with ABC's Castle.
Hollywood often scours its product output to appear
sensitive when a tragic event dominates the news. To date, there's been no
evidence of a network pulling the plug entirely on a series because of violent
content in the wake of Newtown.
Fox is moving forward with The Following, a series which
depicts several murders by stabbing and mutilation.
Marketing violence
US Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, questioned on
Fox News Channel last weekend, said he believes violent content causes people
who use it to be more violent.
President Obama's adviser, David Axelrod, tweeted that
he's in favour of gun control, "but shouldn't we also question marketing
murder as a game?"
While promoting his new movie Django Unchained, actor
Jamie Foxx said he believes violence in films does have an impact on society.
His director, Quentin Tarantino, batted down such
concerns. "It's a western," he said. "Give me a break."
AP movie critic David Germain described Django Unchained
as containing "barrels of squishing, squirting blood”.
Violence in video games seems more and more realistic all
the time, notes Brad Bushman, a professor of communication and psychology at
Ohio State University.
Video game-makers have even consulted doctors to ask what
it would look like if a person was shot in the arm - how the blood would spurt
out - in order to make the action seem real, he said.
Bushman conducted a study that he said showed that a
person who played violent video games three days in a row showed more
aggressive and hostile behaviour than people who weren't playing. It's not
certain what the impact would be on people who played these games for years
because testing that "isn't practical or ethical," he said.
Cease fire
An organisation called GamerFitNation has called for a
one-day "cease fire" on Friday, asking video game players to refrain
from playing violent video games on the one-week anniversary of the Newtown
shootings.
Bushman understands the thirst for answers.
"Violent behaviour is a very complex thing," he
said, "and when it happens, you want to say what the cause is. And it's
not so simple."
For whatever concern that politicians and moral leaders
show about violent media content, it's those millions of users and viewers who
will ultimately decide whether gore stays on the menu, said Marty Kaplan, director
of the Norman Lear Centre at the University of Southern California's Annenberg
School of Communication.
If fans lose interest, so will Hollywood, he said.
"Hollywood is exquisitely reactive to the
marketplace," he said.
- AP
