Violence/Gore in films/games: bad influence on the crazies?

[Haunted Horseman]

I personally don't understand the attraction to movies like "Saw". To put it bruntly, I think they suck. They are in my opinion the works of no talent writers and directors. Gore is a poor excuse for Horror. It take no imagination to create images of destroying the human body and quite honestly doesn't scare me. I'm not impressed. Just as an example. The original Halloween, you see 4 people get killed, not 20, 30 or 40. There is very minimal blood, two are strangled and two are stabbed. Yet you can feel the suspence and fear. John Carpenter has an excellent talent for horror without gore.

In terms of the video games issue, I don't think they should be censored, but I would never allow my kids to play them. Aside from the violence in video games, what scares me more is the apparent addition to the games that many kids today have. Yes, I did play video games as a child, Space invaders, defender, pac man, donkey kong, Atari. But I was not obsessed. I went out side to play sports and socialize. That is what kids today need. Not to become video game zombies.

I truly believe the key issue is parental responsibility for a child's up bringing. No Hillary, it doesn't take a village to raise a child. It takes parents who care more about their children then themselves. Parents need to realize they have the greatest responsibility, to mold the type of people that will make up the next generation. They need to be taught selflessness, sacrifice, and love. The only place to do that is in the home.

[Spooky]

I agree with what your saying...but one of the things is...is that as a parent...I would love to send my kid outside to play...he's an only child...he has tried to make friends around here, and has 1 good friend...but, his friend spends the night at our house...I will not let my kid go to his house over night...I feel like society has robbed my child of a childhood, because everyone is so screwed up...that I can't trust to let my kid go trick or treating without us, or to ride his bike around town, like I did...he could never go play outside in the woods like I did with all the neighborhood kids...we use to play in the dark...my mom would yell off the back porch when it was time to come home. Everyone knew their neighbors. I walked to school every day and walked home for lunch. I am only 39 years old...I am not 89...so, I feel this kind of stuff is so connected and it isn't funny...

When I was my son's age and younger...I had great shows on TV like...Little House on the Prairie, Emergency!, Baretta, Starsky and Hutch, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Incredible Hulk, Charlies Angels, The Bionic Woman, Grizzly Adams, Wonder Woman, Tarzan, Batman, The Waltons, CHiPs, The Muppet Show, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Hardy BOys/Nancy Drew, The Donny & Marie Show, Solid Gold, Family Ties, The Facts of Life, Happy Fays, Laverne and Shirley, Three's Company, the list goes on and on of great shows...Saturday morning was all about kids with shows like Land of the Lost, and Fat Albert...we played as if we were those people on tv...and recreated things we saw on TV...and it was all great stuff to be pretending to be...what do kids have now to pretend to be? All these shows I mentioned....made awesome Halloween costumes. Who do kids dress up like now?? Sponge Bob???

I remember there use to be such great stuff on TV for kids, and the music use to be good-it use to be about love-when do you ever hear anyone on tv or in a song sing about loving another person? It's like people just want to drown themselves in misery. I say...think about what it was like to live 100 years ago without indoor plumbing...and then talk about how sorry your life is.

Also, where do you see color in movies today?? They are all black and dark and raining and depressing ...tell me what movie you saw that was a hit recently that you saw the colors pink and purple in it?

I am so glad this subject is being talked about. Because it should be. People need to wake up and get a huge reality check of what they can do to change things before it goes any further.

[Haunted Horseman]

Spooky, I know where you're coming from and you're right. This is not the same world we grew up in. But I do think there are certain things we can do as parents to encourage our kids to live lives away from the game console or TV set. Organized sports of any kind is excellent. I try to take my kids outside as much as possible and let them loose, while I keep them in eyeshot. I try to play as many games with them as possible. I'm not saying this is something that everyone can do. I understand there are lot of single parent homes out there where the parent is working long and hard just to make ends meet. But where it is possible, I think we need to make more of an effort then out parents did, to create a positive environment that out kids can grow up in.

BTW, i'm not saying sports is the answer to everything. I realize there are some kids that just are not interested or have physical limitation. There are other alternatives like music and art programs, scouting etc.

Just my 2 cents.

[Spooky]

I agree....my son is in the Chess Club at the Library, He reads books, he and I have YMCA Memberships-he goes there to swim, we play tennis, we go for walks in the park, he plays with our dog, he likes doing model cars...he just joined a group at school-they just started it...to where they have to come up with a communtiy project...I gave an idea to his principal for what they could do...the one idea was to get a "welcome To" sign, because our town doesn't have one, so now they are doing it.

I told the principal when I was my son's age I was in art club...this time of year...we would get in groups of 3 and 4 of us, and we had to think of a scene to do for Halloween, and we were allowed to paint on the downtown stores windows with washable paint...it was awesome.

I was a camp counselor, I was a candy striper, I volunteered for tons of stuff...there was so much for kids to do. I believe sports are a great thing for kids....

I ran track and cross country in high school. I was always busy doing stuff...and I still am...I just don't see alot of people having "hobbies" any more. I remember taking baton twirling, gymnastics, I went to Good News, I did flag twirling, I was in the girl scouts, I took ceramic lessons-so did my mom- I have some awesome Halloween stuff I made as a kid.

My mom had hobbies...she did needlepoint, and did macrame, my Dad made stuff in the basement out of wood, my brother played with Legos and Matchbox cars...we raked leaves for people in the fall, we shoveled snow in the winter...we were very active...we went roller skating and bowling, and we always had fun.

I miss being a kid...and when I look at what I was doing...im comparison to my son....I see a big difference...my son gets to go so many places I didn't go...like we are able to travel and go on vacations, and take him to resorts and do so many things I didn't do as a kid, because my Dad worked constantly and we couldn't afford it either...but I had so much more freedom...and I was not bombarded with living in a world where your scared some kid is going to go nuts and take a gun and kill his teacher or kill his friends.

Yesterday was the anniversary of 9-11...I never thought anything like that could have ever happened when I was my son's age...my son has seen horrendous violence in real life, just in the news. Every station has some kind of real life crime show on it, or Cops is on...and those are real life stuff....it is just so sad that the reality is...that there are so many people out there living a horrible life...on drugs, and alcohol, and in misery...I feel so bad for the majority of the population at times, because they just can't get their life together, and you hear constantly all the bad things that people have going on...nobody ever talks about the good.

[jadewik]

A Tangent, brought to you by the Letter P and the number 8...

...tell me what movie you saw that was a hit recently that you saw the colors pink and purple in it?

Bride and Prejudice. I've never seen a more colourful movie before... and the lines they steal from the BBC version of Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice make me all warm and fuzzy inside. The music just makes you want to dance too. ^_^

I ran track and cross country in high school.

Sweet! I "jumped" track in HS. =)

</tangent>

I'm noticing a trend in the comments focusing on family life... keeping your kids busy doing constructive things... doing things WITH kids. Let's face it, a lot of people these days are selfish... and, like Spooky said somewhere... (and I paraphrase) these days, parents don't take time to be with their kids.

Though, I have to disagree with the statement that there's never been something so terrible as the 911 events before. What about the Oklahoma City bombing? We've had wars that have resulted in more civilian casualties that we in the US of A have caused-- Hiroshima... Nagasaki. 911 is just a state of evolved war... call it what you will, but if you slice it with Occam's Razor, it's still one group that disagrees with another and wants to strike a blow to the other side in the name of one belief or other.

[Laurie Strode]

I've appreciated this discussion and all the members who put some time into posting their views, thank you!

[uncletor]

Okay, the numbers are in, and the four top grossing flicks in North America for the summer were:
1.) Spiderman
2.) Shrek III
3.) Transformers
4.) Pirates

So most are REASONABLY family friendly there is a occasional more mature joke snuck in for Shrek or Pirates, but nothing a 9 year old couldn't take, two are a comic book or adaptation of a theme ride...two of the four were around when we were younger in one form or another..(I can't READ "Transformers" without muttering 'Robots in disguise' to myself...it got to be a joke in the car this summer..whenever I saw the title I would sing it under my breath and my son would roll his eyes and giggle..and can anyone reading this NOT sing along with the Spiderman theme???) Three that were around last time made AT LEAST as much from toys, costumes and figurines as they did at the box office when Christmas rolled around last time when it was Spidey, Shrek, and Pirates II.
Encouraged yet?
My kid is playing a game right now where he gets to do STRATEGY..he has to get his kingdom in China to defeat the other kingdoms through either force, diplomacy, or other means to come out absolute ruler..thing is, he has to THINK. The VIOLENCE portion has two guys on a horse comning to each other and hitting one anothers swords until one falls. That's IT...
Spooky actually mentioned one of the solutions. With DVD and cable, you can become your own programmer. You can have wall to wall ANDY GRIFFITH, DIFFERENT STROKES, TWILIGHT ZONE or whatever you want.
Think about the different responses we got when we asked what everybody played on Halloween at home...

[Haunted Horseman]

Jadewik

Though, I have to disagree with the statement that there's never been something so terrible as the 911 events before.

For the record. I don't believe Spooky ever said this. Take a look.

[ooga_booga]

People like that make me ashamed to be a teenager. Ok, I'll admit that I'm not a particularly social person, but I would never go kill people, or join a gang and terrorize society just because I could.
IMO, the main problems are that no-one really bothers to spend time with each other, let alone explain the difference between reality and fantasy, and thanks to modern technology (includung said movies and video games) we don't have to work as hard as we would 200 years ago, and we don't really have to read or think, so everyone thinks they can flush their morals down the toilet.
Having said that, I think about other things that have happended in the past (wars (and yes I know they still happen today), diseases which until the past couple centuries, were incurable, witch burnings, ect.) so it's really hard to tell whether things are generally getting better or worse.

[tantraman]

Many will jump right up and say a video game/movie/television show cannot be blamed; the tendency toward violence is in the person to begin with. On some levels I believe that is correct but there are countless studies out there that are linking those who are immersed in these images and violent actions. To argue that the steady barrage of violence in the media has no affect is equally incorrect, IMO.

I read a question once that asked what these horrible images do to a child's soul. It is said by therapists that watching parents argue changes a child, how much more the bloody gore you mention in your post. This might seem a strange topic on a Halloween board but I think it's interesting that you raised the question. I have posted elsewhere here about the "torture porn" movies that have been in vogue as of late and my distaste for them. IMO they appeal to the worst common denominator.

Just my 3 1/2 cents...

popular science states that the fast moving, carttons and movies are the reason for the add and adhd and all that stuff. we can hardly sit through a old charlie chaplin now or the kids now in days everything has to be quick and it has to be now.

[tomanderson]

If it's true, "Star Wars" and MTV are pioneering causes of this need for increasingly fast entertainment. Lucas deliberately set out, in the dogfight scene at the end of the original "Star Wars," to create a sequence with more cuts (individual shots) per minute than any existing action film. MTV popularized music videos with similar cutting styles. "Music videos" had existed since the 30's as "soundies," short musical films played in theatres, but the common cutting styles from that era were much slower.

The 1939 Tod Slaughter film "The Face at the Window" features an extremely inventive MTV-style sequence showing rapid-fire images of laboratory equipment. There's a similar scene in "The Bride of Frankenstein" but this is much, much faster. It might be said to be a prophetic sequence, of sorts.

*********

The problem with the MTV generation (of which I am a part) is that as a group we embraced this rapid-fire imagery so enthusiastically that we demanded it of all subsequent entertainment--we reacted to it instinctively. Now this sort of cutting style is so much a part of filmmaking that anything older seems dated. When kids are young, they should be shown older media, and, like boiled spinach, they should be taught to like it.

[spookyboo]

Wow this thread has struck a nerve.....It seems everyone is passionate about this subject.
As we should be, Our children our the caretakers of the next generation ......What we teach them and show them by example will be directly reflected in their children. The world as a whole does not have an interest in our children....we cant rely on anyone else to make good
choices or stop making money. The way I see it Home is the best place to teach values.

[Laurie Strode]

You're right, Ooga Booga!

Thank you tom, tantraman..

I AM feeling encouraged, Uncletor, by your information and by the fact that there are great folks on this forum who still understand that the values of togetherness and a happy home life are crucial ingredients to becoming successful human beings.

Even though there's so much entertainment trash out there now, it doesn't mean we have to let it babysit our children.

[tomanderson]

It's really weird...I've always been into horror films and I occasionally like really gruesome ones, but I like these experiences to be fun, and there is a certain mentality in certain horror films that is a little detached and not unpleasant.

Like watching Creature from the Black Lagoon: The monster is scary and vicious when provoked. But I still have a sense that it is a fantasy and I don't feel "yucky" afterwards.

The original Halloween has a slasher guy going after people, but it is sort of abstract...it's suspenseful, and it's not so much about the reality of murder as it is about a "Boogeyman" coming after you and grabbing you. It's scary and unpleasant but there is also a sort of poetry there.

[jadewik]

For the record. I don't believe Spooky ever said this. Take a look.

Touche. I should probably stay clear of serious discussion when posting after 9pm... I'd read it proper, but I guess my head and hands were playing "Telephone". My apologies to Spooky for misinterpreting, and thanks for the correction.