An understanding of the media message

[RedShoesGirl]

...in movies, then and now, is the fact that today all the objectionable scenes are very graphic. Whereas in the past the violence was usually only hinted at. Maybe this has had the effect of desensitizing people to the violence and adult content of movies today?

add that content to violent video games and you have the recipe for a perfect soldier. proficient at killing from afar with no conscience or visual consequence. and the conspiracy theorist in me thinks this is no accident. we are raising a generation of kids that can kill you with fast thumb movements inside imaginary tanks. think how well prepared they will be when they are older to sit in real tanks and play video games, blowing up villages full of civilians because they have no faces and are probably the colour brown.

just a thought.

lara

 

[RedShoesGirl]

I do not own a television set, and consider most program content
moronic. When exposed to TV in public places or private homes,
this belief is affirmed.

if you do not have a tv set or watch much, you really can't be a good judge of the content quality. there IS good stuff out there that is not full of violence and is not catering to the lowest common denominator...you just have to find it.

lara

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

Heck, no. She'd become a tough, no-nonsense family court judge, write a scathing book on the family court system, and get her own TV show called Judge Judy. The show taught me a lot about life, and it's still on.

I really like "Judging Amy". They re-run two episodes a day on TNT, so I'm all caught up on every episode!
The difference here is that this is aimed at an adult crowd. I don't know how many 12 year old girls are sitting down with their family to watch this show. In this thread I'm referring to shows, such as "The OC" and "Charmed" (wish I new the names of some more, I'm sorry I keep bringing up these two particular programmes!) and the like, that are aimed at a younger generation. You are an adult, you aren't an impressionable teen. You'd watch a show like "The OC" and know that it wasn't based on reality, and you know that in real life not all rich kids are drinking and driving or doing some other destructive activity. They make the characters in these shows so young and beautiful and desireable, what kid wouldn't want to be like them?

 

[jake_fink]

You guys watch Charmed!?!?! [huh]

 

[Feraud]

I just watch it for the gals in the outfits.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Somewhere in the early 1980s this all changed; the children's cartoons and films became very violent. It's worse now with all of the scatological references in every children's cartoon. There appears to be no rebuke for this, so I imagine it will only accelerate.

I suspect this trend has much to do with the idea that "kids' entertainment" has to also be something that will appeal to adults -- the whole hipster-irony wink wink nudge nudge thing that goes into so much of children's programming these days. I don't think there's been a kids' program that was totally geared to the way a child actually processes the world since "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" went out of production, which is terribly unfortunate.

On the other hand, though, there's quite a bit of scatalogical humor in early animation -- so that's not exactly an innovation. Walt Disney had quite the thing for outhouse gags.

 

[Viola]

I really like "Judging Amy". They re-run two episodes a day on TNT, so I'm all caught up on every episode!
The difference here is that this is aimed at an adult crowd. I don't know how many 12 year old girls are sitting down with their family to watch this show.

I can't get over my 17-year-old brother's love for it. It's too much of a chick flick for me!

Viola

 

[Benny Holiday]

add that content to violent video games and you have the recipe for a perfect soldier. proficient at killing from afar with no conscience or visual consequence. and the conspiracy theorist in me thinks this is no accident. we are raising a generation of kids that can kill you with fast thumb movements inside imaginary tanks. think how well prepared they will be when they are older to sit in real tanks and play video games, blowing up villages full of civilians because they have no faces and are probably the colour brown.

just a thought.

lara

Careful Lara, you may be closer to the truth than you think . . .

Daisy, it's funny you should bring this topic up now, because only these last couple of days in Australia the issue has been raised about children growing up too fast. The issue came to a fore at the beginning of the week with two national clothing chains being accused of 'sexualising' childrens' clothing. These last couple of summers, girls as young as eight and nine have been running around in little denim miniskirts and midriff tops, dressing like miniature versions of performers in music video clips. The news media has been abuzz with people concerned about sixth-grade boys bringing downloaded porn to school and parents' apathy in monitoring what their children watch on TV and what they're accessing on their home computers.

A few months ago, I was talking to my mother and the question arose in my mind, is the world more cynical and harder now than it was when I was a kid growing up in the late 70's and 80's, or is just that I was an innocent kid and didn't notice the grittiness? Mum told me that no, I was right: the world has increasingly become harder-edged, more comfortable with violence and cheap sex, and more accepting of moral decay.

Kids are being robbed of their innocence too young. The world sure isn;t a perfect place, and we do need to educate them about its dangers, but there's no need to shove it in their faces or ram it down their throats in a bombardment of images and ideas meant to desensitize them to moral declivity.

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

You guys watch Charmed!?!?! [huh]

OK, now I'm embarrassed!
I don't think I ever said I didn't like the show. It's fun to watch three chicks kick demon butt. However, I am 31 (32 tomorrow, ugh!) years old. I know right from wrong. I also know, although this is unfortunate and I wish it weren't so, that the way a girl dresses can give a girl the wrong idea. I am not impressionable, all the time

I just watch it for the gals in the outfits.

Right on Thanks for helping prove part of my point!!

 

[John in Covina]

Wrongs being splashed across the screen, or reality? Most of the things mentioned in Daisy's post are what people actually have to deal with in their lives (drinking, drugs, promiscuity for example). We like to watch what we can relate to ... Would we rather that TV didn't touch on these topics in any way? bk

It is more a question as to whether you want your kids in a "Life imitates Art" situation when the lessons being learned from TV.

 

[John in Covina]

What is the ratio of shows where
the Dad is a smart intellegent caring man as head of the household
versus totally selfish boob or complete ignoramous?

 

[Feraud]

Right on Thanks for helping prove part of my point!!

You are welcome. I was hoping someone would catch that!

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

Careful Lara, you may be closer to the truth than you think . . .

Daisy, it's funny you should bring this topic up now, because only these last couple of days in Australia the issue has been raised about children growing up too fast. The issue came to a fore at the beginning of the week with two national clothing chains being accused of 'sexualising' childrens' clothing. These last couple of summers, girls as young as eight and nine have been running around in little denim miniskirts and midriff tops, dressing like miniature versions of performers in music video clips. The news media has been abuzz with people concerned about sixth-grade boys bringing downloaded porn to school and parents' apathy in monitoring what their children watch on TV and what they're accessing on their home computers.

A few months ago, I was talking to my mother and the question arose in my mind, is the world more cynical and harder now than it was when I was a kid growing up in the late 70's and 80's, or is just that I was an innocent kid and didn't notice the grittiness? Mum told me that no, I was right: the world has increasingly become harder-edged, more comfortable with violence and cheap sex, and more accepting of moral decay.

Kids are being robbed of their innocence too young. The world sure isn;t a perfect place, and we do need to educate them about its dangers, but there's no need to shove it in their faces or ram it down their throats in a bombardment of images and ideas meant to desensitize them to moral declivity.

It's great to get a point of view from another part of the world. Stories like this in other countries rarely get mentioned in the media here. I do know that television in other countries can be very different from what we see over here, but it seems that the dilemna is international.

Lara, your points are well taken. I was just told that their was a study done by the FBI in regards to kids and video games. Some of the kids in the study were better shots than those from FBI and other law enforcement agencies.I guess they do, in a way, glamourize war, make it into something enjoyable, which it is definitely not. I also read somewhere that a very high percentage of kids who were involved in school shootings were highly proficient in video gaming.

 

[Harp]

TV Response

if you do not have a tv set or watch much, you really can't be a good judge of the content quality. there IS good stuff out there that is not full of violence and is not catering to the lowest common denominator...you just have to find it.

lara

By any objective standard, television largely caters to mediocrity,
low-brow entertainment, and plain fluff. And what little wheat-wherein
TV's chaff-hardly alters this.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

It's great to get a point of view from another part of the world. Stories like this in other countries rarely get mentioned in the media here. I do know that television in other countries can be very different from what we see over here, but it seems that the dilemna is international.

Lara, your points are well taken. I was just told that their was a study done by the FBI in regards to kids and video games. Some of the kids in the study were better shots than those from FBI and other law enforcement agencies.I guess they do, in a way, glamourize war, make it into something enjoyable, which it is definitely not. I also read somewhere that a very high percentage of kids who were involved in school shootings were highly proficient in vidoe gaming.

That is scary. One simply can not deny the fact that there is a definate link between media content and the decaying state of our society.Graphic acts of violence,(out of context of a given story) and immorality in general as depicted by the various media, is having an all too real effect. Kids that grew up with all this nefarious input, have committed heinous crimes that kids in the past would have never even conceived. I think within the last 30 years or so is when the situation really started to get progressively worse.
I believe that the family unit is the main target of this multi-media assault. All of the negative media output is designed to destroy the traditional family.
It's no wonder that we are all of a like mind here in our love of days past, and the traditional values with which we were raised.

 

[DancingSweetie]

if you do not have a tv set or watch much, you really can't be a good judge of the content quality. there IS good stuff out there that is not full of violence and is not catering to the lowest common denominator...you just have to find it.

lara

Really? I haven't found it yet. I now only watch TCM, and even that channel pisses me off now and then.
When I am exposed to the stupidity (on the screens at the gym) I can't even believe people watch that drek.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Really? I haven't found it yet. I now only watch TCM, and even that channel pisses me off now and then.
When I am exposed to the stupidity (on the screens at the gym) I can't even believe people watch that drek.

Didn't Time Warner,(whoever that is now) just purchase most of the cable providers in the midwest?
A friend of mine that had Comcast was recently very upset at the fact that this happened. All of his vintage programming, including The Three Stooges, has been eliminated in this latest media power play. Even TCM is lousy compared to what it was like before.

 

[Feraud]

I am surprised we still argue how today's youth and media are driving us over the edge.
For every example of the decaying of our society someone can point to at least one example of the misery of "the old days". I cannot imagine what our parents and grandparents blamed for the corruption of the youth of their era. Perhaps it was the jazz, robber barons, integration, film noir, rock 'n' roll, voting (for the specific corruption of our young ladies), etc. Today we look back on those harbingers of doom with a smile and nostalgia.

The more one reads of History the clearer the old expression "the more things change, the more they stay the same".

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

That is scary. One simply can not deny the fact that there is a definate link between media content and the decaying state of our society.Graphic acts of violence,(out of context of a given story) and immorality in general as depicted by the various media, is having an all too real effect. Kids that grew up with all this nefarious input, have committed heinous crimes that kids in the past would have never even conceived. I think within the last 30 years or so is when the situation really started to get progressively worse.
I believe that the family unit is the main target of this multi-media assault. All of the negative media output is designed to destroy the traditional family.
It's no wonder that we are all of a like mind here in our love of days past, and the traditional values with which we were raised.

Yes, Maj. It does seem that the family is one of the targets of assault by the media. I know, people want to see shows that they can relate to. How could a kid from a broken home relate to a show containing a nuclear family? Well, it seems that media plays a rather large role in the shaping of our children. Is it possible, being that some studies have shown how violence on tv is leading to violence at schools, that maybe showing a programme that promotes good could actually lead to kids doing good deeds? This is just a thought. Kid's are so impressionable, why not show a bit more positive. Kids get a lot of their ideas from what they see in media. I have had a few instances recently where I heard some pre-teens speaking in incredibly dis-respectful manner to their parents. I'm sure these parents didn't tell their kids it was OK to yell and scream or swear at their elders. Maybe they over-heard their parents yelling at each other, and they picked it up that way. But, more than likely, they picked this language and behavior up from tv, radio, or internet. I can't imagine ever raising a voice to any elder in my family. I was taught from an early age that this was incredibly dis-respectful. I also was raised on shows like "The Brady Bunch" "Happy Day's" and "The Fact's of Life". These shows had messages about various different subjects, but one of the ones I remember the most is that of respect for other people. Like others have mentioned, I don't see men like Homer Simpson or Ted Bundy, as good role models for the young and impressionable.
There is just so much access to bad television, or television that is meant for an older more mature audience. I know that cable companies in my area are doing a big ad campaign right now promoting the lock function on their remotes. I think this is a good thing, for parents can prevent their kids from tuning into inappropriate programmes, yet the parents still have access to these channels for their own viewing. The push is good for it makes parents aware of the function and how easy it is to use, in the hopes that they will actually take a few minutes to set it up.

 

[DancingSweetie]

Didn't Time Warner,(whoever that is now) just purchase most of the cable providers in the midwest?
A friend of mine that had Comcast was recently very upset at the fact that this happened. All of his vintage programming, including The Three Stooges, has been eliminated in this latest media power play. Even TCM is lousy compared to what it was like before.

I don't know about that, but you are right, even TCM is going downhill. This month they have Rob Zombie hosting and their promos are horrible.