Wed 13 Apr 2005
Midway techy Steve Anichini passed along a great book recommendation: Savage Pastimes - A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment.
I ran out to pick it up the same day and ripped through it. The first thing that struck me was that the author normally writes about serial killers. Hmm. But, in short, the book does an excellent job of dispelling the common myth that today’s media/entertainment is more violent or perverse than years past. In fact, many of the chapters are dedicated to giving out tons of examples (like how public hangings was considered good wholesome family entertainment until late 1800’s).
The book also covers the usual topics of desensitization, government censorship, theories of aggression, media effects, etc, etc. Overall a great book that is quick to read and informative. There’s much more in-depth coverage of Savage Pastimes at Salon.
On a related note, it is nice to see a more balanced/informed view on issues of violence and censorship showing up in mainstream media. Heck a piece in the Hollywood Reporter goes as far to say that games are held to a higher standard - what would fly in movies has to be cut/reworked in games. As noted in the article, we constantly hear from developers complaining about how the ESRB is so strict, etc.
What many fail to realize outside of the industry is that games are create by “real people”. We are good citizens, pay our taxes, have pets/kids and the like. On the whole, this is a topic many developers thoughtfully discuss. We’re not just coding drones driven by corporate puppet-masters.
Hmm, ok, well, we at least pay our taxes.
April 14th, 2005 at 12:12 am
I haven’t read the book yet but, isn’t the point that although the past was possibly more violent people were not exposed to that violence more than a few times a year vs a few hundred times a day like today.
April 14th, 2005 at 10:08 am
> a few times a year vs a few hundred times
> a day like today.
That’s another myth. Media has been pretty saturated with violence all along.
There’s a study that often quoted, where they looked at all the cartoons/sports/etc shows that were on TV counted all the “acts of violence” and concluded that a child is exposed to some huge number (in the hundreds of thousands) violent and aggressive images by the time they are an adolescent. (I don’t remember exact details, but it was along those lines.)
The problem is that they neglected to emphasis their big IF. That statement was true IF a child sat at the TV for an insane amount of hours an ONLY watched the violent shows.
The reality was that the average child was only exposed to a minute fraction of what they counted. For several reasons: was not in front of TV that long, spent more time watching Sesame Street and other learning shows, etc, etc.
There’s more info on that angle in:
Ill Effects: The Media Violence Debate
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415225132/
Cheers,
Jason
April 15th, 2005 at 12:47 am
I’ll admit, I don’t have access to any studies. It just seems like common sense. To take an extreme example, I doubt some kid from 100 years ago working on his family’s farm saw much daily violence. I doubt he saw violence once a month let alone several times day.
Even my dad’s generation, what did he have access to that showed violence? He had TV but it wasn’t 24/7 500 channel cable. He had no video games or videos to rent. I suppose he had comics and plastic army men.
So, while I agree that it might be an exaggeration to say that kids today are exposed to thousands of examples of violence every day I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that they actually do see violence several orders of magnitude more often than order generations did.
You presented the example of public hangings, how many times a year do think people saw public hangins? Once a year? Once every 5 years? It wasn’t a nightly entertainment was it? Yet, my nephew sees bloody violent death every few seconds as he plays God of War or Resident Evil 4.
My point is NOT to argue in favor of censorship. Violence is supposedly going down. My point is only to discuss what seems like obvious issues with some of the points above.
April 15th, 2005 at 9:18 am
> It just seems like common sense.
Sadly, common sense is usually off… For example:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/gamepolitics/10685.html
Anyway, you make valid points, and I don’t know the research well enough to really give a breakdown of which generations/demographics consumed what kind of media/content. But, Savage Pastimes does discuss a pretty diverse, and frequent, consumption of violence over the ages (ie, TV, radio, comics, dime novels, pop guns, penny dreadfuls, almanacs, hangings/etc, etc)…
Fun stuff :)
Jason
April 17th, 2005 at 2:01 am
Savage Realities of Entertainment
Savage Realities of Entertainment Midway techy Steve Anichini passed along a great book recommendation: Savage Pastimes - A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment. I ran out to pick it up the same day and ripped through it. The first thing…
April 24th, 2005 at 11:32 am
Hmmmm . . . another book I’ll have to pick up.
I absolutely do not pretend to be an expert, but I think the difference lies in how children are taught to process information.
The majority today seem to practice a deferred responsibility approach to parenting, which makes it someone else’s responsibility to control content, viewing, accessibility, etc.
One hundred years ago (and longer), a different social and economic model existed, providing a completely different family dynamic, which in turn required much greater parental involvement.
I am the original Paranoid, Overprotective Mother, but I strongly believe it is impossible to shield a child from violence. The key lies in teaching the child to process the information. We permit “black and white” scenarios (Lord of the Rings, etc., where the good guys and bad guys are completely distinguishable at a glance), but not “grey” (GTA, etc.) areas (at least not yet, although my 6-year-old has started to play Fable), and make the effort to explain what is going on, motivations, etc.
Despite the fact that The Boy plays an assortment of games that make his teachers cringe, he does not exhibit any of the negative behaviors The Experts are trying to link to video games (drives the school nuts).
April 25th, 2005 at 10:03 pm
Anyone who thinks farm life is peaceful hasn’t spent much time on a farm. When you’re not butchering a chicken for dinner or pulling calves, you’re sitting out in the corn field with your gun to chase off (and preferably kill) the crows.
Back in the “good old days” there were a lot more dangers to humans, too - wolves, mountain lions, hostile natives. Not to mention the wars everyone in Europe had once or twice a generation.
The difference today is that we see the violence as images presented to us in make-believe situations or on the news. It’s easy to see these images (especially in games) as fantasy and not reality.
Violence used to be a much more real part of kids lives. I don’t think they should be “sheltered” from it as much as they should be taught to learn how to deal with it. Games can be very useful in that respect.
May 22nd, 2005 at 7:54 pm
This discusson reminds me of stories my grandmother has told me about her life. For a while she lived on a farm with foster parents and there she was exposed to quite a lot of stuff that parents would shield their kids from these days.She told me how her foster parents would butcher animals right in the kitchen as she helped them cook and once she even saw her foster mom decapitate a live chicken.Also these foster parents of her were very strict, as this was in the South she could expect a switch or belt on the behind if she misbehaived. On top of this when she went to a one room schoolhouse fifth and sixth grade boys would ask for oral sex from the younger girls and everyday there was some fight going on. Even my grandmother as an nine year old would get into a brawl once in a while. When Columbine happened she said “All the excuses we make for youngsters today! If all those shrinks said was true why didn’t I go berserk and shoot up my school with all I was exposed to as a kid?”