Many people believe that the high level of violence in films today are causing serious social

problems.

What are these problems and how could they be reduces?

Increase/amount of violence/show in films/a cause of concern. Statistics show that by the time the
average U.S. child starts elementary school he or she will have seen 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on
TV! Some believe/watching violent films/increase/likelihood of aggressive behavior/ This
essay/consider/problem of movie violence/outline/possible solutions

People who enjoy these films/ not think that violence and real consequences are
associated=stop associating violence with real consequences > lose sense of reality/not take
violence seriously/depersonalize their victims=no sympathy with the victims> not good for
individuals and society/Another worrying trend/these films show/heroes/people to be
admired> copy aggressive behavior > impressionable people /gain respect and admiration>
levels of violence increase in major cities

Government/regulate the film industry/provide better education/eg. prevent /producers/show

clear / violence in films/ linked/serious social problems/eg. playground bullying, school

Many people believe that the high level of violence in films today are causing serious social
problems.

What are these problems and how could they be reduces?

Increase/amount of violence/show in films/a cause of concern. Statistics show that by the time the
average U.S. child starts elementary school he or she will have seen 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on
TV! Some believe/watching violent films/increase/likelihood of aggressive behavior/ This
essay/consider/problem of movie violence/outline/possible solutions

People who enjoy these films/ not think that violence and real consequences are
associated=stop associating violence with real consequences > lose sense of reality/not take
violence seriously/depersonalize their victims=no sympathy with the victims> not good for
individuals and society/Another worrying trend/these films show/heroes/people to be
admired> copy aggressive behavior > impressionable people /gain respect and admiration>
levels of violence increase in major cities

Government/regulate the film industry/provide better education/eg. prevent /producers/show

clear / violence in films/ linked/serious social problems/eg. playground bullying, school

Don't blame Hollywood because you can't or won't hire a sitter. Don't blame the TV media because you can't
or won't use the off switch. Respect, responsibility, manners and social awareness all begin at home.
Unfortunately, they end there too.

Violence isn’t the only problem with violent movies aimed at younger audiences — they also tend to
glamorize risky activities you might not want to encourage among kids, according to a new study.

“We know some teenagers imitate what they see on-screen,” study leader Amy Bleakley, a research scientist
at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, explained in a statement. “What
concerns us is that movies aimed at younger viewers are making a connection between violence and a
variety of risky behaviors — sex, drinking and smoking.”

Let’s start with the violence. Bleakley and her colleagues at Penn analyzed 390 top-grossing movies released
from 1985 to 2010 and found that 90% of them contained at least one instance of a main character
committing an act of violence. In these cases, “the aggressor makes or attempts to make some physical
contact that has potential to inflict injury or harm,” according to their study, which was published online
Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

You might expect movies with violent scenes to crop up more frequently in films that earned an R rating
from the Motion Picture Assn. of America than in movies geared toward school-age kids, but you would be
wrong.

Among the 123 films with a G or PG rating included in the analysis, 88.6% featured a main character who
behaved violently, the Penn group reported. That was only slightly below the 89.5% rate for movies that got
a PG-13 label and the 91.2% rate for movies rated R. None of the differences were large enough to be
deemed statistically significant.

But that wasn’t their only cause for concern. Among the 90% of movies that portrayed violence, 77%
showed a main character engaging in another type of risky behavior immediately before, during or after
committing a violent act, according to the study.

The most common example was pairing violence with sex, a label that included nudity, kissing on the lips,
sexual behavior and actual sex (either explicit or implied). This was seen in 32.5% of R-rated movies and
35.3% of movies rated PG-13. That’s right — there was more sex and violence in movies with the less-
restrictive rating. In case you were wondering, violence was paired with sex in 17.9% of the G and PG
movies too.

Just as frequent was the combination of violence and drinking, which occurred in 37.7% of R-rated movies,
35.3% of PG-13-rated movies and 13% of PG- and G-rated movies.

“There’s kind of a James Bond effect, in which violence is glamorized in combination with other behaviors
we otherwise try to discourage in youth,” study co-author Dan Romer, director of the Adolescent
Communication Institute at the Annenberg center, said in the statement. Indeed, the researchers noted that
the Bond films “Quantum of Solace” and “Casino Royale” were two of the PG-13 movies examined in the
study.
All of this is troubling because many studies have made a connection between watching movies, TV shows
and video games that feature violence, drinking and other risky behaviors and trying those behaviors, the
authors write. Research also shows that “sensation-seeking” teens who are biologically predisposed to be
attracted to “novel and intense experiences” prefer to watch “high-arousal” movies, which tend to be violent.

The 390 movies used in the study were picked from among the 30 top-grossing films (according to the trade
magazine Variety) in the 25 years after the PG-13 rating went into effect.

There were a couple of bright spots. Smoking and other tobacco use declined from 68% of movies in 1985
to only 21% in 2010. Drinking declined too, from 89.6% to 67.3% over the same period. Depictions of
explicit sex were much less common in PG-13 movies than in R-rated ones (though it did crop up in 30.1%
of the PG-13 movies analyzed).

But for the most part, the researchers seemed disturbed by the pervasiveness of violence and other activities
that aren’t appropriate for kids.

“On average, violent content accounted for almost 30% of films’ segments,” they wrote in the study. “Of the
segments with violence, 40% featured violence co-occurring with another risk behavior.”

The researchers also lamented the phenomenon of “ratings creep,” which they described as “finding more
explicit content in movies with lower ratings (i.e., PG-13) over time.” Their discovery that PG-13 movies
had essentially the same amount of violence, drinking and sex as R-rated movies “is consistent with research
on the questionable effectiveness of the ratings system as a tool to shield youth from inappropriate content,”
they wrote.

In a review of the 945 top-grossing films since 1950, researchers for the American Academy of Pediatrics
found that movies rated PG-13 have become progressively more violent, with gunplay tripling since 1985.
In fact, today’s PG-13 movies are more violent than most R-rated films, the study shows.

A lot of the mayhem is cartoon violence – quite literally, since many of the movies are based on comic book
characters. But those characters are not what they used to be. Back in 1966 when Batman was conceived for
TV, for example, the caped crusader would throw a punch and the word “pow” would explode on the screen.
In Batman’s latest cinematic incarnations, everything explodes. Gotham is grim, the villains are grotesque
and sadistic, and Batman is a brooding superhero who matches his foes in his capacity to suffer and to mete
out punishment.

A PG-13 rating is supposed to keep kids away from this sort of dark, violent world, but we all know that
seldom happens. Heightened violence fills movies like last summer’s superhero hits, “Iron Man 3” and
“Man of Steel,” as well as the “Transformers” franchise, while kids fill the theater seats.

PHOTOS: Violence in PG-13 movies

And, if they are not at the theaters, kids are watching at home – not infrequently with mom and dad at their
side. The average American parent does not seem to worry overly much about the violent chaos in which
their children are immersed on screens large and small. The researchers, on the other hand, believe there is a
link between movie bloodshed and increasing hostile behavior among children and teenagers.
"The presence of guns in films also provides youth with scripts on how to use guns," the report said. "In
addition, children no longer need to go to movie theaters to see films; films are readily available on the
Internet or cable. Thus, children much younger than 13 years can easily view films that contain ample gun
violence."

Or they can just watch broadcast television where, as in theatrical films, the violence has been ramped up
sharply over the years. Compare the old “Hawaii Five-O” with the new series. In the 1970s, the police
procedural in the palm trees was a bit ponderous; a lot of talk and not all that much gunplay. The new
“Hawaii Five-O” zooms along with high capacity weapons blasting away and vivid depictions of the dead
and maimed. The show makes Honolulu look as dangerous as Mogadishu.

ON LOCATION: Where the cameras roll

Admittedly, “Hawaii 5-O’s” new McGarrett is a buff ex-Navy SEAL who chases down a culprit or two in
nearly every episode. Is all that running around going to encourage kids to jog more and stay fit? Or does
today’s hyper-violent entertainment only incline them to be trigger-happy? The evidence, so far, does not
seem conclusive, but it is hard to deny we are running a high-risk experiment with America’s youth by
pummeling them with harrowing scenes of violence in movie after movie, TV show after TV show.

By the time they turn 18, let’s hope most of our kids can still distinguish violent fantasy from the real world
where problems are best resolved without recourse to a gun.

I abhor violence. As a rookie police reporter years ago I saw the damage guns, knives, broken bottles, metal
pipes, hands — humans — can inflict. From the terrifyingly premeditated to the unfortunately accidental,
those images still have the power to shake me to the core. They will never leave me.

I don't, however, believe the movies are to blame for these acts. As good as Hollywood is at reimagining the
intrinsic brutality that roams our streets, burrows into twisted minds, plays havoc with our world, nothing
I've seen in movies comes close to what I witnessed firsthand.

Perhaps that is why movie violence doesn't offend me. I may be unsettled by it, but no matter the saturation
level, I rarely turn away.

THE CULTURE OF VIOLENCE: Art | Film | Television | Hollywood

I want to ride the superhero roller coaster. I want to cheer as the bad guys bite the dust. I like the line
between good and evil sharply drawn by a super sleuth like James Bond or blurred by an everyman like
Michael Douglas in "Falling Down."

I want Steven Spielberg to keep reminding me in "Lincoln," "Saving Private Ryan" and "Schindler's List"
what evil looks like and the fortitude it takes to face it down. I want Kathryn Bigelow to continue assessing
the psychological cost of global conflicts in "The Hurt Locker" and "Zero Dark Thirty." And yes, I want
Quentin Tarantino to keep spraying the canvas with blood, even when it is just in fun.

Whatever else the movies make me feel — horror, hubris, humor, humanity at its best and worst — I know
it's real life, not Hollywood, that's the killer.
You can't tell that to the politicians or the talking heads on TV. They see in Hollywood an easy, highly
visible — and disturbingly simplistic — target after tragic events like last summer's slaughter during a
showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, Colo., and the more recent killings of children and teachers
at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Like history, the argument keeps repeating itself.

When bullets tore through bodies in Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" in 1969, there was shock. When
Arthur Penn kept the camera running for the ballet of death that ended "Bonnie and Clyde," there was
outrage. When Tarantino began his paean to blood-drenched movies with "Kill Bill," he was condemned; his
latest, "Django Unchained," with its defiant blast at antebellum slavery, kicked up more furor. And when
Bigelow showed the bloodless but chilling waterboarding of prisoners thought to be Osama bin Laden
operatives in her Oscar-nominated "Zero Dark Thirty," public anger fueled congressional hearings.

THE CULTURE OF VIOLENCE: Video Games | World Cinema

To denounce movies for the violence of our times, when unimaginable atrocity has been with us since the
dawn of mankind, is at best misguided, at worst damaging.

Hollywood is not the reason for the wreckage made by madmen with guns. The troubled will always be with
us.

To fault films for forcing us to consider that humans commit atrocious acts, that evil exists in far too many
hearts, is to blame the messenger. It's classic displacement theory. "Zero's" Beltway brouhaha echoes the
backlash that hit Michael Cimino's fabled "The Deer Hunter" in 1978 for its portrayal of Vietnam-era
American POWs forced to play Russian roulette.

I'm not suggesting filmmakers have no responsibility for what they make — they do. But that responsibility
is to the art as well as the audience. Within the mayhem, there is nearly always a message. Movies are our
cautionary tales, fictional reminders of the true nature of humanity's baser basic instincts. And moviemakers
— by that I mean every name above and below the title, for it takes a village — are the seers, the
interpreters, the illusionists, the entertainers.

They are not the instigators.

THE CULTURE OF VIOLENCE: On-screen history | Theater | Research

The topic has been a hot button for so many years that we don't even know how to discuss it rationally
anymore.

Consider 1994's "Natural Born Killers," a provocative, satiric indictment of mass media's glorification of
savagery and the way violence so often overtakes the TV news cycle. The controversy "Killers" triggered
was about the movie's images — extremely graphic in showing the execution-style cross-country killing
spree of the lethal lovers played by Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson — not its messages about the
sometimes outrageous lengths the media uses to capture footage of real-life violence for mass consumption
and the audience's appetite to watch it. Directed by Oliver Stone and with a story by Tarantino, it was still,
15 years later, among the top 10 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 25 most controversial films ever.

Positive force