Violence & Media
Uploaded by mogwailove on Jan 06, 2005
The other day, I was watching a documentary on “Fast Times At Ridge Mont High.” Originally, they had a scene where moviegoers would see full frontal nudity of a man. When sent in to Universal, the movie was rated X. Why is it that full female nudity is only rated R, but male nudity must carry a X rating? When the director asked that question, Universal said, “The male form is more aggressive.” I thought for a long while about this. I think it only goes to artistic value, but obviously other see the word aggressive to also me offensive. I bring this up only because it relates on a certain level to our discussion in the Entertainment Group. Violence is dealt with very much the same way. However, I don’t think I have ever heard of a move being rated X due to too much violence. It is and should be the viewers choice to let certain movies/television shows affect them.
Violence in movies or television is sometimes necessary to accurately portray a type of person or a particular idea, time period, lifestyle, etc. For example, The Godfather. This movie is about gangsters. Hello! Violent much? Yeah, violence is necessary to get the point of this movie across. As it is in Requiem Of A Dream, The Basketball Diaries, The Doom Generation, Fight Club, Natural Born Killers, American History X, etc. The directors of these movies are trying to show the viewer what these types of people are going through and why they do the things they do. And they are trying to show that truthfully. Even if it means being disgusted or angry with the characters. They want the raw stuff. And frankly, we want to see it. Americans love that stuff. I may not be a violent person or even approve of violence, but if I want to get a good idea of someone else’s life or point of view, you gotta see the bad stuff. I think the term rubberneck was originated by Americans. We love violence. Does it always have a positive effect? Certainly not. But there are many other things that come into play when defending violence in movies and television.
First and foremost,...