The question about violence in the media and whether or not it influences real violence is a difficult one to answer. From this question arises many others, like what exactly is a good definition of violence, and what amount of violence is suitable for television.
There are many opinions on this subject. Most people wouldn’t want their sons or daughters watching anything considered too violent, such R-rated movies. Others don’t think that violent movies are that big of a deal, as long as the child knows it’s all fake, and that it’s just made for entertainment.
Also, there is another idea that there are “good” violent programs and then there are “bad” violent programs. The “good” programs might consist of movies that have become classics, such as “Star Wars” or “Lonesome Dove.” Bad programs might consist of movies classified as horror or action films, such as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Terminator,” or “Final Destination” that seem to have nothing except violent content.
Just to make my own opinion clear, there is a blurry line between what can be considered good and bad. Really, there is no such thing as either when it comes to media violence. I happen to think that “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is one of the greatest films ever made, although it is violent, bloody, and serves no real purpose except for entertainment. After all, that’s what most media is for, including “good” violent movies.
One example of a “good” violent movie is “Home Alone.” I can remember when my family would set around the TV and laugh at the two crooks getting slammed in the head with paint cans. Throughout the whole movie, the boy who was left home alone seemed to be much more violent than either of the crooks, planting traps and saying things like “You guys had enough, or are you thirsty for more?” Still, it was meant to entertain, and it entertained me. Like it or not, sometimes people just like to see other people getting hurt. It doesn’t mean that I really wanted to hurt anyone, though.
An example of “bad” violent media would be professional wrestling. Many people believe that professional wrestling is one of the biggest causes for violence because of the trend called “backyard wrestling,” and the bad press it receives.
How good are the facts when it comes to professional wrestling? Professional wrestler and #1 New York Times best-selling author Mick Foley includes a study of how evidence can be misleading in his book Foley is Good.
In his book, Foley states that he was “…a little bit taken aback when the results of an Indiana University study concerning the contents of an episode of RAW (A Monday night wrestling television show) started becoming public knowledge in early 1999. I may not have been in total agreement with all of the World Wrestling Federation’s ideas, but by no means did I consider it to be a filthy show” (Foley is Good, 397).
According to Foley, in a year’s worth of Raw episodes, the Indiana University Study which was commissioned by Inside Edition, revealed (Foley is Good, 397-98):
157 instances of wrestlers or audience members giving the finger
434 instances of the slogan “suck it” being said by wrestlers or appearing on signs in the audience
1,658 instances of wrestlers groping or pointing to their crotches
128 instances of simulated sexual activity
42 instances of simulated drug use
47 references to satanic activity
609 instances of wrestlers being hit by objects like garbage cans or nightsticks
Foley states that he found these statistics quoted in thirty-seven different newspapers, including the New York Post, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Times, the Indianapolis Star, the Dallas Morning News, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and USA Today (Foley is Good, 398).
When Foley began to recall the moments of his career from December 1998 through April 2000 for his second autobiography Foley is Good, which he began writing in July 2000, he studied “…slightly over twenty tapes to be as accurate as possible.” He recalls, “I kept the Indiana University study results in the back of my mind when viewing the tapes, and I couldn’t help but think that the IU results seemed a little extreme” (Foley is Good, 398).
Because of his skepticism with the Indiana University study, Foley conducted his own study. He tabulated his results from the twenty tapes and multiplied them by 2.5 to “…yield the equivalent of a full years worth of results.” He also states, “My findings were somewhat different than those of the IU study” (Foley is Good, 399-400):
34 instances of wrestlers or audience members giving the finger
640 instances of wrestlers grabbing or pointing to their crotches
0 instances of simulated sexual activity
0 instances of simulated drug use
0 instances of satanic activity
422 instances of wrestlers being hit by objects like garbage cans or nightsticks
Foley called Dr. Walter Ganz, the man who headed the Indiana University Study to learn more. Foley informed Dr. Ganz that he had also done a study, and asked him if he knew anyone else that had conducted a similar study. The answer was no. As Foley puts it, “So right away I had a new statistic: number of journalists, correspondents, editors, and writers who bother to check out their facts before reporting them: 0” (Foley is Good, 402).
Foley asks if replays of wrestlers getting hit by objects were counted as statistics. The answer was yes. So was footage from previous episodes. As Dr. Ganz put it, “anytime the World Wrestling Federation chose to clearly show one of these shots on the screen we counted it.” When Dr. Ganz asks “Did you? [count replays as statistics]” to Foley, Foley replies, “No, Dr. Ganz, I didn’t.” When Dr. Ganz asked “Why not?” Foley comes up with an excellent point. “Well, Dr. Ganz, if someone told me to look at a tape and count how many home runs Mark McGuire hit last year, I don’t think I would include videotaped replays” (Foley is Good, 402-03).
The Indiana University also counted simulated sexual activity for small things such as a girl rubbing a man’s arm (Foley is Good, 406), and simulated drug use as beer drinking (Foley is Good, 407).
The way these statistics were defined can mislead the public. When replays are counted in a study such as this one, the average person would most likely be thinking in terms of how many times it actually happened. I have watched RAW, and some instances in which a wrestler is hit with a chair will be replayed two or three times from different angles. The wrestler was only hit once, but it might have been counted as two or three times according to the Indiana University study. Using instances like a girl rubbing a man’s arm as a standard for blatant simulated sexual activity or beer drinking as the standard for simulated drug use is just ridiculous.
Now, I want to show a comparison of the “good” violent movie that so many families in my neighborhood loved with the “bad” entertainment of professional wrestling.
Mick Foley states that he consulted Dr. Robert Quarrels, a board-certified family practitioner. He asked Dr. Quarrels to look at the separate list of violent acts from the World Wrestling Federation and the movie “Home Alone” to offer his opinion of the expected consequences (Foley is Good, 413-14).
Wrestling:
Getting hit in the head with:
Chair – Possible concussion, laceration, contusion
Garbage can or cookie sheet – Possible laceration and contusion
Title belt – Contusion, possible laceration, possible contusion
Kendo stick – Contusion, possible laceration
Mannequin head – Too ridiculous to warrant a medical opinion
Home Alone
Pellet to testicles – Penetrate scrotum, sever contusion of testicles, and could disrupt small vessels that conduct seminal fluids. May result in complete dysfunction of testicle
Pellet to head – Severe contusion, no probable penetration
Four-foot fall from slip on ice – concussion, possible vertebral fractures at various levels, bulging or herniated disks. Subdural hematoma, or other forms of cerebral hemorrhage. Possible broken hip or pelvis
Fall down stairs – concussion, intracranial bleeding, possible lower external fracture, vertebral fracture, hip fracture
Fall on head following slip on ice – See #3
Iron on face – Skull fractures, blow-out fracture of orbit, facial nerve disruption, concussion, intracranial bleeds
Hand on red-hot doorknob – Severe second-degree burns
Nail in foot – Puncture would could disrupt vessels in foot, exposure to tetanus, severe soft-tissue infection
Blowtorch – Third-degree burns, tissue loses all function
Slip on concrete – See #3
Bare feet on glass – Multiple puncture wounds, risk of tetanus and infection
Two slips on toys – See #3
Swinging paint cans – Blow-out fracture of orbit, facial fractures, dental fractures, disruption of nasal cartilage, concussion, intracranial bleeding
Tarantula bite – Possible T-toxin infection, possible neurotoxicity
Crowbar to ribs – rib fracture, possible lung puncture and deflation due to broken rib, possible ruptured spleen
Swing into wall – Multiple fractures
Snow shovel to head – Concussion, laceration, possible skull fractures
The study that Foley has done strengthens my point, that violence can be a hard word to define. Is a replay of an act of violence still an act of violence? Maybe. Should drinking a beer count as a simulated drug use statistic? Possibly, but who decides?
Even though these questions weren’t answered, the statistics still showed up in the newspapers that Foley mentioned. And as Foley discovered, none of the papers had contacted Dr. Ganz, the man who headed the Indiana University study, to see how the statistics were acquired.
In Michael Moore’s documentary “Bowling for Columbine,” Moore searches for the reason the United States is such a violent country. He talks about media violence, and the low amount of gun deaths in other countries, including our neighbor, Canada.
In the documentary, Moore mentions that Canada has guns, the same as the United States, yet they have a lower number of gun homicides. He mentions that Japan is a leader in violent video games, and they too have a lower number of gun homicides. He mentions that other countries have violent histories similar to the U.S., and still, their number of homicides are much lower than the United States.
Moore gives statistics on seven countries for how many people die by guns each year. The numbers shocked me:
Germany – 381
France – 255
Canada – 165
United Kingdom – 68
Australia – 65
Japan – 39
United States – 11,127
Could this be right? Japan is a leader in the production of violent video games such as Biohazard, Silent Hill, and Mortal Kombat, but it has the lowest number of gun deaths of all. The United States has the highest.
Moore is only using homicides, and doesn’t state what year or from what source he got his information, so I was skeptical about his findings. Moore has also been criticized by some for the way he makes his documentaries, so I thought that this would be a good opportunity to put his results up against other results that I found.
Keep in mind that the statistics I give are for overall homicides compared to Moore’s statistics, which only give the number of gun homicides. My source: United Nations 1996 Demographic Yearbook, New York, United Nations, 1998:
Germany – 110,000
France – 110,000
Canada – 170,000
United Kingdom – 90,000
Australia – 150,000
Japan – 60,000
United States – 940,000
The two sets of statistics seem to share something in common. The United States has a lot more homicides than any of the other countries. According to the United Nations Demographic Yearbook for 1996 our neighboring country Canada only gets 18% of the homicides we do.
Also, the country with the lowest number of homicides in the list is Japan. Japan, the country that is famous for its bloody video games has the lowest number of homicides out of the seven countries listed. That’s only 6.4% of the homicides the United States had in the same year. Only 6.4%!
So, if media violence isn’t the problem, what is?
Moore suggests that Americans are scared. He gives examples of the way the news media scares Americans into watching their programs. In a clip from his movie a woman tells the audience that information on weight loss pills would be up next and uses the phrase “What you don’t know could kill you.” Also, a “Seven on Your Side” commercial advertising a “Stairway to Danger” report about how escalators could mangle the people who use them.
Also, Moore gives Y2K as an example. People all over the world were worried because they thought our society would collapse. They ran to the stores to buy bottled water, generators, batteries, etc., but when the year 2000 came, nothing happened.
A quote from Michael Moore: The media, the corporations, the politicians, have all done such a good job of scaring the American public it’s come to the point where they don’t need to give any reason at all.”
A quote from President George W. Bush: “Today the Justice Department did issue a… a blanket alert. It was in recognition of a general threat we received. This is not the first time the Justice Department have acted like this. I hope it’s the last. But given the attitude of the evildoers, it may not be.”
The theory of a scared United States is one of the better theories I’ve heard. It’s a fact that has been written in history books that the government has tried to scare us, and this was not that long ago.
During the Cold War, Undersecretary of State, Dean Acheson predicted that if Greece and Turkey fell to communism, soon three-fourths of the planet would be communists. To help the two countries, a concerned President Harry Truman wanted to send them $400 million in aid. Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican foreign policy leader at the time, warned that to get approval Truman would have to “scare the hell out of the country” (American Promise, 951).
Truman did. He introduced the domino theory, which basically meant if one country fell to communism, more countries would fall to communism. He warned that if Greece fell to the rebels, “confusion and disorder might well spread throughout the entire Middle East… and would have a profound effect upon… Europe” (The American Promise, 951-952).
Moore mentions Canada’s news as being different from the news we see in the United States. Instead of the dangers of riding an escalator, the news talks about new speed bumps, and being courteous to others instead of making war. News in the United States probably wouldn’t cover community improvement or being courteous, because that doesn’t sell as well as violence.
Canada has violent movies, though, just like the United States. Moore went to a Canadian theatre and talked with a couple boys playing a video game. He asked them what movie they saw. It was the action movie “Sixth Day.” Moore asks the boys, “Did it make you wanna’ come out here and play this shoot ’em up game?” One of the boys replies, “Well… yea.
A Canadian politician that Moore interviewed talked about the need for proper daycare, special assistance for people when their parents become elderly and needed to be in an old age home, proper health care that insures people won’t lose their business or their homes because they can’t afford their medical bills. The politician said that these things were how you build a good society.
The same politician also mentions that some governments make the mistake of giving financial support, tax breaks, and tax benefits to those who don’t need them.
I have tried to condense as much information as I can over media violence and why it’s not the cause of real violence. Many other countries watch the same violent movies that we do, but their homicide rates don’t come close to that of the United States. Japan makes, sells, and plays many of the same violent games that people in the United States play, but they have the lowest homicide rate of the seven countries in both my research and Moore’s study.
I’ve given examples of “good” violent programs, and “bad.” After comparing the two, neither one could really be considered good. The line could not be drawn between the meaning of good or bad violence. There was only violence.
For those who still don’t agree with me, that’s okay. Personally, there is no way I can foresee allowing certain people the right to air their programming while not allowing someone else to do the same without being discriminatory. There will always be a debate on whether a kick is more violent than a punch, or if stepping on a nail is the same as getting attacked with a knife. I would go as far as to say measuring violence is almost, if not entirely, impossible.
The only way to get rid of all the violent media in the United States is if we all agree to quit watching TV, going to the movies, playing video games, playing/watching sports (also contains violence), etc. By the way, this includes the news, which can be the most violent and scary thing a United States citizen can watch.
I don’t think that that’s going to happen. Then again, I don’t think it needs to happen. The focus shouldn’t be on media violence. The focus should be on making sure the news covers more than just issues meant to scare us, and making sure they’re telling us the truth. The focus should be health care issues. The focus should on government spending. The focus should be on helping real people who need real help.
References
Abrams, Floyd “Save Free Speech” Current Issues and Enduring Questins, 6 th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, (2002). 719-21
“Bowling for Columbine.”. Dir. Michael Moore. MGM. 2002
Chapman, Lee. “State of Gaming: Japan 11” 4:59 PM CDT, June 11, 2003. GamerFeed. Accessed Dec. 03, 2003. http://www.gamerfeed.com/gf/features/106/
Eron, Leonard D. “The Television Industry Must Police Itself” Current Issues and Enduring Questions, 6 th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s (2002): 716-17
Foley, Mick. Foley is Good. New York: Harper/Collins P. 2001.
Hollings, Ernest F. “Save the Children” Current Issues and Enduring Questions, 6 th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s (2002): 717-19
“Home Alone,” 1990, 20 th Century Fox
Rhodes, Richard “Hollw claims about Fantasy Violence.” Current Issues and Enduring Questions, 6 th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s (2002): 721-24
Roark, James L., Michael P. Johnson, Patricia Cline Cohen, Sarah Stage, Alan Lawson, and Susan M. Hartmann. The American Promise: A History of the United States. 2 nd ed. Vol. 2.
United Nations 1996 Demographic Yearbook, New York, United Nations, 1998
