Reponse to "Violence as Entertainment"

This is a response to ccandelario's "Violence as Entertainment".

I have never really thought about the relationship between violence and media before the lecture two weeks ago. I always believed that there is a strong correlation between the two. I guess I was one of those people who are blind sided by the influence of the news, and what others commonly believe. I always thought there must be a correlation between youth violence and the media, even though my personal experience told me otherwise.

I used to love watching horror movies, not the typical kind of shows that kids would watch. I was obsessed with “Child Play” at some point of my childhood (I don’t even know how I got to watch it at that age), I remember one day I came home from school and my mom told me that two kids murdered their sister after watching the show, and since then she started limiting my hours of television watching. I was not allowed to watch horror movies as much as before, sometimes I feel like my mom thought I was going to be a serial killer one day. I never really liked cartoons or comedies, and I still refuse to watch any cartoons, not even the Simpsons or Family Guy. It may sound creepy that I’m only interested in horror/violent movies or television shows, I don’t consider myself a violent person. Last week’s lecture broadened my mind, I never thought about violence and media that way, I completely agree with it and it all makes sense. If media is really correlated to violence, crime rates should be increasing instead of decreasing especially children are more exposed to the media nowadays than ever.

I totally agree with ccandelario that violence is more correlated to ones background, society, and they way they are brought up. It is difficult to understand whether genetics play a role in violence, I personally believe it’s a combination of all the above. As for myself, it is hard to understand whether I was born to be attracted to violent materials. Even though I don’t think I am a violent person at all, I still question myself sometimes whether I am violent in nature. I believe that there is this possibility that I might be born violent but because of the culture, family, and society I grew up in, I was controlled and learned what is right and wrong, and therefore it kind of took my inner violence away from me. 

Original post can be viewed here:
http://whatwouldchirstdo.blogspot.ca/#!/2012/03/violence-as-entertainment.html