Media Violence
...squibs”, small plastic pouches containing artificial blood, violent movies flourished. The first of these newly bloody films were A Fistful of Dollars and Bonnie and Clyde. In the 1970’s, huge advances were made in the area of special effects, which portrayed more graphic, gory scenes. By the 1990’s, violence and gore became a regular occurrence in almost all non-animated movies. Violent video games, much like movies and television, have evolved over time. The first of violent video games included games would not even be considered violent today. It started with games like Mario, containing violence in which the character jumps on the heads of creatures to kill them. Now, with games like Mortal Kombat, enabling you to literally tear your opponent limb from limb, and Soldier of Fortune, depicting realistic deaths on the battlefield, violence is so realistic it can hardly be distinguished from violence in the real world. The first major effect of exposure to violence is aggression. It has been proven that children who have watched violent TV shows, movies, or played video games have definite increased aggression. The most extreme examples of this increased aggression are the recent school shootings in cities like Littleton, Colorado; Paducah, Kentucky; and Jonesboro, Arkansas. In all three of these incidents, the teenagers responsible for the shootings had been frequent users of violent media, especially video games. When a child is exposed to violence, it is stored in their memory, and when they are forced to react to a certain situation, they are more likely to react with violence and aggression. Exposure to violent media essentially teaches violence to children. Another effect of violence is antisocial behavior. Antisocial behavior is the behavior of a child that shows a desire to be separate of society as a whole. Children who behave antisocially often dress, act, and express themselves in unusual and sometimes violence ways. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the shooters in the tragedy at Columbine High School, began to dress in long black trench coats, calling themselves “The Trench Coat Mafia.” Harris and Klebold also expressed their beliefs through an altered version of the computer “shoot-em up” game Doom, to which they added special features. These new features included two shooters, unarmed enemies, new weapons such as bombs, and infinite ammo. These circumstances are identical to the conditions of their attack. These two teenagers certainly had altered patterns of behavior showing a clear desire to s...