Do violent movies cause violence?

Do violent movies cause violence?

I don't understand how anyone could possibly say they haven't, can't, and/or won't.

I also find it amazing how many simple smart-ass comments people can make while actually trying to pass it off as knowledge.

__________________

Surely you failed using words like "lower class children"

__________________
Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

Choose your own adventure!!
If you were joking proceed to checkpoint A.
If you were serious proceed to checkpoint B.

A
I should've failed but I met up with her after class and.. uh.. worked for it if you know what I mean.

B
You can't be serious. Seriously, you can't be serious. I can't say it enough, you can't be serious. Surely I failed because I said Lower Class Children? Is that not P.C. enough? What should they be called? Kids of parents who make less than the average working parent? Um, basically there is Low, Middle, and High/Upper class. You can even combine them and get crazy classes like, "My parents varied between mid and low class while I was growing up making it difficult to commit myself to school activities in and after school." See how it works? And No, I didn't fail the class. I recieved a high score for combining classes. Do I need to mention it was a summary and that the summary is in a movie forum? If this was a journal I'm sure I would have used my formal words, but come on, this is a movie forum. No one wants to read that boring crap. But I'm glad you deciding to focus on the important part of what I was saying.

Which is exactly what you've just done....
I can't see what makes you more intelligible on this matter than anyone else?
What I have said was based upon case studies, and was there to be worked out by anybody with half a brain. I said that movies may possibly trigger violence, but if they do, then if the person triggered hadn't watched a violent film, they surely are strange enough to be triggered pretty easily and would sooner or later be triggered by something/someone else. Yes, Pyro Tramp, Judas Priest was a ridiculous case. Liked the point about chavs but I don't think they can't afford to watch such things. Most people who are chavs are afraid. They are afraid to have seperate tastes, tendencies, and opinions. They all follow the same cult-like rituals and all have the same (moronic) mindset and all this would point to being afraid of being a person. Most people who are afraid usually find a way to express themselves in a significant outlet, in chavs case this being violent or relating to it in any way they can.

__________________
"No what happens is, Papa Smurf films the gang bang, and then beats off to the tape later!"

Nebbit -
What is the correct term then? Again, thanks for focusing on what was important.

It's like talking to a little kid. Observe:
"Nebbit, what do you have in your hands?..."
""
"Come on Nebbit, it's not funny anymore..."
""
Nebbit, if you don't give it to me you'll have to go in the corner..."
""
ETC, ETC, ETC

Rjoepenk -
I think the question was, do violent movies cause violence? The answer is yes. Somehow people assumed the question was also, are movies the primary cause of violence? In which case the answer would be no. Like Godsend pointed out, Hitler didn't need GTA2 to make him nuckin' futs'.


I knew I should have stayed away from this thread.

I think the way we refer to people of different socio economic levels is important. Lower infers not good enough, I feel all people are equal as far as humanity is concerned, I am not angry with you, I am just stating my point of view.

There is nothing wrong with research, on the contrary, it's necessary. What I meant was that I thought it was wrong to focus so much on "normal" kids. Killing someone isn't "normal" and I am just having a problem with the simple solution that blaming it on movies is. Maybe television and movies have something to do with it, yes. Maybe a kid that has watched 5-10 hours of tv a day since the kid was born will not turn out normal. Then at age 16 the kid watches Natural Born Killers and decides to copy the violent acts that Mallory and Mickey commit in the film. And Oliver Stone gets the blame for something that went wrong a long long time ago.

It's a psychological fact that a human being is developed, even created, in the interaction with other human beings. The Significant Other (parents, teachers, siblings, best friends) is very important in the development. If the TV set takes the role of the Significant Other early on in a child's life I think that might lead to problem. Not saying that it automatically will lead to violence though and there are tons of other things that can affect a child that years later leads to violence.

My post wasn't directed at you, Fox. It wasn't really directed at anyone in particular but the experiment that Pimp described felt a bit strange to me.

__________________
The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

--------

They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Many thanks for your replies already!

Just to clear up: I know about the studies that have been going on about this topic and I know the 'experts' opinions about it. What I was searching for here is the opinion of 'experience experts': the people actually often watching violent movies. Of course I can not take anything written here as 'knowledge' but I think some good/interesting reasonings have been posted.

If you take away the reasonings then the answer to the exact question of most people here is no. A nice addition to this is that the only guy really saying yes is someone that has studied psychology.

But anyway, thanks again.

Agreed. Dang.

Violent games don't cause violence. People who think they do, do. Seriously though, if you're mad would you rather go out on the street and beat some little kid, or fire up Half-Life 2 to whoop some alien ass? Games, movies, and other forms of entartainment are just that - entartainment. Nothing more, nothing less.

__________________
"All I have in this world is my balls and my word, and I don't break them for no one."

"Violent games don't cause violence. People who think they do, do. Seriously though, if you're mad would you rather go out on the street and beat some little kid, or fire up Half-Life 2 to whoop some alien ass? Games, movies, and other forms of entartainment are just that - entartainment. Nothing more, nothing less." - Nitzer

"People who think they do, do." - I don't get what you mean.

"Violent games don't cause violence" - Why?

"Seriously though, if you're mad would you rather go out on the street and beat some little kid, or fire up Half-Life 2 to whoop some alien ass?" - That's the question. Would you go and be violent after watching violence or playing violence? Most people would say, No. But you can't look past the idea that there will be some people who probably will and have.

Admitting that media causes violence isn't a bad thing. If anything I think it's a good thing. It means that you can finally start to do something about it. That doesn't mean you get rid of it but inform people that what they are enjoying is fantasy and not reality. Most kids can't make the distinction between TV and reality.

Side note/question: I've thought about this for awhile. There was a string of school shootings in the United States for awhile. When these happened the media was saturated with coverage and professional opinion about the shootings. Did media play a role in fueling the shootings that followed?

Natural Born Killers comes to mind.

What I meant by that is, it didn't bother anyone, until someone showed up and said it indeed does cause violence, therefore starting this whole arguement. Personally, I would never take my anger out on anyone in a physical way. Like I said before, I would much rather turn on Max Payne and run around shooting video game characters. Natural Born Killers is a pointless movie - by pointless I mean it doesn't have a message. Two crazy people are out on a killing spree without a cause. First they kill the girl's parents, then ride around shooting innocent people in the back. I never finished the movie, it disgusts me. My whole point is that even though violent content in movies and games might cause people to become more aggresive than usual (which I admit) it certainly does not make them killers.

I'd say aggression causes anger which can be a motivating factor behind murder. Whether directly or indirectly it depends.

Natural Born Killers has a message. It's exploiting the way the media fuels and feeds off of violence. Which I think is true. The media loves tragedy.

I think someone summed it up nicely there with their point on children being affected. It is definately true, children will replicate what they see in the media simply because they can't tell the difference. But, unlike Peter Pan and George Bush Jr, most people grow up and become adults, and learn to differentiate between what's real and what isn't (Captain Hook or Weapons of mass destruction, take your pick). It is probably at this stage that people's personalities are determined, and psycho's will be psycho's, no more no less, with or without violent input from the media. On-screen violence is designed for people who can interpret it correctly and sensibly and if some people's interpretations stray from the intended message then that cannot be blamed on the film's creators, more the people responsible for the care of the person watching the film. If the topic of the thread was 'Do violent movies cause violence?' then we could all just say 'Yes. People have copycat-ted A Clockwork Orange', close our browser, and have a nice nap. But this is a discussion, man, get with the program. I wholeheartedly agree with you on the Natural Born Killers point, it's message was a stab at the way the media laps up chaos and how out of hand it can potentially get.

I love watching a good violent movie Does it make me violent? Actually anything but. I can't kill a spider (and in Oz we get quite a few big ones!!) That said, I do believe in censorship FOR CHILDREN. We, as grown adults, must take responsibility for our own lives and what we watch. We also have to take responsibility for our children. I do not have any, but if I did I would be restricting what they played on Playstation or X Box - and certainly what they watch in movies and on television. Children ARE influenced to a certain degree, and numbing kids to violence is just so dangerous.

We are fairyly strict with violence here in Australia, and a lot more open with sex. Just the way I like it!!!

i think it's the availability of guns and less supervision thats the problem here..parents need to interact with their kids more...

as far as ratings goes, kids sneak in all the time unsupervised..i've seen it...

By the sounds of it you won't not have children much longer! Good point about responsibility, if people can't take it for themselves then someone should, or things start happening that shouldn't.

Hey, I'm not Catholic! Safe as houses!!!

Hey man, I didn't thnk it was directed at me. I got your point, and was just merely referring to it. No harm.

Altho, being someone with only "half a brain", I'm still set on the view that not all kids/adults are influenced by violence on film - and it's probably less than we actually think.
I also don't like the comment about this thread being boring and noone really wanting to talk about it. The question was related to film and I actually think this topic came up some time ago. But then again, being someone with only half a brain, what do I know...