Monday, December 03, 2012
Violence in Youth Entertainment: Looking Beyond the Fun
UCID: 10077161
COMS 369- L02
I
was out shopping for boots yesterday when I received a call from my youngest
brother. He was calling to remind me that I had promised him an early birthday
present. A few months back, in an attempt to get my brothers to clean the
house, I promised them that I would buy them a video game for their birthday.
Yesterday was the day of fulfilment, their old games have run their course,
their birthday is a month away and the newest Call of Duty game came out last month. It was time to get them that
new game.
My
brothers are among the millions of individuals who wallow in video games like Call of Duty. According to the statistics
published on kotaku.com, Call of Duty
enjoys an audience of 10 million unique users on Xbox alone. A video game that comprises of missions on
realistically designed war sites, Call of
Duty, attracts an audience of all ages and forms a big part of the
entertainment our youth engages with.
The
theme of war in youth entertainment intrigues me. War is not only a prominent
theme in video games like Call of Duty,
but also in popular fiction books and movies that our youth is exposed to. One
such example is The Hunger Games, by
Suzanne Collins. Enjoying a vast readership, the Hunger Games can be listed as one of the most successful books
of our times. It attracts a wide variety of audience belonging to all age
groups and became one of the highest grossing films in Box Office after its
release in March.
The
popularity and vast acceptance of The
Hunger Games and Call of Duty as forms
of youth entertainment led me in to thinking about their implications on our
youth. Do themes of war and explicitly graphic scenes of murder and killing in
fictional setting diminish the gravity of such situations in reality? Can it be argued that such forms of media play
a role in desensitization of our youth? After looking into several sources on this
subject, I believe that such an argument can be legitimately made.
Just
like other examples of main stream media, both, Call of duty and Hunger Games, attract a lot of critical attention.
Fan sites are launched and blogs are written. Polls are posed to the general public
and votes are taken on trivial details. Statistics are recorded and academia
gets animated to find research topics hidden behind these forms of media. One
of the most important centres of attention in such academic pursuits is the
impact of these books and video games on children aged 10-18.
In
praise of Hunger Games, many argued that like Harry Potter, these books create
relatable scenarios that help in the intellectual and social development of
youth. Parents believe that the simple words and vivid explanations not only
contribute towards an easy read but are also more effective in providing
children the opportunity to learn from the characters. Katniss is constantly
promoted by fan sites as a strong role model based on her confidence in herself
and her dedication to her family. The book is also highly valued for its
attractiveness for young readers in an age where reading is argued to be a
dying habit among many.
Similarly,
Call of Duty enjoys enormous praise
in its own arena. The realistic graphic animations and the innovation in
missions attract gamers looking for adventure and, as Marcus Power puts it, the
thrill of “winning a war single-handedly”.
Having said that, the reputation of the game cannot be solely attributed
to its stature as the most realistic looking game, it also attributes to the
fact that game offers several options for multiple users. Gamers have the
option to engage in combat with their friends, and people from all over the
world. Call of Duty offers gamers
high level of engagement. It’s not just
about playing with the virtual player anymore. It’s about competition with real
people in real time.
While
the massive fan following of The Hunger
Games and Call of Duty assure us
of their strength as youth entertainment, the questions I posed earlier cannot
be ignored. How do such forms of media impact the social and intellectual
development youth? And what is our responsibility, as a society, to direct these
impacts in a positive direction?
To
answer such questions it is important to investigate the plot both of these
forms are built on. The theme of war evident in both of these forms is not a
fantasy created in the present rather depicts an ugly picture of our future. It
creates a picture of the world that we are building today. The Hunger Games depicts a fight over food and water, basic human
needs. The book centres on war: A war for resources fought amongst the
impoverished. On the other hand, Call of
Duty depicts a world under constant attack from the enemies. It portrays a
constant need to kill and murder in a state of war.
The
point that I am trying to raise through my article is that, the futuristic
picture painted in youth entertainment runs parallel to the world we live in
today. We live in a world where many regions are completely impoverished
fighting over resources, like food and water. In an article published in Forbes
magazine, Judy Martin discusses the sharp paradox that underlines forms media
of media we have discussed above. She states how “the very attempt to bring
attention to disparate voices and an increasingly divisive tone [is] also a
potential vessel disintegrating civility amongst our young”. It is important to
realize here that the unregulated exposure of youth to implicatively realistic
events in fiction is desensitizing them towards harsh human realities that
exist around them. My argument is that realities like wars and poverty might lose
their urgency and gravity for the coming generations if they are not educated
about them in the context of reality rather than fiction.
In
a research published on scienceblogs.com Nicholas Carnagay studied the impact
of violent video games by asking half of 257 volunteers to play violent video
games and half to play non-violent video games for 20 minutes. After the game
time was up, each volunteer was asked to watch clips of violent movie sequences
such as prison fights, shootings and police confrontations. Studies revealed that
volunteers who were violent gamers were “less aroused by the violent images
than nonviolent gamers”. The research indicated how individuals were
desensitized through violent video games.
Another
interesting thing to take in account here is a film put together by Josh
Brickler: “Post-Newtonianism”. In his film, Brickler features two panels:
“juxtaposing actual war footage on one side, and sequences from Call of Duty on the other. The film
included audio from the WikiLeaks videos gradually converging with audio from
the video game.” In the video
description, Brickler quotes the Call of
Duty representative who defines the game as a “great training products” for
soldiers. The idea behind the film is how video games like Call of duty serve
the purpose of desensitizing individuals towards hideous acts of war.
It
is important to state here, that the purpose of this article is not to suggest
a complete opposition to forms of media. Media is an important and powerful
part of our society. As a young individual myself, I am not against youth
entertainment. But as a member of greater society, I believe that it is my job
to play a role in regulating the exposure to media for our youth. I am
responsible to educate my brothers, and in the future, my children, about the
bigger picture of social conditions that make the world we live in. As a
society all of us can play a part in imparting that education to our youth
which would provide them the context of reality that fictional forms of media
lack. Without that education, a plot focusing
on wars, killings and poverty can be reduced to a form of exciting and fun entertainment,
blocking out hidden social meaning. As a society it is our responsibility to
look beyond the fun.
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