Influence Of Media Violence
...“do not invent nature but merely hold up to it a mirror” (Stone, 686-687). This statement infers that art is simply a reflection of reality; that artists create as a means to express their view of nature. One form of art that is often the subject of much controversy is the usage of violence in media. Critics lambaste media violence as a primary cause of societal violence, often drawing parallels between school shootings with violent movies and video games. Yet these critics overlook the fundamental fact that media, like all other art forms, simply reflects nature. As such, media violence is not a cause of societal violence, but rather a reflection of societal violence that has always been an inevitable aspect of human civilization.
Violence in media shows the aspects of human nature that we do not want to repeat. For example, war movies are often not meant to glorify war. Rather, they are meant to show that war is something that should be avoided at all costs. Ridley Scott’s epic Black Hawk Down was not meant to showcase the so-called superiority of US forces over local militias. Instead, Black Hawk Down was meant to demonstrate the futility of warfare in situations such the one in Somalia during the early 1990s. While the mission objective to capture several Somali warlords was achieved, the overall mission was considered a Pyrrhic victory due to massive casualties on both sides. Scenes such as Corporal Jamie Smith gushing blood from a severed femoral artery remind the public of the brutal consequences of war, no matter the how righteous the cause may be.
Violent films are also often used to make statements about media sensationalism towards violence. Despite being “condemned for its apparent glorification of casual murder,” Oliver Stone’s film Natural Born Killers was “intended as a satire of [the] media’s obsession...
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