inkbluesky

Economists Say Movie Violence Might Temper the Real Thing

Professor Dahl and the paper’s other author, Stefano DellaVigna, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, attach precise numbers to their argument: Over the last decade, they say, the showing of violent films in the United States has decreased assaults by an average of about 1,000 a weekend, or 52,000 a year.

Crime is not merely delayed until after the credits run, they say. On the Monday and Tuesday after packed weekend showings of violent films, no spike in violent crime emerges to compensate for the peaceful hours at the movies. Even a few weeks later, there is no evidence of a compensating resurgence, they say.

Before anyone has a seizure they do stipulate a few things. That it is still best that children not be brought up viewing graphic violence and that the long term effects of viewing violent screen renderings and video games has not been established. Then there is the absurdity that there are so many people in our society with violent tendencies that we have to supply them with make believe distractions to some degree quell their desire to act out those feelings. That said I think there is a cathartic quality to some film and video game violence. This is certainly anecdotal, but my main viewing habits seem to be extreme opposites. I like violent action films like Crank and Lucky Number Slevin, but then I like thoughtful movies like Land of Women and Friends with Money. I would no more act out the emotional abuse one character heps on another in Friends with Money then I would act out the violence in LNS. Who are these simple minded people that see actors or animated characters and then proceed to act out what they see. Can society ever really do something about violence by treating it as an external problem rather then something that is internal. Even as an external instigator the violence is being internalized. Both Crank and LNS, to me at least are very Old Testament eye for eye stories. Injustices have occurred, action is taken to punish the wrong doers. Ultimately the ending is a sought of instant gratification, the triumph of good or relatively good over evil. Real life as we know frequently isn’t like that. The other argument and this again would only apply to adults, is that exposure to so much violence desensitizes us to violence. Maybe, but think about all the shows on day time TV where there is a steady stream of sad stories. People have been done some wrong - a two timing spouse, identity thief, a dishonest landlord or tenant, etc. We may get tried of watching the litany of the daily personal tragedies and find it all a bit depressing, but we don’t become desensitized to the point where we don’t fell sympathy for the victims. In Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 he alluded to several issues, not just censorship. One was that the attempts by society no matter how well meaning to do away with those things that might disturb some people lead to the inevitable dumbing down of knowledge and the potential of the human spirit, and certain levels of tyranny. So rather then sit around whining about Hollywood and the supposed vice like grip it has on public morality, having yet another study that shows it probably not a good idea to let junior watch Bruce Willis blows someone’s brains out, how about we do the incredibly hard work of figuring out why some individuals act on their violent thoughts and what if anything we can do to get those people to change.

suspended water drops wallpaper. nice study in water tension.

If the late nineties were about every other person writing a children’s book, the millennium is about every other person writing and illustrating a graphic novel. This guy feels your pain, How to Survive Writing a Graphic Novel - From the drawing board of Grady Klein.

*thanks to Marginal Revolution and Devisive for the links.