Societies Scapegoat Essay, Research Paper
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SOCIETIES SCAPEGOAT
Youth crimes are on a continual rise. It seems
that everyday violent offenders keep getting younger
and more aggressive. We turn on the news only to hear
that a ten year old mugged,shot,stabbed,beat or blew
up one of his peers. With crimes on the rise
involving children, people begin to look for a cause.
Society, when looking for a scapegoat, becomes worse
than a blood thirsty lynch mob at a witch trial.
Usually the most obvious source of violence within a
home is the television. However, in most cases it is
not the true cause. With the TV in the forefront of
virtually every home in the civilized world, it’s no
wonder that it’s the easiest target for criticism.
It’s elementary to blame the tube for a child’s
behavior; it’s a quick and easily identified source of
violence within a youths confined world. The TV many
times is identified as the cause of aggressive acts to
avoid dealing with other underlying issues. Society
today has an entire array of different afflictions
that plague us from day to day. The television is of
very little significance alongside the landfill of
troubles that influence children today. Besides,
trying to get networks to cut out violence and
aggression entirely would be like trying to get Jesus
Christ to write a top ten list of reasons why
Christianity sucks. (It’s not going to happen.)
TV is not the reason that our youth courts are
filled to capacity with court dockets so hideous you
would swear that you were looking at the start of the
apocalypse. Television programs are not the reason
for the apparent increase in adolescent crime. If you
find yourself picking up your kids from the police
station all the time, it’s not the TV’s fault!!!
There are no significant consequences for youth crime
in our justice system. Maybe we should impose stiffer
penalties on violent offenders, instead of more
censorship on TV. Kids would not have such a tendency
to mug, beat, strangle or shoot their peers if there
were tougher consequences for doing so.
The Japanese are responsible for some of the most
violent cartoons ever created to date. I mean these
things make our R rated movies look like a walk in the
park. Japanese cartoons display bloodshed and drug
induced murdering sprees as if they were nothing.
Even with all this vicious behavior on Japanese
televisions, the youth crime and aggressive behavior
is one tenth of ours. How can this be? Because the
Japanese have adopted a zero tolerance policy for
criminal behavior and reprimand criminals with a
vengeance. Japanese society realized that blaming
things like TV for violent behavior is unacceptable.
Instead, the Japanese have taught their public that
aggression in reality and on TV do not go hand in
hand. (Or as I would say, “it’s not the TV’s
fault!!!”)
A healthy amount of violence within children’s
programs in my mind is perfectly acceptable and
necessary. Violence in moderation teaches children
about situations that may be encountered outside of
their home, and helps them to deal with such
incidents. Kids are aggressive in nature, and a child
who grows up on Barney, the Purple Dinosaur, and Mary
Poppins is likely to have a difficult time dealing
with other kids. Face it, children need a certain
amount of bellicosity to balance out all the bubbly
behavior that some of these idiotic child role models
portray: like Barney, who should be committed to an
asylum. (I know if I was forced to watch Barney at an
early age I probably would have blown up the house.)
You may ask, “why do children need a balance of
violence and aggression at all, why don’t we just
program happy shows all the time?” Because human kind
has always been an aggressive species and probably
will continue to be. By not preparing your children
for acts of rabidity you are preparing them to be
future victims. And if your child is beat up at
school, it’s not the TV’s fault!!! (Maybe it’s time
to let little Jack or Jill watch the Power Rangers, or
a Rocky episode or two.)
I do, however, agree with one of the points
people are trying to make against children viewing
violence. A five year old child should not be
witnessing Freddy hack off human extremities with
chain saws and axes. This is where the parents should
be stepping in to filter out what their little bambino
is taking in. Certain programs are oriented to
different age groups and viewing should be controlled,
not removed through censorship. Parents want strict
censorship because they don’t think it’s possible for
them to control what their children watch. After all
there are TV’s at friends houses and probably at least
two within your own. So what’s the point? Even if
you forbid your child to view certain material they
can watch it somewhere else. The point is, once you
have told the child not to watch something it becomes
taboo or wrong to watch it in their minds. Sure it
will probably prompt him/her into viewing it some time
or another; but now watching the program is, “wrong”
and they know it. As a result little Jr. will be less
likely to chase his sister around the house with an
axe and blame it on Freddy Crouger. After all,
blaming Freddy would get him busted for watching Mr.
Crouger in the first place. And if your child does
turn into Freddy later in life, it’s not the TV’s
fault!!! (It’s probably because of all the times they
fell on their heads.)
It’s ridiculous that cartoons like the Road
Runner were taken off the tube in certain parts of
north America, because of their vile illustrations.
This is preposterous. Wily Coyote illustrated to
children that dropping anvils off cliffs, using
explosives, guns, and running things over with trucks
didn’t help him catch that annoying Road Runner. As a
matter of fact Wily Coyote showed kids that his
aggressive manner never paid off. Everything Wily
Coyote tried literally backfired in his face. And in
Bugs Bunny, I don’t believe Elmer Fudd ever managed to
blow away, “that waskily wabbit”. But I guarantee
that some parent with an over active imagination saw
the Bugs Bunny show as a promotion for their kids to
join the N.R.A.. Or how about Bambi, another violent
film. Bambi’s mother is shot by a gun toting maniac,
and is forced to live with his dysfunctional father.
(Let me guess, this is a subliminal message to shoot
wildlife or your mother) Films like this in my mind
can act as a buffer for the detection of warped
children. If your offspring expresses any interest in
wanting to be Wily Coyote, Elmer Fudd or the hunter
that killed Bambie’s mother, you should have himer
committed to a mental hospital. If your child does
however pick up a gun and proceeds to blast the family
rabbit or kill a deer in the backyard, it’s not the
TV’s fault!!! Fault lays in your lap again for not
keeping your firearm locked up.
Guns in children’s programming is a big issue
today. Society is so upset over the surge of gun
related incidents among our youth. Once again some
individuals blame it on the TV for instigating these
ideas within a child’s mind. This is not true. Maybe
one in every million kids that watch violence on the
television will actually use a gun because of the
program. In these isolated incidents people would
probably find that the child had easy access to a
firearm and no education as to what could happen if
misused. Children that do pick up guns and massacre
family members usually do so with complete ignorance
of the consequences. And of course when confronted
the youngster will probably say he saw someone on TV
do the same thing. In fact the correct response
should have been: My parents were idiots for leaving a
shiny and loaded Smith and Wesson hand gun on the
coffee table for me to play with. In these incidents
firearm education and proper storage is the real
underlying issue. Because it’s not the TV’s fault
people can be so stupid.
In certain cases there have been instances where
children have re-enacted scenes from programs they
have seen, and been badly injured. Without sounding
sadistic, I believe in these few isolated incidents it
probably worked out best for the child. Having a bad
incident occur at an early age opens up parents eyes
to whatever field they have neglected to teach the
child about; at the same time it also gives the youth
an eye opening experience to their own stupidity.
After all children learn best from trial and error,
and it’s better for them to figure out what not to do
early in life. And if Jr. jumps off the roof of the
family home to be like a super hero, it’s not the TV’s
fault!!! (Your kid probably has less common sense
than a lemming.)
Violence on TV is both unavoidable and necessary
for children to learn about their ever changing
hostile world. The only question to be asked is,
“when is a child mature enough to watch certain
programs?” A change in children’s programming is not
likely to occur any time soon. It’s up to the parents
to regulate and censor what they deem appropriate.
Through better education of violence, children will be
better equipped to realize what is intended for
entertainment and what actions are not acceptable in
day to day life. Censorship is not the answer. It’s
way too easy to blame TV for dirty deeds that may have
been caused by other unseen sources. What it all
comes down to is, if your little Jack or Jill wants
to be Wily Coyote or Elmer Fudd, chances are they have
a real problem that has to be addressed because, IT’S
NOT THE TV’S FAULT YOUR CHILD IS DERANGED!!!