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Batman and violence in South Africa |
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Written by Daniel Jacobs
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Sunday, 03 August 2008 14:32 |
In an extremely critical review of the latest Batman Movie - The Dark Knight - that appears in the Cape Argus of 31 July 2008, Jenny McCartney said: "A man's face is filleted by a knife, and another's is burned half off. A man's eye is slammed into a pencil...A plainly terrorised child is threatened at gunpoint by a man with a melted face etc." Any child in Britain under the age of 12 can see this movie with parental guidance and those of 12 years and over can see it without parental guidance. In South Africa the age restriction is better at 13 for Violence. Just as the pro-smoke lobby have tried to convince us for years that their is no link between smoking and serious health problems many people are trying to convince us that their is no link between Media Violence and violence in society.
New Scientist, the wellknown scientific magazine with a circulation of 143 000 (Jan - Jun 2003), said in their issue of 21 April 2007 the following about the link between the exposure to violence on TV, Movies and Video Games and increased in aggression and violent behaviour:
a. "Young adults who had watched more than 3 hours of TV a day at age 14 committed five times as many aggressive act - from threatening behaviour to actual physical assault - as those who watched less than 1 hour"
b. "Video games are more worrisome than TV because they are interactive ... for those who spend hour after hour playing shoot'em ups or watching gorefests, the result for them - and others - could be dire"
c. "Every hour of children's television portrays between 20 and 25 aggressive acts - more than on prime-time adult shows"
d. "If you live in a violent area or abusive home, it increases the likelihood that violence will have an effect. But even kids with good things in life are affected. Maybe they will not be more violent but perhaps more hostile in their interpersonal relationships"
e. "...there is no getting away from the fact that on-screen violence fosters off-screen violence"
f. The statistical correlation between the exposure to media violence and an increase in aggression is twice as strong as the evidence that passive smoking increase the risk of lung cancer and three time as strong as the idea that calcium increases bone strenght. Nobody is doubting that passive smoking increase the the risk of lung cancer and calcium increases bone strenght - so why do so many people allow the average child to watch TV for more than 3-4 hours+ per day, to play violent video games etc?
g. . "... young children watching TV double the average TV viewing hours (which were 2.2.per day at age 1 and 3.6 at age 3) were 25% more likely to be diagnosed with attentional deficit hyperactivity disorder at age 7" (Source: New Scientist)
If one take this extracts from the New Scientist article into account should we - especially in such a violent country as South Africa - not insist on stricter control over the release of films like this or at least ask for much stricter age restrictions? Not that I belief that it is a good thing for a person of any age to watch movies like this!
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