The Sniper Film Analysis

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Recommended: Impact of violent video games on kids

Violent video games and movies can dehumanize people through accostoming them to seeing death, stripping humanity from their opponents, and allowing them to hide behind a screen from their actions. In The Sniper the main character is described as having “the eyes of a man who is used to looking at death” (O’Flaherty). Because the sniper was so accustomed to death, and even being the cause of it, he has little to no reaction to killing people day by day. He does not think of them as individual humans with lives and souls, but just another dehumanized being. Therefore, he does not come to the repercussions of his actions until he discovers that one of his victims was actually his brother.
This is what occurs when children and adults watch violence …show more content…

However, year by year these forms of media are becoming more and more realistic. Even people who are originally fairly mentally stable may begin to apply the fictional violence to real life situations, which can become dangerous.
On top of this, the way that movies and video games often depict on screen violence is strategic in numbing the audience to death. According to Dehumanization “Dehumanization is actually an extension of a less intense process of developing an "enemy image" of the opponent” (Maiese). By showing the people being killed in countless numbers as evil enemy goons with no personality or qualities, as many forms of media do, the audience does not care about their death, because they see no humanity in them.
However, physical violence is not the only danger of dehumanization by popular media. By allowing people to feel secure causing terror behind a screen, mental and emotional violence can result as well. Cyberbullying could be caused by the desensitization of people through on-screen abuse. According to Cyberbullying Facts “Cyberbullying is bullying that takes place using electronic technology” (StopBullying.Gov). Because these people become used to causing violence using electronics, they may begin to stop comprehending the repercussions of people that they torment online. Thousands of children are cyber bullied every year, and dehumanization is obviously a large contributing

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