Zombies In Gerard Jones's Violent Media Is Good For Kids

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Zombies are seen in multiple formats including video games, television shows, and movies. Some examples include, Call of Duty, The Walking Dead, and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the recent season-four premiere of The Walking Dead drew 16.1 million viewers and an 8.3 rating among adults 18-49 in Live+Same Day viewing alone (Stark). Within just three days of DVR use, the episode became the biggest non-sports broadcast in cable history, with 20.2 million viewers, surpassing “Sunday Night Football” to be the top-rated program of the week across the board (Stark). Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was a 13 minute music video and short film. The music video’s high quality filming, acting, singing, and dancing landed …show more content…

In Gerard Jones’s “Violent Media Is Good for Kids,” Melanie Moore states that, “Children need violent entertainment in order to explore the inescapable feelings that they’ve been taught to deny, and to reintegrate those feelings into a more whole, more complex, more resilient selfhood.” Moore’s explanation may be a reason for an increase in zombie popularity among children. Adolescents, including some children, use violent media to see the other side of what has been taught to them. As a result, they develop their brains and learn how to survive in our modern day world. For example, they are told not to fight or kill anybody, but they play Call of Duty Black Ops: Zombies. Although playing this game may have poor effects on them, it also has numerous benefits as well. Adolescents and children control the person on the screen through a controller teaching them hand eye coordination. In order to kill the zombies, they must plan where to go, which weapon to use, and when to kill, teaching them to strategize. Call of Duty also gives the children the feeling of the fight or flight response, a mechanism in the body that enables humans and animals to mobilize a lot of energy rapidly in order to cope with threats to survival (“Fight”). The fight or flight response teaches the children how to make decisions at any instant. Violent media’s positive impact on children may be a cause for …show more content…

But could a zombie apocalypse actually happen? According to Matt Mogk - the world's leading expert on the undead, and founder of the Zombie Research Society - believes it's not so far-fetched (Stark). Mogk says, “There are too many weird diseases out there mutating in ways we don’t understand to say that this couldn’t be a possibility” (Stark). One disease includes the ebola virus. According to dictionary.com, ebola is a highly lethal virus that causes massive internal hemorrhaging. The ebola crisis reached the United States from West Africa when a Dallas patient was diagnosed with the virus. The latest figures from the World Health Organization puts the death toll from the disease at more than 3,430, with more than 7,470 infected as of Oct. 3 (Westcott). This leaves us with the idea of the reality of a zombie apocalypse, however, we do not know if and when this could happen. Could the increase in natural disasters, conflicts, climate change, and deadly diseases be a sign that the zombie apocalypse is near? We do not know how to prepare for the zombie apocalypse. We cope with our confusion by watching zombie movies and television shows. Although zombie entertainment is only a depiction of zombies, we choose to believe it will show us survival methods for the zombie apocalypse. This idea of the zombie apocalypse has made us find the solution, increasing zombie

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