violence and movies

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Movies and Violence

Before a person reaches the age of 18 they will have witnessed over 40,000 murders, and over 400,000 other acts of violence. One research study concluded that just one hour of television everyday will increase the chances of a person committing an act of violence by four times. Violence depicted in movies will leave an impression on the viewer and the feelings they had about violence will slowly and subtly begin to change as the person becomes desensitized to violence. Witnessing repeated acts of violence raises a person’s level of hostility and lowers empathy. The violence that is portrayed in movies and television has long been known to influence crime and violent behavior in our society.
Studies have been conducted to find if violent movies influence a person’s judgement and violent behavior. Psychologists have said that brutal imagery in films, games, and other media sow aggression in society by rendering viewers insensitive to acts of these type. The long term effects of exposure to these movies depicting murder, rape, robberies, and so on is pernicious. Another study concluded that the crime rate would actually decrease during the showings of these movies because for 2 hours during the movie any violence prone persons that wished to see the movie would be in the theater which meant they wouldn’t be on the streets committing crime. Dr. Michael Rich of Children's Hospital of Boston testified that the correlation between violent media and aggressive behavior is stronger than that of calcium intake and bone mass, lead ingestion and lower IQ, condom non-use and sexually acquired HIV, and environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer, all associations that clinicians accept as fact, and on which pr...

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...nd the death of Bill Savage. It will take only one large verdict against the likes of Oliver Stone, and then the party will be over." An unstable mind and a movies influence with scenes of violence may not send most over the edge to go on a murderous rampage, but when it does it definitely will.
Knowing who will be inspired by a movie meant for entertainment and go on a killing spree is highly unlikely and until then copycat acts of violence will continue to baffle society. But in the minds of a few already unstable minds the violence that some movies depict will take on a reality of their own. Then, regretfully there’s one fact that can’t be denied, it does happen. When an unstable mind is influenced by a movie the results the results can be devastating. Movies do influence society’s view on violence and in some rare cases it will motivate some to violence.

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