Cartoon Violence

[Seil]

Recently, I decided to watch Batman Beyond. Don't ask me why. Anyways, I was sitting there, watching Batman beat up the Joker, and the Joker firing lasers and throwing bombs and such, and I became shocked. It just hit me all of a sudden.

All of a sudden it wasn't just Batman beating up a bad guy, it was Batman beating the poopie out of the Joker, while the Joker was trying to kill him. Look at a cartoon that's "violent." You have what - a Coyote trying to kill and eat a Road Runner? It's not just the Coyote hunting, trying to get a meal, it's an animal that's just getting the snot beaten out of him, either by himself or by a giant bird.

Now, as of now I don't have any problem with this. Batman is Batman is Batman, and Batman it will stay - Batman's awesome. However, I can relate to the naysayers out there that say that cartoon violence out there is... well, violence. If Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner were real, and Loony Toons was a live action show, it would be a sick portrayal of animal cruelty.

But as it stands, Wile E. can throw himself off of a cliff and have a giant rock fall on him and it's okay, because it's not really happening. Pepe Le Peu can chase down and force himself on another creature and it's fine. Even Sesame Street has its double standards - Oscar is an aggressive hobo, Cookie Monster has a severe addiction - so this thread's topic is this:

Do you believe that the amount of violence or stereotyping or whatever else that we have seen in cartoons desensitizes us? Does it make us more violent? Does it attribute to anything that's going on in the schools? Recent protesting has changed things in old cartoons that we used to know and love to "politically correct" versions - even though there's a level that's "too politically correct," are they on to something?

[Fayth]

Well... you have to realize that these cartoons were born in then 1900s. The world back then (especially America) wasn't as politically correct as it is now. I believe another contributing factor is that years and years ago, the age that a person was considered an adult was vastly lower... therefor something like cartoon violence wasn't as bad as fighting in a real war. Today, things like the draft and such aren't as widely used...

As for the desensitizing part, I really don't think so. There's a difference between watching Batman beat up the Joker, and watching a person in real life getting brutalized. I believe the main thing keeping our minds somewhat sensitive is the knowledge that it's not real... As long as people know that, it's not as bad as watching real violence and real brutality.


Oh yeah...

GO KOREA!

[Goop2]

Here's the thing. People have been saying that newer games make people more violent, and more likely to kill people. At the same time, they see no threat in titles such as 'Super Mario Bros.' When I squish a koopa, I get extra points. What did it ever do to me? How can you say new games make murderers out of people, when this doesn't?

Now on to "Political Correctness." Political correctness seems to have a huge bias. (That being, Conservatives mainly, think it's a retarded concept in the first place.) The idea is, we trash morals, and replace them with something friendlier. Obviously this would mean politically correct, and correct, are nearly polar opposites.

Simply put, if my child does something wrong, I can go two routes.
1; Punish him/her.
2; Be politically correct and let them turn into a bratty kid, later to bully on other kids.
Hmmm... Choices...

[Seil]

Quote:At the same time, they see no threat in titles such as 'Super Mario Bros.' When I squish a koopa, I get extra points. What did it ever do to me? How can you say new games make murderers out of people, when this doesn't?

Because Super Mario is nonsensical to allow people to realize that what's happening in the game isn't the norm - turtles don't try to attack you, throw hammers or fly. A giant Dragon-Turtle doesn't steal your girlfriend, who's also the princess of a magical mushroom land.

It allows people to separate themselves from the game. Now, if they were playing Doom 3, or GTA, an extremist might believe themselves in enough trouble to actually whip out a gun and start shooting.

Quote:Now on to "Political Correctness." Political correctness seems to have a huge bias. (That being, Conservatives mainly, think it's a retarded concept in the first place.) The idea is, we trash morals, and replace them with something friendlier. Obviously this would mean politically correct, and correct, are nearly polar opposites.

Political correctness is based on the opinions of society, and what society as a while believes is the norm. I don't agree with many concepts of what is considered to be politically correct, such as calling black people "African Americans." They're black. I'm white. I'm not "British Canadian," I'm white.

Can you believe that there's a woman arguing that because Resident Evil 5 takes place exclusively in Haiti, or a nearby area, where the main enemies are black people, the game is racist? Never mind that Haiti is the origin of Voodoo, and Voodoo has the earliest documentations of people coming back from the dead. Never mind that Haiti is populated almost exclusively by black people. no - you shoot black people, you're racist. The other 50 games in the series where you shoot white people and Spaniards, she could care less about.

There will always be extremists, those who argue things into the ground when they don't know the full story. In layman's terms, these are the people with sticks up their bums.

Quote:Simply put, if my child does something wrong, I can go two routes.
1; Punish him/her.
2; Be politically correct and let them turn into a bratty kid, later to bully on other kids.
Hmmm... Choices...

Being politically correct doesn't mean you can't punish your kids. However, Psychologists have discovered that it's better to reward your child for a good job rather than to punish them for a bad one. It's all about reinforcing good behavior instead of punishing the bad behavior.

[Pyronic]

As long as its on paper and not IRL i dont care :O

[Sekaru]

cartoons are basically in my oppinion a way of eterntainement where we can show ANYTHING and EVERYTHING since its not rl f.ex if coyote goes and jumps off a cliff and survives I doubt someone will be influenced to jump off a cliff while if some random guy on a rl show jumps off one gets hurt a bit but survives some people might copy it (theres lots of idiots out there ) I say in cartoons anything goes as long as they have the correct rating

hell I think RE5 is going too far messing with voodoo... and yeah they kinda got a point though every re game has been an artifical place to avoid bad images yet with re5 they're targeting an actual place I find that in that sense kind of lame and wrong

btw voodoo is not the earliest reanimation.

[Snapplewee]

PC is stupid, imho

[Darzinth]

Fayth Wrote:Well... you have to realize that these cartoons were born in then 1900s.

Disney didn't release a cartoon, Alice's Wonderland, until 1923. Which means 20th century. Unless you mean cartoons from even earlier!

[fudashi]

I don't think that cartoons make anyone violent unless they have a propensity to violence in the first case.??Cartoons, videogames, rock music, anything can be scapegoated, especially where violent crime has taken place.

Desensitizing???Possibly.?With cartoons, Road Runner for example, Wile E. Coyote gets run over by lorries, blown up, falls of cliffs - but is invariably back to try again, and again. Once you're old enough to understand that it's a cartoon and not real, I don't see a problem.??I hear that some of the classics have been "Politically Corrected", which makes me sad.??If you want to stop kids watching them, why not stick a PG-13 rating on them???As Sek said:

Sekaru Wrote:I say in cartoons anything goes as long as they have the correct rating

But that's the problem - people generally pay little attention to the rating on music, movies, games, and then there's an outcry when some n-year old (pick an age ) goes on a killing spree because "they were playing GTA" or whatever - why is someone of that age playing a game rated 18, or Mature, or whatever the rating system is in your particular country?

I've got Bioshock here on my laptop, and it's a great game - but I wouldn't let my kids play on it.??Mind you, they're both under 3.??But even so, I'm careful not to play it when the kids are around, the language and violence are not appropriate, and won't be for some years to come.

I'll shut up now.

[Seil]

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