LETTER: Media violence harms society's morals

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by Andrew Sendonaris

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A few years ago, I learned that children (under a certain age) do not have the ability to imagine how objects appear from someone else's perspective. We develop this ability as we grow up.

However, it is becoming more and more clear to me that we never acquire the ability to fully understand what it feels like to be in someone else's position.

We think that we kind of know how a rape victim feels, but we really have no clue; we are not even close. The same applies to most other "drastic" situations in our lives and, most importantly, murder.

What urged me to write this letter is a film review I read in "Rice Cinema." It is about the movie FUN , which is about "two teenage girls [who] kill a nice old granny for the heck of it."

The excerpt that really shook me was: "The expression on Witt's face as Bonnie stabs the old lady the first time is hard to forget. It's a look that says `Oh. How fun. How easy. How interesting ...'" (quoted from the San Francisco Chronicle ).

How could anyone have written this if he actually had the ability to understand how it feels to be stabbed to death? What would the author of the above excerpt think if it were he/she who was being stabbed? Would the words "fun" and "interesting" come to his/her mind?

Our inability to fully feel other people's feelings is due in large part to the "movie-fication" of life in the U.S. Through movies we have "experienced" nearly every situation and feeling there is to experience. Or so we think. Herein lies the real danger.

We have seen so many people die in movies that when we see it for real (e.g., as part of a news report), we don't even flinch; we can't see that the person we are watching is an actual person just like you and me and that he/she must have gone through unimaginable pain.

I have actually heard someone from Rice say with a straight face that he was disappointed after we watched a report on CNN about Chechnya and we didn't see any mutilated bodies.

The tragedy is that it is not just him; I've heard or read similar things too many times.

Maybe, just maybe, movies like FUN have a message. But, whether a movie shows amoral behavior for a purpose or not, the main point remaining in people's minds is the amoral behavior itself and not the message (if any).

For example, the cartoon-within-a-cartoon called "Itchy and Scratchy" from "The Simpsons" was, as I understand it, initially meant to exaggerate and make fun of other cartoons.

However, what I saw was people (at Rice) enjoying and cheering "Itchy and Scratchy" for its extremely graphic violence, i.e. for what it was showing, and not for its parody of other cartoons.

Also, a movie like Pulp Fiction shows amoral behavior in the most dangerous way. To a certain degree, the (intended or unintended) message it was sending to people, through its protagonists, was something like, "Look, I am a normal person just like you, with deep thoughts, feelings, etc. However, instead of being a teacher or a grocer, I am a hired murderer. It's just a job, just like teaching or selling produce. The only difference is that I kill people. Other than that, I am normal, just like you."

This is dangerous. If this message becomes pervasive and part of the culture, the future of this society is at risk. Killing or stealing becomes "normal," and the only problem with committing these acts is the chance of being caught.

No moral hesitations. No guilt. There are signs that society is already heading in that direction.

For example, a few years ago, I was having a discussion about crime in the U.S. with some Rice students, and it was mentioned that there are some countries in which you can leave your car out in the street overnight, unlocked and with the windows down, and no one will steal it.

To this statement, someone (from the U.S.) responded "Why? Are people in that country stupid?" (Remember, this was a Rice student: relatively wealthy, educated.)

Societies have the responsibility to make their members believe that there is such a thing as good or bad, and that such things as stealing, killing, etc., are considered bad.

The reason is not religious, supernatural or anything other-worldly, but simply the self-preservation of the society, because of the chaos that would ensue otherwise.

We are already beginning to see the signs of chaos.

In one Newsweek article, an 8-year-old Chicago boy was quoted as saying, "Is this going to take long? I have somewhere to go tonight" as police interrogated him after he shot a classmate in the back.

Metal detectors in high schools, teenagers taking guns to school and shooting each other for sneakers or hubcaps of cars -- the list goes on and on. These things were more than unimaginable in previous times. Between then and now something went terribly wrong.

What exactly went wrong is not clear; there are many reasons. The fact is, though, that movies have played more than just a minor role in this process. Whoever said that life doesn't imitate art is either naive or lying.

From the myriads of cases that prove this point, just consider the film The Program .

In it, some teenagers, to show that they are macho, or for whatever reason, decide to lie down in the middle of the street, while cars are passing them left and right. After seeing this movie, some teenagers tried it in the "real world", and as a result, a few of them were killed by passing cars. After all this, the film producers decided to take that scene out of the movie.

However, it is essential to note that the immediate copying of behavior seen in movies is not the primary problem.

What is extremely alarming is the long-term effects movies have on culture.

Therefore, films portraying amoral behavior in a matter-of-fact way are a danger to society because they slowly, but steadily, deteriorate it. Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow, but certainly in the not-so-distant future.

I hope I am wrong.

Andrew Sendonaris

Graduate student

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the September 13, 1996 issue.

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