The 80’s saw the evolution of Gangsta Rap, a subcategory of the music genre, Rap. Gangsta Rappers spit profanities, demean women and pay homage to weapons. In this way, violence is glamorised and glorified. Fans of Gangsta Rap music find themselves starting to dress like their idols, carrying “bling-blings” and wearing clothes that fit two, using the rappers’ slangs (like calling jewelleries “bling-blings”), so it is not surprising if these fans start idolizing their lifestyles too and take weapons to be a proof of their power and influence. Hence, students start bringing guns to school, citing it as a form of “self-defence”. Some have weapons as a form of indicator of power to instil fear among others not to get in their way, and the fact that they are carrying these weapons, if something actually happens that anger them, their first instinct would be to use it. In this case, the entertainment media, in the form of music, is a propaganda for violence and weapons, making the using of the latter as an act that’s “cool” and respectable.
The increase of violence in popular entertainment slowly but surely makes it more a norm than ever. When the media inflate the presence of violence, viewers are likely to develop the “mean world” syndrome, a cynical view of the world being dangerous. Research proves that after being exposed to constant violence, one is likely to use it as a release of the build-up of hostility after empathizing with whoever might be the violent protagonist. Also, people undergo a process of desensitization where violent acts affect them less than it should. Violence is taken less seriously and the victims of violence are less empathised with. Hence because of the lowered inhibition and regard for the victims, that people tend to be more aggressive. Our polluted airwaves is polluting the minds of the people.
While censors proved their points that there is a detrimental effect of violent media on the people, some others think otherwise. Of all the people who are exposed to violence, why is it the media takes all the blame? For an adolescent to play a violent shooting computer game to really taking a gun and shooting another, the chance is very minimal and if it does happen, the child must already be mentally unstable. Only those who cannot differentiate fantasy and reality would attempt to harm someone just because some wrestler on television did an impressive move. While we cannot deny that violence is on the rise, the media cannot be blamed more than the living environment and the people one comes into contact with everyday. Another group of people link the acceptance of violent entertainment to human beings’ own innate taste for violence. They believe that the blame could not be placed on the shoulders of corporate giants in the media industry, as they are only catering to the demands of their customers. Violence is said to be a primitive and yet constant culture of the world.
However, all that one learns in his or her course of life, is due to influence from the outside. If any influence can be blamed, then the mass media can too. Youths are replacing their teachers and parents as educators with the media, spending more time absorbing information from the media each day than they would in the classroom. Violence is part of the culture of the world, and is not especially harmful now than before, but the way it is portrayed in the media is. In other words, the portrayal of violence makes it so that violence is the only way to solve problems or that there is nothing wrong with violence. The same goes to the issue of sexuality in the media. Before, having premarital sex is a taboo, but with the increasing acceptance of promiscuous behaviour, and the release of award-winning television serials such as Sex and the City where it is considered fine not to be able to count how many sex partners one had before, no matter how liberating this might be for women, there is no doubt that the media had allowed or accelerated the acceptance of casual sex. Hence, in the case of violence, it cannot be hard to see the relevance between violent media and crime rates.
The prevalence of violence in every society is a sociological problem that one cannot pinpoint or solve. The cause of violence among people is not just one, but an interrelation between many factors such as poverty, dysfunctional families and so on. Violence in the media is not just a reflection of the society we live in, but also a contributor to the increase in violent behaviours around. If portrayed the right way, violence in the media can show us the negative effects of violence, such as in movies about the horrors of war and documentaries of war-torn nations. This can actually steer us away from violent inclinations and emphasize on the importance of non-violence.
