Article Responses

Article 1 response

Ultimately I’m pretty conflicted with this article. I understand people’s frustration with the ramping up of violence in movies and the media. Tarantino’s movies especially are incredibly gory and visibly violent. At the end of the day though, nobody is forcing anybody to watch a Tarantino movie. We all have a choice. And if it just so happens your 14 year old son secretly is watching violent movies, that’s his choice to make. Violent exists and is out there in the world, there’s no sheltering somebody from it indefinitely. Better to understand it now than face it unknowingly later. Now I’m not saying violent movies necessarily prepare you to deal with life, but that doesn’t mean they don’t teach us things about humans, because they do. If you watch any of Tarantino’s movies, you find that the violence is just a mechanism to further develop the characters. It’s about how violence affects and changes people, not about the violence itself.

Article 2 Response

I think LaSalle hit some very important points, the first being the interaction between real life and movie life. When a filmmaker defends his film for being a reflection of culture and not in influence on culture, he/she is both right and wrong. Movies will always influence behavior, even if only in small ways. The fact that the movie is a reflection on society doesn’t change this, it only furthers it. And while free speech/expression is of course important, especially in artistic venues, it’s not the only important part of the equation. At some point the people creating the films and video games of today have to decide what ideas they want to propagate and advocate. Yes it’s free speech to make a violent movie. No it’s not really spreading the right cultural message to others. But therein lays the issue, for every piece of art that some consider bold and important there are as many who deem it harmful, and neither group would be wrong. Ultimately there needs to be a better regulated separation of adult content from non adult content, so that societies children aren’t watching things they shouldn’t without having to censor anyone.

Article 3 response

I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Mr. Manson. Music, movies and other entertainment aren’t the real issue, and nothing gets fixed unless you can identify the real issue. There’s plenty of things wrong with our society, but it’s not always so obvious where we need to focus our efforts and that’s the first place to start. Figuring out where to start, the source of the problems. Treating to symptoms is fine but never fixes anything. We can keep blaming music for corrupting our children, or we can say “Why do our children feel the desire to turn to this anyways? Where’s this all coming from, and why?” If there’s violence in the streets then figure out why and what can be done to help, don’t waste your time trying to get a song censored or removed off the radio. If people thought a little more about the long term and less about themselves in that moment we could actually address the underlying issues here instead of pointing fingers at the same person because they happen to be popular at the moment.