Is violence in entertainment overrated?

[Jabrosky]

I confess that I usually gravitate towards warrior characters and action-packed stories, but after a long moment of introspection this morning I've come to feel differently. While obviously all stories need conflict and tension in order to captivate us, and of course there is a place in real life for self-defense, I don't feel comfortable glorifying the killing or brutalization of other people. It promotes the kind of antagonistic and dehumanizing "black and white" thinking that I want to abandon.

Incidentally, some evidence has recently arisen that a lack of violence could benefit entertainment for everyone:

Television Violence: Do Kids Really Want Violent Entertainment?

Hollywood producers serve up lots of television violence to children. Do kids really want it? Recent research suggests otherwise.

If you edit the violence out of a story, kids still enjoy it. In fact, kids might actually like it better.

The effect was first documented on adults. In his dissertation research, psychologist Andrew Weaver took a set of popular, prime time TV show episodes (Weaver and Wilson 2009). He did some editing and ended up with three versions of each episode:

- the original version with graphic violence (no editing),
- a version with sanitized violence (light editing), and
- a version with no violence (heavy editing).

Weaver randomly assigned people to watch different versions of the show, and he asked them to rate their enjoyment afterwards.

The results?

Television violence did not enhance enjoyment.

When Weaver controlled for the amount of action in the episodes, he found that people actually preferred the least violent version of the show.

Moreover, this was the case for everybody. Men, women, aggressive individuals…even thrill-seekers.

 

[Devor]

I haven't seen the show, but I suspect it's a flawed study. Based on marketing basics, violence doesn't sell. Sex doesn't sell. It's all about branding, maintaining consistent messaging themes throughout the story. If the violence wasn't integral to the story and held consistent with the mood, it may not have belonged there in the first place.

There's another element which also needs to be considered, a concept called aperture, or the timing for your message. McDonald's, for instance, runs heavy radio ads between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. because that's when the most people are in their car, thinking about what they want for lunch. There's a point in the day where people are most interested in sitting for an emotionally involving story - at the end of the day, when everything else that might be going on has been settled; Prime Time. Most likely, the study pulled people aside at a mall, in the middle of their busy day, on a weekend, and paid them (probably in coupons) to sit through the show. The timing is off. I know I wouldn't be interested in a violent show at that point in the day.

So, I have reservations that the study presents a full picture.

Also, just a pre-emptive reminder, that political discussions aren't what this site is about, so let's keep this thread away from the topic of rating systems and possible regulations and "How can they (not) support that?" and so on.

 

[Reaver]

I have an answer to this hot-button issue: