ETERAZ

Do violent films promote and engender violence and violent crimes, or do they merely reflect the violence inherent in our societies? Are children and adolescents likely to be influenced by the constant parade of violent images that grace our television screens, or is this just another pretext for self-righteous and overbearing parents to curb artists’ freedom of expression? A recent study presented to the American Economic Association in New Orleans by two respected economists is sure to rouse fierce debate over coffee and at the dinner table. It contends that rather than provoking violent behaviour, violent movies in fact cause crime rates to decline. Speaking to The New York Times, Professor Dahl, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, claims on the basis of extensive research of the correlation between crime rates and exposure to violent movies that, ‘In the short run, if you take away violent movies, you’re going to increase violent crime.’[i]

This isn’t mere chatter on Professor Dahl and co-author Professor Stefano DellaVigna’s part; they have furnished their study with reams of stats in order to support their argument. For instance, the study discovered that on the weekend between the hours of 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. for every one million people watching a strongly violent film, violent crimes decreased by 1.3%, and decreased by 1.1% for every one million watching a film that was only mildly violent.[ii] Perhaps the most startling claim made in the report was that over the last ten years the viewing of violent films in the US has reduced the number of assaults by 52,000 a year! If we are to take the findings of this study seriously it means that violence in the media is not only here to stay but in fact benefits society as a whole.

The most significant reason offered by the study is that violent movies keep that group most likely to commit violent acts i.e. young men, preoccupied and busy either watching their TVs at home or in the theatres, in lieu of stalking the streets inebriated and looking for trouble. Economics ultimately underpins the basic premise of this study: if young men are watching violent acts committed on the silver screen then they must be forgoing various other activities such as drug use and alcohol consumption, which the authors contend are far more likely to engender violent and criminal behaviour. An obvious question comes to mind: why can’t people engage in both a celluloid gore fest and excessive alcohol consumption at one and the same time, and then spurred on by what they have seen commit violent acts against unsuspecting and innocent persons? Why does one necessarily preclude the other? And do the stats negate two millennia of intellectual production beginning with the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, through to Cicero the Roman philosopher and statesman and most recently, the renown French literary critic, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, all of whom have lent great weight to the idea that humans are fundamentally mimetic beings i.e. we copy and emulate that which we encounter in experience. A massive amount of research in the cognitive and childhood developmental sciences also confirms this near primordial intuition. From such a perspective how can we discount the effect on children and adolescents of being inundated with violence in films, television and video games? Has it come to the point where we have become completely desensitized to the very real violence which we find every time we open the newspaper or watch the news?

A number of other significant objections arise to the study. Firstly, its conclusions fail to address the long term effects of continued exposure to violent images upon childhood development and mental health. Moreover, the study indicates that in the short term an increase in crime would almost certainly be a corollary of the complete cessation of violent movies in theatres, but occludes the possibility of marked benefits to society in the longer term after having weaned ourselves off our addiction to all that is gruesome and gory. This is an alternative that many concerned parents feel should be afforded greater attention by their governments and the bodies which issue film and DVD ratings. It’s also a debate that shouldn’t restrict itself to the US but needs to be seriously discussed here in the UAE. Nor can such a debate limit itself to just movies, but must also assess the effects of interactive media upon child and adolescent behaviour and social interaction. Just the other week I was taken aback by the inordinate amount of glee a friend of mine was getting from blowing off the head of an enemy soldier while he was sleeping, in the huge gaming hit of last year, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Soon afterwards he was spoiling for a fight with the next guy who had the misfortune of saying the wrong thing or making eye contact in an untoward way. Although my observations make no claim to scientific validity, the change in him was palpable and disconcerting. A number of high profile psychological studies however corroborate my entirely quotidian observation.

A study published in 2000 by prominent figures in the field of social psychology, Professors Craig Anderson and Karen Dill, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology concluded persuasively that ‘violent video game play was positively related to increases in aggressive behavior’.[iii] A more recent report published in 2005 by Jessica Nicoll B.A. and Dr. Kevin M. Kieffer presented at the American Psychological Association Convention similarly argued for the causal link between an increase in aggressive behaviour and the playing of violent video games. Furthermore, the study found that children who regularly play such games are more likely to challenge authority figures, be more prone to resolve conflict by means of physical altercation and perform poorly academically by comparison with their non-violent game playing peers. Video games were marked out as being even more problematic than other media because of the very interactivity that is integral to their appeal. The ability to virtually ‘experience’ the destruction of enemy after enemy makes them all the more effective in stoking the flames of aggressive drives and even delinquent behaviour in the public domain.

Finally Reuters in November of last year reported a study undertaken by psychology profs, L. Rowell Huesmann and Brad Bushman at the University of Michigan whom reviewed some 50 years of research; the former somewhat controversially in a statement claimed that: ‘Exposure to violent electronic media has a larger effect than all but one other well known threat to public health. The only effect slightly larger than the effect of media violence on aggression is that of cigarette smoking on lung cancer’.[iv] Pronouncements such as these are bound to provoke hysteria amongst some parents as a knee-jerk response is generally the norm in the aftermath such studies. Many an angst ridden mother upon hearing the news will be running to confiscate any consoles and ‘pernicious’ looking games they are able to lay their hands on! Hysteria, however, is not the way to go. Such reports must certainly give us food for thought and arouse our concern for the well-being of impressionable youngsters. An important thing to bear in mind is that video games aren’t intrinsically violent and that many can even perform a welcome educational role in children’s lives. The Nintendo DS’s growing selection of educational games is just one example. Games such as Big Brain Academy, My French Coach, and The Professor’s Brain Trainer can stimulate young minds for the better and in ways that arguably no dreary text book could ever hope to.

In the UAE for example sexual content has been suppressed or sanitized in order to accord with traditional Islamic values. Graphic and gratuitous violence on the other hand has been readily available without intervention or any censorship whatsoever. A close friend of mine thought it highly amusing that you can turn on the tube at 2 in the afternoon and find Al Pacino’s gangster flick Scarface playing with guns blazing, blood gushing and limbs flailing. It’s perhaps high time that the impact of gratuitous violence in films, television and video games on the UAE’s youth be properly examined; especially since juvenile crime has been on the rise over the last couple of years.[v]

Of course the growing number of broken homes as a result of divorce and separation, peer pressure and lack of parental involvement are amongst the chief factors contributing to an increase in juvenile crime rates. Nevertheless, the phrase ‘violence begets violence’ doesn’t simply have a literal meaning, but conveys well the worry that simulated violence can almost imperceptibly transform into the real thing. Some commentators have speculated that video games may have been partially culpable for the bloodlust of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the teen gunmen who shot dead 13 people at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado in April 1999.[vi] Harris even placed a modified version of the first-person shoot ‘em up Doom on his personal website, with two shooters and people as targets who couldn’t shoot back. He had in effect set up a virtual precursor to the horrific act for which he and his partner in crime have since gone down in infamy.[vii] Also back in 2005 the defence lawyers of 20-year-old Devon Moore who killed three Alabama state police also cited the Grand Theft Auto series as partially responsible for the fatal shootings. The Associated Press even reported him as saying that ‘Life is a video game. Everybody has to die sometime’. Although these are extreme examples that may well be attempts at passing the buck and abdicating personal responsibility for abhorrent crimes, they can’t simply be cast aside and must be factored into the decisions of film studios, regulatory bodies, and game developers, not regarding issues of content, but of distribution, marketing and ratings.

On another level and irrespective of the benefits to society of violent films claimed by the study with which we began our inquiry there is another blatant incentive for the studios and game developers to continue the onslaught of shockingly violent movies: the shock factor has proven itself time and again to be able to rake in serious moola. With the Saw and Hostel franchises grossing hundreds of millions of dollars there’s undoubtedly an overwhelming demand for frenzied and grotesque violence on our screens. Although we shouldn’t give in to the sanctimonious calls to police artistic freedom in the name of a public morality, here in the UAE we should perhaps take a little more seriously the very real effects of violence in the media upon the general welfare of society and above all those groups most vulnerable to its seduction.

[i] Economists Say Movie Violence Might Temper the Real Thing, Peter S. Goodman, The New York Times, January 7th 2008
[ii] Ibid
[iii] //mentalhealth.about.com/cs/familyresources/a...
[iv] //www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUS...
[v] Juvenile Crimes on the Rise, Lina Abdul Rahman, Khaleej Times, September 23rd 2005
[vi] //mentalhealth.about.com/cs/familyresources/a...
[vii] Ibid

© Sadegh Kabeer