If I have to seriously explain to you the difference, then there is no point in trying to continue to converse with you. You are hopeless.
rest assure you do not need to explain anyhting further. You seem so sure that what you are saying has more credibilityover what I said. You have nothing to prove or base your impulses or assumptions upom apart from trying to put down the things I have said. I don't have to agree what you say in the same way that you do not have to agree with me. Let's leave it at that if you are going to be rude about it. It still won't make me change my views over what I said.
That's fine, you can think what you want. But that doesn't mean it is true. And as you can see, I am not the only one who strongly disagrees with everything you have said.
whatever you think the reasons are, please don't assume you know Hugh Grant motivations in the way you have described it, otherwise your statement is stereotyping that all of us will go to prostitute because as you put it down to being 'horny'. This is a ridiculous statement and should not be said lightely and in this way.
Haha are you like twelve years old or something? You increasingly make no sense with every post. The only reason anybody ever goes to any hooker is because they are horny. And yes, I am stereotyping every person that uses prostitutes. Because it is true. They offer sex. I in no way ever said the whole world is going to use hookers because they get horny. Is English your second language? Because that would explain a lot.
You need to prove yourself, because you made the claim. Jhunter is the skeptic here (as am I, and anyone else on this thread) and you by default have to convince us. It is akin to saying 'You have to prove that I don't have a flouting battle-fort!'. No. The burden of proof is on you to prove you have a flouting battle-fort. Otherwise you shouldn't have made the comment. It's simple logic really. I've given you 5 pointers for further expansion, by no means perfect, above. If you can satisfactorily prove all of them you'll earn the Nobel Prize.
You said Hugh Grant went to a prostitute because he was 'horny'. This implies that everyone who feels that way does the same.
I made an assumption based on what I have seen and what I understand, in the same way that Jhunter made the assumption about using prostitutes when one wants sex. How am I different from his?
I think it's reductive to say one way or the other that violence in the media in and of itself has any effect one way or the other on the behaviour of a population. What is far more important is how the violence is presented. Compare and contrast: Grand Theft Auto vs Saints Row. Both are open-world sandbox style games revolving around criminal activity, both are relatively mainstream and successful, but they present their violent content in very different ways. GTA, as a series, allows the player a great deal of freedom, but imposes a very strict moral framework; the violence is realistically presented, real laws are observed, there is some notion of consequences. Particularly in the main narrative, criminality is ultimately depicted as undesirable and destructive, and there is a moral triumph with the suggestion that the protagonist (who is fixed, not customisable as in SR) will (or has) turned away from crime to legitimacy. Much is made in the media about the violence of the series, but I would argue that the structure of the GTA games is inherently moralistic. In this context, I would characterise Saints Row as GTA without a conscience. Your character is fully customisable, which creates a stronger identification with the protagonist as moral hero (GTA never enforces this connection in any structural way; even the game play remains third person), and criminality is rewarded, rather than punished. The violence is realistic to an extent, but often shifts into pure fantasy. You could argue two ways here: either, the fantasy aspect satirises violence and encourages the player to identify criminality as inherently ridiculous, futile and objectiveless, or, (and this is the case I would argue) fantasy becomes a justification for the violence, as in, "look how stupid this is! Clearly this is harmless!" I think that's a dangerous attitude to promote, especially among children. Of course I'm not arguing that because the game trivialises violence children are going to go out and shoot people, but there are a whole spectrum of attitudes towards crime and violence between perfect innocence and school shooting, and I think that perhaps the structure of SR does trivialise violence, where GTA remains moralising. Anyway, that's just one example, but yeah, I think it makes it clear that the content alone is less important than the structure and presentation of that content.
When I was a kid, every cartoon had violence (talking late 50s, early 60s). Everybody hit everybody else - or blew them up. That was very popular. We had toy guns and killed innumerable neighbor kids over the summers. We had toy cars and trucks that crashed and maimed on a continuing basis. Not one of my childhood friends (nor I) have been arrested or convicted of any violent crimes. Not one. I'm staying away from Hugh Grant. Let that die a quiet death. Really.
I live in Sweden. I was born in the 90's, my brother in the 80's. Here have media changed alot. Cartoons included blood, killing and sexual content. Such as exposed breasts and so on. Today none of this exists no more. I personally think it's sad. I loved when I could watch Silverfang and Cobra animes on TV. Violence is never shown to kids no more. Not here, only pathetic Ben10 Cartoon Network! Crap I say!
I look at some of the ridiculous children's cartoons today and want to vomit. Although - and maybe I'm being hypocritical here - I don't care for sexual content in [supposedly] children's shows. When my son was growing up, I kept an eye out for that. And language. But I think that was because I didn't want the 'attitude' toward sex coming from the media, and language is so easy to pick up.
Awwww. This makes my brain sad. Do I have to remind you of what Jhunter posted, which you claim is an 'assumption'. No. Just look back through this thread. You made the outlandish assumption that because Hugh Grant has seen Pretty Woman he, almost like an automatic response, wishes to pick up a prostitute. This does not make sense, and with making this post you show a staggering unawareness of Psychology and basic reasoning skills. Prostitutes offer sexual acts for money, by nature, so if you were not horny, and were not the loneliest person on earth, why would you approach one unless you knew them personally? It is the nature of what they offer: sex for money. This is just common sense. Jhunter was actually just calling you out on a very silly comment.
No actually, that does not mean that at all. What it does mean is that everyone who goes to a prostitute is horny. Because you know, they are sex workers.
it's not just a media matter... the media only reflects the society that created it... and when you have a society whose members find violent acts to be entertaining, then you have a culture in which violence is not only expected, accepted, and tolerated, but is exploited, to make money for those who turn out the games, movies, tv shows, books, etc. that entertain you with all the slice 'n dice stuff you experience vicariously, for fun... when the real deadly stuff is reported on, it's easier [and less guilt-generating] to point at those who merely hold up a mirror to our medusa selves, than to turn the finger the other way and accept responsibility for creating and maintaining a society that raises its children on non-stop descriptions and images of killing and maiming each other in the guise of 'stories' and 'games'... and with 'toys' that let them pretend to commit all those horrors themselves, making it all seem 'natural'... so don't blame the media... it didn't create itself...
People, and especially children, will always be interested in and attracted to things that are beyond their limitations or the limitations of society. Violence holds that allure. It threatens from beyond the edge of the law, and is all the more threatening since it forces us to address our mortality. Generally, this violence is presented in what I would deem a safe context--that is, a moral context which only validates the violence when it is in pursuit of freedom or safety, or, taking after more classical stories, vengeance. More recently (though really throughout all history), violence has returned to being a spectacle in itself, which, given the 21st century context of terrorism, war and increasing interest in crime and murder, acts (and before I get accused of conspiracy theory, I don't suggest that this is necessarily conscious in the minds of creators) to justify the use of violence against those who pose a threat to the West by depicting them in the context of grotesque, graphic violence. How many of these extreme horror movies depict white (American) people either being attacked by someone/something foreign/alien, or being attacked while in a foreign country. Sociological studies of horror movies are kinda my ish...for a fun exercise, you should examine what monsters are dominant when different parties are in power, it's pretty cool...
I don't think the media necessarily turns people into Virginia Tech/Columbine esque maniacs but at the same time I don't think it's necessarily innocent. Yes, it can help to promote an environment where certain ideological/philosophical slants with negative outcomes are promoted but the real problem is that to me, it reflects something about who we are. In a way, it's not the media that changes us but us who change the media. As say, we grow more apathetic, cynical, or vulgar then subsequently it may give us stories, video games, novels, TV shows etc. and so on that reflect this change, not necessarily always reinforcing it (sometimes deconstructing/criticizing it) but rather serving as something like an "indicator organism" much in the same way biologists use certain forms of native fauna and flora to gauge the healthiness of an ecosystem. In other words, the problem isn't the media, it's the very people who are paying attention to it and those who control it and have the power to construct what they view as the reflection of our world, consciously or subconsciously.
