I feel that it is more Obscene and damaging to children to show murder

[sam sarrha]

and thoughtless killing and sexual assault on TV than some little titty a quarter mile away... i want to see a half million dollar fine for every awful bloody murder TV every night. I am tired of it.

lets get a petition.

[For PaisAn]

1. Yes, violence is much more damaging

to children, teens and adults.

[Tim4319]

2. I agree!

To blame Janet for the downfall of western civilization is outrageous. Especially, since murders and, like you said, sexual assaults are like the norm now-a-days, on TV.

[delhurgo]

3. Right, the answer to censorship is more censorship.

I'm thinking "*****", but I'll refrain from saying it.

[undergroundpanther]

4. Here Here!

When I was like 5 years old, I was up late,(I am ADD) and I used to watch late night TV shows,because sleep was next to impossible and I did get up for school anyways..So I'd watch kinda "wholesome" stuff because I was just glad to not be forced to fake sleeping laying in bed,so I didn't watch the stuff that upset me (it was part of the deal made with mom to be able to stay up )Johnny Carson,Twilight Zone,spaghetti westerns,In search of..

One night I was flipping channels after the Twilight Zone and the local news was on,and silly me I stopped.They were talking about a car accident.Of course morbid curiosity got me,the 6:00 news was not graphic it was not off limits ..But that day the 11:00 news was violent.

There was this lady just hauled out of her decimated car screaming for"Kathy" as she was hoisted up in one of those movement restraining portable gurney things that EM T's use, than the camera moved away a bit,and I saw her leg was cut off.I saw bone, blood ,a tourniquet on her leg and shredded flesh that was part of a knee,she was screaming crying,and struggling in the restraints...
This just horrified me.I was scared I wanted to run to mom but I was scared to do that (I was sure she'd think I watched a bad show and not believe it was just the news)I had nightmares, I never said what I saw.but I'd duck down and shut my eyes and ears when I saw there may be accidents ahead when I was in the car for a long time after seeing that.

Over the years I saw more gore and I noticed myself slowly stop flinching.The scene where the guy gets his leg cut off in gone with the wind still upsets me as do torture scenes.I HATED the movie house of 1,000 corpses not so much for the gore,but for the feeling of being trapped and tortured and no way out for the victims of the killers and no vindication ,or even a way to warn others was left for them..

Like the woman screaming for Kathy her leg was gone and even though her concern for Kathy was greater than a leg gone,still there was nothing I could do. Sometimes violence in pictures desensitizes you because you cannot help the person in the picture you cannot stop it so you look away.

When people feel safe,and the atrocity looks like it occurred in places foreign to us,or far away or in a far fetched storyline..People can choose not to empathize ,or even look away from an atrocity,ironically.

It has become so easy to watch a violent graphic war movie on TV. But being in a real war experiencing it's senseless violence and immediacy scars your soul permanently,after living within such horror going on all around you awhile,your mind goes into a different state of consciousness or perception while involved the war.This perception makes atrocities seem like they are "normal".

Just like to people living in abusive homes their own abusive homes really do look like normal life to the people exposed all the time to those environments.Until they get to experience life in a non abusive environment they don't know..Than after the abuse is over,they begin to realize the damage done to them and the obscenity of it all.


Watching abuses happen on TV is not like having abuse going on in front of you.Violent voyeurism is not anything like a real experience of violence even though it pretends it is..and it can sorta effect you as if you witnessed violence if you are sensitized to it and think about what you are seeing on screen.People don't think when they watch rapid fire images of violence because the depth and meaning is leached out of the pictures,because TV is a shallow medium,The story is abbreviated but the shock remains,it dulls us to see this distant non contextualized abuse,The picture show allows no victims their voices.

With violence in pictures the pain is made far away, as 'eye candy' so you don't have to feel the pain as if you are there..or Think about them like you would if you were right there seeing the picture and feeling the threat of the situation as if it could happen to you,too. Atrocity without threat gradually becomes so normal,when you see it everyday until it's just another horror peep show with these suffering objects that look like people,but you don't know them, you don't have to care ,because it's not real any danger you must face,just seeing a picture..Victims of torture bleed in pictures with no deep or meaningful context ,The images are arrayed on screen as if they are there to titillate you with a new thrill..It's especially effective to grab attention when the disappointment of real life becomes such an unrelenting repetitive a bore..A sedate mundane lifestyle and it's lack of feeling ,connection and aliveness to this world cannot compete with a convincing fantasy that takes you away.A violent image smorgasbord of shocking suffering snaps you out of an emotionally dead malaise when it's treated as just another novelty adventure. When Traumas are really happening around you or to you you can't afford to look away so it snaps you out of your sanity.