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DISCUSSIONS ON
REALITY TELEVISION
Web Discussions
Contributions will be added to the top of this collection as I receive them
Date: Sun, 4 Sep
From Susan W
For many years now, "violence in video games" has been argued as being the stimulant for a number of violent offences. To be honest, I thought that was ridiculous the first time I heard it. Of course, I've played video games all my life and never once been tempted to recreate anything I experienced in a game.
However, recently I've been giving new consideration to what sort of effects TV in general is having on our world. I was in a chat room for the reality TV show Big Brother 6 this week, and I was happy to see a number of people supporting the same contestants I was. But further into the conversation, I was becoming more and more sickened by the opinions my fellow viewers were holding. Aside from name calling that I wouldn't dare to repeat, as these are words I've never even uttered myself! Some of the things that upset me the most were along the lines of: "I hope they air it when the Friendship" (a nickname for a particular group of contestants) "finally sees how much we hate them. I can't wait to see the look on their faces." What sort of society have we come to where IN MASSES we are hoping to see other people suffer.
Now.. I enjoy this show. I'm sure it falls under the same sort of allure as gossip or tabloids has (in other words nothing very morally substantial). I can't explain it. But I know that I take it for what it is--cheap entertainment. What troubles me, however, is what sort of impact shows like this will have on our children. Look at the world around us and all the corruption in it. And here we're promoting all these reality TV programs that encourage contestants to backstab, lie, cheat, steal, and basically do WHATEVER THEY HAVE TO.. for MONEY! We're rewarding this??
Again, I can take it for what it is, and not try to emulate it. But children are being brought up in this world? What happened to friendly cartoons? Disney movies without all the adult humour that we *assume* is going over our kids' heads? What happened to the Cosby show?? I loved that show. :) And each show coupled good writing and humour with a LESSON. A real lesson. Like don't steal.. or don't cheat at pinocle. ;)
Anyway, there's a hundred more examples I'm sure, but it gave me a fright really. With all the corruption there already is in the world, what are we setting ourselves up for? I realize now I'm going to be one of those over-zealous parents that won't let my kids watch what they want without me giving it a once over, or surf the net without me there. And I'll encourage them to do things that don't involve technology, like skip!? or play marbles? haha. They'll hate me. But hopefully they'll appreciate it too someday. I dunno. I hope that some of the values we SHOULD be teaching our kids will start to come back to the media. We can start to overturn some of the mistakes we're making as a world on whole, but not until we start setting the RIGHT examples.
Susan
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