When you are watching the news at night and it flashes on
your screen, “child seriously hurt from doing dangerous stunts”, do you ever
think to yourself, were did they get this crazy idea to do this? I always
wonder what this person was trying to achieve out of doing this and what caused
him to even attempt to do it. Then I think oh Monkey see, Monkey do. These kids
are seeing things on TV that they think looks cool so they go home and try and
react what was done. These kids need to realize that everything they see on TV
is not real.
In our class this week, we watched a film on the WWE. What I got
out of a part of it was that many younger kids see what is happening on the
show and they try to react it at home. They had a few clips playing of the so
called “backyard wrestling”, where people had made homemade videos of them
wrestling, just as if they were in the WWE. One thing that you notice in their
videos is after performing a stunt you don’t just see them pop up and act is if
nothing has happened, but if you were to watch WWE you can see that the
wrestlers just pop right back up. How can these people not realize that its
fiction and that it’s all acting? When they first thought of the idea to
recreate the stunt at home, did they not stop and think, oh this could turn out
badly? When you think about it though, do you ever see on TV something go
wrong? No, you only see the success stories.
There have been a few fatal incidents where children have
been seriously injured or even killed by performing stunts. A few years ago a 9
year old boy died from attempting a WWE wrestling maneuver he saw on a WWE
video game he was playing. He wanted to be like Jeff Hardy and performed a Swanton
Bomb off the top of his apartment complex. They found the boy lying on the
ground with just rope and a bag that he used as a parachute. Many people
commented saying if only they were there to stop him before jumping off to tell
him what would happen. Unfortunately it ended fatally. If you’re going to let your child watch the
WWE you need to educate them on how it is all fiction and it should not be
performed in real life. For parents who
want a little more incite on the WWE here is a Link: http://corporate.wwe.com/parents/guidance.jsp
I definately agree. I don't think we can prevent children from seeing every single bad thing on TV since there is so much technology now and both parents are usually at work giving children a lot of alone time. I do think that if we're going to live in a society where violent images are seen everyday that we should do some damage control. Explain to children that certain stunts aren't real or that you shouldn't treat people like that. Instilling morals at an early age is probably a good idea. Unfortunately I don't think damage control applies to only violent TV. There was a story a ew years ago of a little boy who accidentally drowned himself because he was looking for Spongebob under the water. Granted his parents should have been watching him, but the boy is an example that everything we see can affect us. It's sad that we cannot escape the monster named Media. The only thing we can do is educate everyone about the dangers of media.
ReplyDeleteI really like your points, throughout your post you explained many incidents where kids/amateurs try dangerous activities-inspired by the violence seen on television. I believe in order to prevent such violent behavior, parents should monitor or restrict our younger generation in order to have control of their kids behaviors outside of schools and homes.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you have ever watched America's Funniest Home Videos, but this show is a direct result of WWE. I swear. All the videos of kids doing stunts, most certainly portray this very idea. Kids are constantly impersonating what they see on television. That is the way children learn, by recreating what they see adults do. Unfortunately, it has some horrible reprocussions. Like the child who killed his little sister impersonating WWE. He just kept jumping on her. He had no idea that he had killed her. Now he is paying for it, not just through the guilt, but through the legal system. It is insane what a show can teach kids to do.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time though, not all children respond to it in this way. I would hate to see other quality television suffer because of it.