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Do Cartoons Entice Agression?

Do Cartoons Entice Aggression?

Humans often act out what they see and this is especially true with children. Yet, what is shown as 'entertainment' for a 3-5 year old in cartoons may not be fully understood by them. Case in point is Tom and Jerry. How many times do you see Tom trying to kill Jerry or eat him alive? Tom goes through many methods all of which seem to be very aggressive (explosives, bats, hitting, etc.) in order to try and catch Jerry. Of course in cartoons it seems that you never die, but does a mind at that age understand death well enough to tell the difference? What do you think about the influence of cartoons on children and teens?

Agression Entice Cartoons Do

Violence can be a touchy issue when you start to think about it, because it's practically everywhere, whether your surrounded by it literally or by people reinacting it. Most people don't think about it much because they start to think of it in the context of "violence = blood." Also, some people bring stuff related to sex into the argument to compare, when talking about content in TV programming, though for that case they're trying to make violence look worse than the other (ironic, because I think they were gamers, most of which have probably played tons of violence).

As far as I can see, removing violence from programming, especially cartoons, is next to impossible. The only way you can do it is by replacing it with humor. The first word that most people think of when someone says the word "conflict" is "violence." It's also something kids take to quickly, wanting to reinact "cool moves" from action movies. In cartoons, humor and violence are sometimes synonymous, mixed together as if they were perfect together (in Jackie Chan's case, they kind of are ).

So, with that in mind, there only seems to be one solution I could think of. Either at the parenting level or the education level (or both), children must be taught why violence is bad. More importantly, they should know that most of what they see is fiction, and that violence can hurt others both literally and emotionally. The methods for teaching this could be difficult to concieve. One method of teaching doesn't work for all kids, so it would take some studying to figure out how best to implement this into an education system. In fact, I wonder if a system like that could work for children in Irelend and the Middle East: locations where violence has a cycle that's almost clockwork.

Edited: Talduras on 22nd Sep, 2004 - 3:16am

Do Cartoons Entice Agression? Reviews & RPGs PBP Anime / Comic

Growing up I used to love to watch Tom and Jerry and never once did I think of going out and doing some of those things to others. I think kids that are violent are just that way because someone is violent to them either their siblings or parents and they just continue it. Nothing to do with cartoons.

Agression Entice Cartoons Do

I have to agree with you on this point Play. I think they learn violence from getting it done to them not by watching cartoons. Most people know that cartoons are for entertainment only.

Agression Entice Cartoons Do

I at least know the difference since I was a kid, it don't make me want to do what Tom and Jerry do, because despite its funny, I know that most of it are an [..] move, it may not create violent but I can say it definitely make children try the trick or prank to bully or pranking other.

Also cannot say about current children, they are sheltered so much to the point even my niece don't know where meat come from like you need to kill the animal to get that meat, to the creepiness in their believe in death due to religious dogma. So they are more susceptible to something like this, since I saw many people cannot differentiate between fiction and reality this day.