Violence in Movies Study by James Jaeger
With the aid of the new digital technology and computerization, someone should do a study to find out if there is a statistical relationship between violence promulgated in the media and the violence constantly reported on the evening news.If such a relationship were proven in a court of law, it could link the producers and distributors of such programming with crimes against the public. Such link might hold the producers and distributors responsible for abetting assault and battery, terrorism, murder and even a type of long-term, high-tech genocide.
Evidence for such a class action could be obtained by electronically monitoring the sound tracks of movies that are broadcast over cable and network TV for a period of three to five years. By digitizing the sound tracks of all such broadcasts (using the same or similar technology used by the ballistics experts in the Kennedy assassination investigations), a database of all the gun shots and explosive impacts could be amassed. A recorder, with a circuit similar to a voice activation switch, could be set to recognize the digital signature of these impacts as they occurred on the effects tracks of the movies being broadcast or cable-cast. Each impact registered could then be time-date stamped, noting the producer, distributor and network by taking a digital "snapshot" of the tail- and head-credits of the picture.
Eventually, from this data, a series of highly-detailed graphs itemizing the exact number of gunshots/explosions broadcast over the sampling period could be plotted against time.
Then, actual crime statistics (resulting from gunshots and explosions) could be obtained from local, state and federal authorities' archives and plotted on a similar set of graphs against time. Such crime statistics could also be amassed from the evening news on each network or cable station in the sampling.
The two graphs (depicting explosive impacts in the media and actual crime statistics), could then be superimposed and analyzed to see if there were any corresponding curves or traits such that a causality could be established. Actuarial and probability specialists could be brought in to analyze the data and graphs.
If crime-occurrence graphs are found to mimic the graphs created from the digital impacts data which was roadcast by the media, we would have evidence (or possibly even proof), that the broadcast and proliferation of violence in the media causes, or abets, violence on the streets, in the home and in schools.
Thus an age-old question might be on its way to being answered: does reality mirror art or does art mirror reality?
When the public finally caught on that the tobacco companies were, for decades, profiting from the sale of products that were deleterious to health -- class action law suits and government action were the order of the day.
The same scenario could, and should, play out in the movie industry, if a link were established. This becomes a very serious matter when one considers that the most powerful PR machine, as operated by the studio/distributors in Hollywood, may be responsible, in whole or in part, for creating a on-going Holocaust-type environment which has been placing our children (the largest movie going segment) at risk. After all, are not the relatively small circle of Hollywood companies (the "players" that have been profiting over the past decades) similar to the tobacco companies that have been profiting over the past decades -- both selling dangerous products aimed mostly at kids? If a relationship is found, should not the producers and distributors of such product be brought to justice for their crimes against Society?
Perhaps sooner or later we will see this label on a video cassette jackets:
WARNING VIOLENT KILLING SCENES IN THIS MOVIE
MAY DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY CONTRIBUTE TO
THE INSIDENCE OF VIOLENCE.
THEREFORE THIS TAPE SHOULD BE VIEWED
FOR HISTORICAL PURPOSES ONLY
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