Article Summaries

The first article Violent Video Games: The Effect on Youth and Public Safety is mainly about how children who grow up playing games with killing, fighting, and other types of violence can lead to them becoming a more aggressive person as they grow older. There are debates about the lack of parental controls with parents going out buying and allowing their kids to play these type of games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, or the more popular Mortal Kombat, which they all have some type of gruesome violence. Although there are ratings for these games, E for Everyone, T for Teen, and M for Mature, it shows that even the smallest of violence is still accepted. This author showed a study in a graph where males who play more violent video games are involved in more physical fights then those who spend less times playing these games and females. This article is structured like it is or could be a book with lots research, debates, and studies done for this issue.

The next article, Weinstein, Tarantino and the standoff over movie violence, is about the issue with movie violence and how it be contributing to the various violent crimes that happens in our world or mostly this country. One actor Harvey Weinstein, had made a vow to stop making ultraviolent movies mainly ones that glorify gun violence because he doesn't want his kids to grow up thinking that all of this is okay. The reason why a lot of directors and creators put violence in their movies or video games is because it's what make it sell and gain a lot of ratings. It is said that most people don't really care or make a big deal out of violence on films and it only draws attention when someone notices that this might be too much, or when something tragic happens in society and people look for answers like with the Sandy Hook shooting. In this article it also talks about gun laws and how Harvey Weinstein is also a supporter of gun control along with many other Americans. There is a debate on whether guns cause violence or not especially when seen on tv or played with in video games. The structure of this essay is broken into many paragraphs that talks about the issue with movie violence and how it's not just movies but video games like Grand Theft Auto and book like Macbeth also. The author is mostly giving his opinion that movie violence doesn't cause violence in the real world and he says that the only people who think that are "pro-gun zealots seeking a scapegoat".

The last article Columbine: Whose Fault Is It?, is about the singer Marilyn Manson speaking out on how horrible he think America really is and how his music or anyone else's is not to blame for the Columbine shooting or any other tragedies. Manson pointed out how people don't really care or show enough sympathy when tragedies strike this nation and how it is applauded when a there are creations of bombs that are made to kill and destroy people and it is justified when given the right reason. This essay is structured by Manson starting off talking about religion and how he thinks it is really doing more bad than good. He then goes into all the terrible things that happens in America to show they are more to blame than him. In the end he tells us that he likes to examine America and show people who the real monsters are.

The author I found the most convincing was Andrew O'Hehir and his article about movie violence because a gave statistics to help his argument. What I learned from this author was that America owns an estimated on 89 firearms per 100 citizens and that we have the highest murder rate of any major industrialized nation by far. This article was closest to my beliefs because we nearly had the same opinion regarding violence in movies which is that not all violence seen in movies or on tv leads to it happening in the real world or mass murders. And media violence is not a big concern of mine to make a big deal out of. My beliefs did not change much but I did learn some new things that I did not know before.