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Violence and Popular Culture

Violence exists and has existed in all societies. In contemporary North American society, we also see violence frequently in media--from news to films to video games. These representations have been blamed for creating a culture of fear and inspiring real violence, particularly among youth.

Media analysts argue that the question of media and violence must shift from a focus on violence in media to a focus on violence in our broader society. They argue that we need to make interconnections between class, gender, race and inequality in the debate on violence. This can be a difficult shift to make because contemporary media is rife with overt and subtle instances of violence. Violence is portrayed in the news, music videos, reality TV crime shows, films and video games. 

In the wake of the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut,  media pundits discussed (Opens new window)  whether video game consumption was producing violent people. While this is an interesting question, in this module we do not focus on whether violent images produce violent people. Nor do we examine whether media imagery has become increasingly violent. As  one scholar (Opens new window) puts it,

Violence has always figured prominently in storytelling. Violent imagery has been around since hunters began scratching accounts of their exploits on the walls of caves. . . . Artifacts of Egyptian, Sumerian, Minoan, and Babylonian peoples all depict violent events, as do classical works of the ancient Greeks written 3,000 years ago. . . . The books of the Old Testament, written during the same period, are filled with accounts of genocide, war, human sacrifice, and, of course, various plagues. And as Mel Gibson so eloquently reminded moviegoers with his hugely successful film, The Passion of the Christ (2004), the biggest story of the New Testament culminates in rioting, ritual torture, and public execution. Perhaps more to the point, these grizzly stories have been repeated for centuries to children and adults alike as important works of history and religion. (Trend, The Myth of Media Violence 12-13)

This is not to deny that exposure to violent images  may contribute toward violent behaviour.(Opens new window)  But in a sociology course like this one, our job is to examine the role popular culture's representation of violence plays in the maintenance of cultural hegemony.  

Video

Watch  Mean World Syndrome  (2010). (Opens new window) According to the documentary, what are some of the myths associated with media violence? What does George Gerbner say is the reason why violence pervades the media? How does popular culture use representations of violence to perpetuate racist myths? What is "mean world syndrome" anyway?

Law-and-order ideology

Law-and-order ideology has been chronically present in public, media, and political discourse, but it has assumed an even larger role in recent years. Particular media portrayals of criminal justice interact with and help to shape, reinforce, and evolve this ideology, even as they are in turn shaped by it. The relationship is thus a dynamic and circular one.

Punitive Crime Control

In law-and-order ideology, society is seen to be in a state of decline or crisis because of the ever-increasing threat of crime, specifically violent street crime of the underclasses. The answer is tougher, more punitive crime control. One key cause of the crime problem is thought to be a failure of politicians and the criminal justice system to get tough with street crime. Due process and other ‘softnesses’ of the justice system are part of the problem, because all right-thinking people know criminals are guilty.

Policing

Law-and-order ideology strongly emphasizes the role of police as "crime fighters," as opposed to various other ways of understanding their function, for example, order maintenance and emergency service. The capacity of police to control crime is considerably exaggerated. Thus, the answer to the crime problem is partly more police, and police who are allowed to get tougher.

Source: Aaron Doyle, Arresting Images: Crime and Policing in Front of the Television Camera. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003, p. 38.

 

Discussion

As you read "Crime Fighters" by Ray Surette, note the ways in which cop shows misrepresent the roles played by law enforcement officials. (You may ignore the writing assignments outlined on p. 104.)

Do these misrepresentations vary between subgenres (e.g. police procedurals, forensic science shows, reality crime shows, shows featuring buddy cops, courtroom dramas, who-dun-its, anti-terrorism thrillers)?

Consider, for instance, the ways in which reality-crime shows like Cops andAmerica's Most Wanted promote law-and-order ideology. See what documentary filmmaker Michael Moore has to say in this clip (Opens new window) from his film Bowling for Columbine(2002):

Video

Watch this commercial for the Glock pistol:(Opens new window)

How does the commercial promote law-and-order ideology? According to the commercial, who is the typical victim? Who is the typical perpetrator?

Canadian Reality Check on Violence

Canada makes an appearance in Bowling for Columbine as a peaceful nation where we don't lock our doors. Is this an accurate reflection of what was happening in Canada during the period examined in the documentary? 

 

Young Women Most at Risk of Violence

A victimization analysis released in February 2013 by Statistics Canada (Opens new window) indicated that women aged 15 to 24 were more at risk than women 25 and older to be victims of violent crime. It also noted that women aged 12 to 17 were more at risk than women of any age group:  

Police reported that in 2011, about 8,200 girls aged 11 and under were victims of violent crime, representing 381 victims for every 100,000 girls in the population. Over half (56%) of the violent crimes against girls were committed by a family member, and males were the offender in about 8 of 10 incidents.

In addition, nearly 27,000 female youth aged 12 to 17 were victims of violent crime in 2011; casual acquaintances were the most common offenders. The rate of 2,273 victims per 100,000 young women in the population was almost twice as high as the violent crime rate for adult women 18 and older.

The rate of physical assaults against female youth aged 12 to 17 in 2011 was 6% lower than in 2009. Trends in sexual assault followed a somewhat different pattern. The rate of sexual assaults against female youth dropped 4% in 2011 after increasing in 2010.

Males vs. Females

Victims of violent crime were equally likely to be males and females; (Opens new window) however, a large majority of victimized females were victims of sexual offences, whereas males were more likely to be victims of physical assault and homicide. 

Drop in Crime

This recent Globe and Mail article (Opens new window)  confirms that crime rates have been falling for 20 years:

Canada’s crime rate continued to fall last year, with the homicide rate dropping to the lowest level in 46 years.

Statistics Canada said the overall police-reported crime rate decreased 3 per cent, reaching the lowest point since 1972. The reduction was largely due to declines in some of the most common offences – from mischief to car theft.

Since peaking in 1991, the crime rate in Canada has been on a slow downward slide which experts say is the result of a host of factors, including simple demographics, policing strategies and social and economic conditions.

Statistics Canada also reported a drop in violent crime:(Opens new window)

Police services reported just over 415,000 violent incidents in 2012, down about 9,000 from the previous year. The violent crime rate fell 3% to its lowest level since 1987.

The violent Crime Severity Index declined 5% in 2012. This marked the sixth consecutive decrease in the violent CSI.

Police reported 543 homicides in 2012, 55 fewer than in 2011. The homicide rate of 1.56 homicides per 100,000 population was the lowest since 1966.

The police-reported crime rate fell for most violent crimes. In addition to homicides, the largest decreases were in the rates for major sexual assault (levels 2 and 3), robbery, and assault on a peace officer.

In contrast, offences causing death other than homicide, as well as extortion, violent firearm offences and sexual violations against children were among the few violent offences that rose in 2012.

· Violence and Popular Culture

· Law and Order Ideology

· Canadian Context

· Violent Crime and 'Race'

· Creating Fear

· Serial Killers

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Inequality and Crime

Social groups commit crimes as a consequence of their social situations and in response to prevailing criminal opportunities. Violent crimes are a result of an interaction between offender and victim. To posit an overriding genetic basis of crime is to ignore any number of situational factors that result in violent crime. In Canada and particularly in the U.S., blacks are more likely to be both offenders and victims in relation to violent crime. But the notion that blacks are more likely than non-blacks to commit crime ignores the fact that blacks are much more likely to be arrested, charged, and incarcerated than is any other racial group. Consider, for example, how America's war on marijuana targets African Americans (Opens new window) . From  The Nation:(Opens new window)

Though whites are statistically more likely to dabble in pot than minorities, the racial discrepancies of marijuana busts are staggering. In New York City, for instance, minor marijuana arrests are down thanks to a Bloomberg-backed effort to give leeway to people in possession of small amounts of the drug. But of those who are arrested, often via the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk program, nearly 80 percent are either black or Latino. Similarly, in Chicago in 2011, 20,603 people were arrested for having a negligible amount of marijuana. One thousand of those Chicagoans were white, while 15,862 of them were black.

See also "The Top 10 Most Startling Facts About People of Color and Criminal Justice in the United States." (Opens new window) For example:

3. Students of color face harsher punishments in school than their white peers, leading to a higher number of youth of color incarcerated

7. The war on drugs has been waged primarily in communities of color where people of color are more likely to receive higher offenses.

8. Once convicted, black offenders receive longer sentences compared to white offenders.

Some social groups in Canada, particularly Aboriginal people, have endured a long history of violence, deprivation, disenfranchisement, and exclusion from education and vocational opportunities. This type of discrimination can engender attitudes toward authority that lead to law breaking. In 2001-2002, Aboriginal adults comprised 2% of the Canadian population and 17% of the federal prisoner population. Aboriginal youth comprised 5% of the Canadian population in 2001-2002 and 22% of the youth prisoner population. In Saskatchewan, Aboriginal adults and youths are incarcerated at 35 times the rate of non-aboriginals, where they make up 77% of the total prisoner population.

A recent Statscan report (Opens new window) noted that “adults in sentenced custody were disproportionately Aboriginal. In 2010/2011, 27% of adults in provincial and territorial custody and 20% of those in federal custody involved Aboriginal people, about seven to eight times higher than the proportion of Aboriginal people (3%) in the adult population as a whole.”

Excerpted from: Julian V. Roberts and Thomas Gabor, “Lombrosian Wine in a New Bottle: Research on Crime and Race,” Canadian Journal of Criminology 32.2 (April 1990): 291-313 and from http://www.prisonjustice.ca/ (see facts & statistics)

Discussion

Michael Moore addresses the historical myth of "dangerous black guys" in this clip from Bowling for Columbine:

What is his argument?

The Case of Trayvon Martin

Last year, in Sanford, Florida, George Zimmerman, a white Hispanic man, shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American. 

Martin had gone to the store to buy skittles and iced tea, but when Zimmerman saw him, he called 9-1-1 and told the operator, "This guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something." He also said, "these fucking punks" and "these assholes, they always get away."

Why did Zimmerman think Martin was an "asshole" and a "punk"? Why did the police initially believe Zimmerman's story of self-defense, leading them to not even administer a toxicology test on Zimmerman that night? Why did a six-woman jury (5 whites, 1 Hispanic) find Zimmerman not guilty on charges of manslaughter and second-degree murder?

There is a clear correlation between Zimmerman's belief that a black teenager minding his own business is "suspicious”--a “punk”--and the media's overrepresentation of young black men as criminals. 

Nationwide protests (Opens new window) against the jury's verdict were as much about the criminal justice system's overzealous persecution of black men as they were about the endurance of racist myths.

In a column published in The Washington Post, (Opens new window) Richard Cohen said he “can understand why Zimmerman was suspicious and why he thought Martin was wearing a uniform we all recognize.” The column instantly sparked outrage:

In response to the outrage his column generated, Cohen later said, “A hoodie. It's what's worn by a whole lot of thugs. Look in the newspapers, online or on television: you see a lot of guys in the mugshots wearing hoodies.”

What is wrong with Cohen’s reasoning here?

Case Study

Several weeks after the Columbine shootings: the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee launched a series of hearings on the "marketing of violent entertainment to children." The committee...

· stated it was not there to "point fingers but to identify the causes of "cultural pollution"

· concluded that youth culture was causing an increase in violent crimes in youth

· blamed the music of Marilyn Manson and Cannibal Corpse

· declared Mason's music "offensive to everyone in America who thinks"

· used homophobic statements about whether Manson was a "he or she" and whether fans had "gone over to the dark side"

· appealed to Congress to make distinctions between works that used violence to tell "a larger story" like Gladiator, Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan and works that "gratuitously" exploited violence: The Basketball Diaries, Cruel Intentions, and the Scream movies

· declared "We need Goth control, not gun control"

· villified Goths--a relatively small subculture--whose members draw inspiration from Romantic literature and construct identity by borrowing from horror films and S/M pornography

· labelled the Columbine gunmen as Goths

· pressured Congress to develop policies to regulate media content

As a result of this moral panic...

· Manson cancelled concerts

· MGM stopped selling The Basketball Diaries 

· Warner Brothers Network withheld airing the season finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer until midsummer

· students and youth were seen as the enemy and as threatening to public safety

· anyone considered "odd" or "different" was perceived to be a threat to public safety.

Source: Croteau and Hoynes, 2011

 

Sadly, these events have not gone away. After several mass shootings throughout 2012, the year ended with a horrific tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, where a young man went into a school and killed 20 children (ages 5 and 6) and six adults before killing himself.

How has the media portrayed the Newtown tragedy and other mass shootings?

 

 

Discussion

Read "Disaster Porn!" by Timothy Recuber. 

How do you define disaster porn? What are some of the more common criticisms of disaster porn, as recounted by Recuber? Do you agree with Recuber that disaster porn's alleged danger, "namely, the lack of compassion it is said to engender," has been "overstated"?

The gross-out comedy,  This Is the End  (2013),  is arguably a parody of so-called disaster porn.

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Serial Killers

A serial killer is not to be confused with a mass murderer. While a mass murderer is someone who has killed "a mass" of people at one point in time, a serial killer is someone who commits murders at separate points in time--that is to say, "serially." When they are not carrying out their bloodlust, serial killers blend in and behave seemingly like the rest of us.  An Obsession North American popular culture is obsessed with serial killers. While real serial killers do exist and have existed for a long time, fictional serial killers (and fictionalized versions of real serial killers) overpopulate the books we read, the games we play, and the films and shows we watch.

Dexter, played by Michael C. Hall

But why? One reason, arguably, is because popular culture often makes serial killers out to be compelling villains. Difficult to detect, serial killers terrify us because they promise to kill again.

They also make for compelling heroes. Like an Aristotelian tragic hero, fictionalized versions of serial killers are often internally conflicted (they want to kill but they want social acceptance) and, from early on, are doomed for life. 

As the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle defined them, dramatically effective tragic heroes have four key traits:

· Virtuous

· The tragic hero must have some redeemable qualities. In the case of serial killers, we tend to imagine that, apart from their serial killing, they live normal, healthy lives and are otherwise virtuous. On the television show Dexter, for instance, the title character is a pleasant guy who aims to do right. He even tries to justify his serial killing by targeting only other killers. 

· Typical

· This means that the character behaves in accordance with the traditional social roles associated with the character's gender, race, and class. One reason why Dexter, and so many of popular culture's serial killers, blend in is because they appear "normal."

· Realistic

· Similar to the last two qualities, this means that the characters must seem real. Serial killers seem "real," partly because so many of them are based on real-life serial killers.

· Consistent

· The character's actions should be consistent throughout the drama. Part of our fascination and identification with serial killers is that, throughout the drama, they seem internally conflicted. They want to seem socially acceptable, but they also want to carry out anti-social behaviour.

(In more than one way, serial killers do not abide by Aristotle's definition of a tragic hero. For example, serial killers are usually not of noble birth. The point here is that the archetypal serial killer sets up dramatic conflict in ways similar to those generated by Aristotelian tragic heroes.)

Fame

Given that so many serial killers attain fame, we might want to question whether fame is a wholly desirable quality. Author David Schmid argues that 

the iconic status of serial killers in contemporary American culture is compelling evidence of the collapse of the difference between fame and notoriety. In particular, the decline of merit as a defining factor in fame means that nowadays to be famous and to be notorious are frequently the same thing (Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture 9). 

Serial killing brings publicity and, as the saying goes, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. 

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ABOVE ARE COURSE MATERIAL

Here is assignment detail

Write about 350-500 words about material reflection

And around 150-200words reply to essay below

Disaster Porn + Zombies

 Post editor Meg Greenfield wrote that “this is a society… that dotes on disaster porn: burning high rises, crashing express trains, population devouring wild beasts, and all the rest of that cinematic hype” and it is interesting to see how disaster porn can be utilized to display and inform about humanitarian issues to an extreme of exaggerating cinematic made-up beasts such as vampires and zombies in which the population fears to take over our world.

 I want to talk about the recent obsession of zombies within the media and the violence that comes with it. The show The Walking Dead comes to mind, and in this show it is normal to stab a zombie in the head, since that is the only way to kill a zombie. The Walking Dead shows children shooting and stabbing zombies to survive and they are always living in fear, trying to find a safe place to live without being eaten alive by zombies. The world in The Walking Dead is completely run down and the population of actual living people is very sparse and it even resorts to living humans killing other living humans over territory and the goods they could possess. Society is obsessed with this show and it portrays the disaster porn of man eat man, trying to survive while also fighting off the zombies that could eat you and turn you into a zombie.

 The original term disaster porn was rooted in concerns over real-life disaster news coverage and genuine human suffering but now disaster porn has a huge field in CGI cinematic effects and exaggerated world destruction fantasies. It is as if the population is so numbed from seeing genuine human suffering that it does not impact the viewer anymore and the media is able to show movies/tv shows about the world falling apart and being drawn into that delusion because they know it could never actually occur, but mind you there are some individuals who believe dooms day/the apocalypse will come, who believe zombies or vampires could exist.

 Recently I watched World War Z in which a hybrid-zombie virus takes over the world and the world crumbles in flames to these zombies and only a small part of the population survives because they have found another disease in which to inject into their systems which does not attract the zombies to them. The media loves to feed off of this zombie frenzy which is a category of disaster porn.

 I just believe as viewers of the media we have become so adapt to viewing humanitarian disaster porn that we are not affected by it anymore, in most cases people actually believe real-world disasters gain too much coverage and it becomes “old news” at one point, whereas cinematic disaster porn still captivates audiences because this form of media is so exaggerated that it captures viewers’ attention to feel sympathetic to human suffering, even though it is blown out of proportion and our world is not burning down or being taken over by zombies. Overall disaster porn has lost its influential power to encourage society to support western military action under the pressure of humanitarian good but it is still useful in the means of gaining viewers in the media, more for pleasure then humanitarian action.