Ratings. Do They Really Work?

Fig. 1:  Flagship. “Rating System.” Photo. www.flagshipcinemas.com 2013. 16 March 2013 <http://www.flagshipcinemas.com/ratings-info/>. 

Ratings. Do They Really Work?

Ratings. What are they good for? As I have researched this topic recently, I have realized that movie ratings don’t do all that much. Sure the idea behind movie ratings is great, but when it comes down to it I feel like they don’t really help.

           

Ratings in theory are to help parents decide what is appropriate for their children to watch.  This seems to be less and less true with each passing year. For the most part, anyone “should” be able to watch a PG rated film, but I’ll tell you what, there are some PG rated films that I would never want my nieces and nephews to watch. 

Studies show that ratings are becoming less adequate.  I have found this to be true as I have watched some recent films.  I won’t name titles, but with more PG 13 movies using the F-word and sensuality or heavy violence as the major parts of their films it is hard for me to fork out $8.00 or more to sit there and watch such filth.

            

It seems to me that the MPAA is very wishy-washy about their stand on movie ratings. The problem is that each movie is rated independently from other films and there is no blanket rule on what makes a G, PG, PG 13, or R rated film.  Wouldn’t it just be easier to make it so when filmmakers write a film that there are rules in place stating what their film should be rated?  Yeah, I think so. 

            

I’m not trying to bug anyone, in fact, on the contrary I’m hoping to draw the awareness of you and everyone else out there to help you understand that even though a film might be rated PG it doesn’t necessarily mean it is suitable for your children or the kids that you love. Just keep in mind that the MPAA rates every film by its own standards and with that being the case, maybe we should too.  This will keep us more on top of what our kids are watching and it will keep our kids safer too. 

            

Maybe ratings aren’t all that fool proof, but we are. So take control of what your kids watch and make your own ratings.  In the long run, this will help your children more.

Works Cited

Flagship. “Rating System.” Photo. www.flagshipcinemas.com 2013. 16 March 2013   

            <http://www.flagshipcinemas.com/ratings-info/>. 

Katy, Abel. "Family Education." http://fun.familyeducation.com/movie/values/57498.html.

            Pearson Education, n.d. Web. 12 Mar 2013.

Criminal Dominoes

Since 1996 there have been 60 major shootings in the US. 17, almost 30%, of those shootings happened since 2010 (Infoplease). What has caused this major increase in violence? Some say that it’s the shootings themselves combined with the way the crimes and criminals are portrayed in mass media.

Certain personality types crave attention, even if it’s negative. A lot of criminals happen to be this personality type, and when they see how the media has “idolized” other criminals to the point of them being a household name, they want the same thing.

So they follow in their predecessors footsteps and even try to outdo them.

               

The way that the media portrays crimes has placed more focus on the criminal than anything else.

When a major offense happens, we hear more about who did it, why, and how than we do about the victims. The emphasis is not on stopping these crimes, but allowing the public to know exactly what happened.

In the world of a criminal, this is their prize. The world will know their name and what they have done.

As you watch the following news clip, about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that happened in the later part of 2012, notice these aspects:

• None of the victim’s names are mentioned
• The only thing mentioned about the victims is where they went to school
• We only see pictures of people who were affected
• Most of the information is background as to who the shooter was
• The shooter’s full name is mentioned 5 times, his first name 3 times
• We know more about the shooter’s brother and father than we do about the victims

Fig. 1: ABCNews. "Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting:Why Did Adam Lanza Snap?” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, Dec. 14, 2012. Web. Mar. 18, 2013.

The video tells us that the shooter went from “obscurity to infamy” because of his actions. We don’t know exactly why he acted the way he did, but he received national recognition for it.

Could the news be the start of a game of criminal dominoes? Could the way the media portrays criminal stories be causing more crimes than peace?

The answer is yes. When dealing with criminal minds who don’t think soundly, we must carefully find ways to limit their effects on the public, which includes their future criminal descendants. 

Work Cited

"Time Line of Worldwide School and Mass Shootings." Infoplease. Infoplease, 2012. Web.             18 Mar. 2013. <http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html>. 

ABOUT US

     We are just a minuscule fraction of people who the media tries to direct and influence. What we see, hear, and understand comes from media. It is what defines the way people view other cultures and ideas. Sometimes they can be wrong, intentionally or unintentionally. Media is the way we receive our information from the outside world. This interconnecting center station of information has the ability to construct or destruct anything that we believe in. Thus, it plays an integral part in our lives. It is our media personality.

fig.1; Nelson, Daryn. "Social Media Addiction." Digital Image. ConsumerAffairs. 10 Oct. 2012

Do Video Games Really Affect Our Aggressiveness?

By: Danny Munoz

Boom! Explosions! Blood! Violence! All these aspects and characteristics have come to the video gaming world. Graphical advancements allow for more pixilation in gaming which allows more details and effects to go on in the video game. Now, to get along with this, there comes much bias and a lot of controversy when it comes to these very violent video games. 

Complaints such as “video games made my kids violent” or “video games caused this person to go do violent acts (murder, assault, etc)”. These accusations are much generalized. Do violent video games make the millions of people who play them violent? Does each person who plays them go out and do violent acts? No. No it doesn’t.

fig.1; TotalBiscuit. "Tragedy and Video Games." Online Video clip. Youtube. Youtube.

19 Dec, 2012. Web. 15 Mar. 2013

This video called “Tragedy and Video Game Violence” greatly highlights how video game violence does not correlate to the increase in violence especially of the controversy after the Sandy Hook tragedy that occurred in December of 2012. At around 4:20, TotalBiscuit mentions that news outlets blame some other types of media outlet source but not what was wrong with the killer. they don’t go on about the governments failing mental health system. 

Furthermore, the media and news outlets use this to amplify the shooting and the killer. It’s a downright shame that they do this. Using video games negative effects as a way to create blame is wrong. Now, this is terrible and it’s even sadder that the media will milk this story by getting money off the backs of the dead children.

In the Grigoryan (V.G. Grigoryan) research article says that violent video games only affect people who already have already have level of aggression higher than any other person meaning that it does not affect everyone that plays video games. This idea can be understood as these people have just use this source as a source to their increase in video games.

However, video games are not decreasing crime by any stretch of the imagination. With any type of addiction, people can be affected negatively by any type of recreational activity and/or hobby if not taken by moderation. People sometimes only look at the extremes video games can be taken. However, video games are played by millions of people around the world. Yes, it can be addicting, but then again, anything can be.

1. V.G. Grigoryan. January–February 2007. “Influence of aggressive computer games on the brain cortex activity level in adolescents.” Pleiades                            

 Publishing, Inc, 2007.

2.Steven J. Kirsh,  “The effects of violent video games on adolescents: The overlooked influence of development”, 2003

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178902000563#

3. Daphne Bavelier, C. Shawn Green, Dough Hyun Han, “Brains on video games”, http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v12/n12/abs/nrn3135.html

4. Kira Bailey, Robert West, Craig A. Anderson, “The influence of Video games on Social, Cognitive, and Affective Information Processing”, 2009:  

http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/abstracts/2010-2014/11BWA.pdf,