Topic:
How can violence be properly expressed in animation to reduce the adverse effects on children?
Introduction:
The influence of film and television works on people is enormous. Film and television workers are the engineers of the human soul. Some people determine their life direction and goals based on a movie or TV series. Some people turn to crime. In many movies, violence is unavoidable in the narrative. Moreover, the impact of violence on children who are still growing up is enormous. Especially animation, because many people think animation is for kids. As for the violent plots in the animation, some people think they will cause physical and mental harm to children and should be deleted. Some people think that appropriately showing the dark side of society to children will help them understand human nature and society. Some people think that some violence is necessary to drive the story and cannot be removed from the animation. In response to these debates, some have studied the censorship and rating system established by the state to protect children, some have studied the strict self-regulation within the film industry, and some have studied the secret of the acceptability of violence in animation and the psychology of audiences. Therefore, I want to combine this scattered theoretical knowledge and study a practical solution. When violence is inevitably used in animation for children, how to express it appropriately can reduce the negative impact on children.
Body:
Are Motion Picture Ratings Reliable and Valid? In this paper, the authors agree the view that that sexrelated media exposure increases the risk of early initiation of sex or risky sexual behavior (Douglas, 2010, p440), and that rating standards are an important tool for parents to educate adolescents. But there are four problems with Motion Picture ratings: a lack of temporal stabilityin the market. A lack of consistency in standards for applying the ratings, a lack of both face validity and predictive validity, A lack of content validity in the ratings(Douglas, 2010).
In the article, An Appetite For Violence: Negative Effects of Children’s Exposure to Violence in Film and the Case For bullying…, the author points out that violence in movies can have negative effects on children, especially those from dysfunctional homes (Banks,2020). The negative effects included fear and mimicry: cartoon images of violence produced less fear than real images. If the attractive characters within a humorous context, and when there are no negative consequences for violent or aggressive acts(Banks,2020,p1), children will be attracted to imitate the violent plot. At the same time, even innocent children are prefer to watch violent content. There is also a disconnect between parental advantage in policing what children watch and understanding their psychology. He also points to the importance of accuracy in the grading system. And pointed out that we should pay attention to the depiction of violence in animated films, because understanding that violence
is still violence, regardless of form(Banks,2020,p8).
Controversial or Comfortable: What Is the Secret to Acceptable Violence in Animation? In this paper, the author analyzes four aspects of violence that can be accepted, namely comedy, gender, realism, and the form of violence. The author believes that When animated violence is comedic, it is non-threatening (Stanton,2021,). When the abuser is a woman and the victim is a man, the discomfort is lessened because it is generally the opposite of reality (Stanton,2021,). The most common forms of violence depicted were punching and kicking (Türkmen, 2016: 23), it is more acceptable than sexual violence. And violence in animation is acceptable only if it is unreal on multiple levels; Not too serious, not too bloody, not too much like real life violence.
Articles with similar views are Laugh, Cheer, or Recoil? Depiction of Physical violence in The Netflix Animated Anthology “Love, Death, and Robots”. 2D violence is funny and 3D violence is not (Beatty,2021). Because 3D is more realistic. When violence It is the tone that drives choices in dialogue, music, and design. The appearance of the characters, the over-the-top premise, and the dialogue cue the viewer to not take this violence seriously (Beatty,2021).
Discussion:
From the research of most scholars, it is not hard to find that people are worried about the harmful effects of violence in movies and TV, especially the growing teenagers. The solution to alleviate this concern is to establish an effective film content rating system on the one hand and to start from the source of violent pictures on the other hand. I plan to use a rating system to understand the audience’s psychological reaction to different scenes of violence. Then, by studying different works, we can understand the range of violence that audiences can accept, what kind of violent pictures can bring emotional catharsis, and what kind of violent pictures can only bring fear. Then give my understanding of reducing the psychological stimulation brought by violent pictures to the audience, doing the corresponding animation, choosing people around to watch, and seeing if my theory is correct or not through recording their emotional reactions.
Bibliography：
Banks D W. An Appetite for Violence[J], 2020, Academia, Tiffin University.
Douglas A. Gentile, 2010, Are Motion Picture Ratings Reliable and Valid?
DITORIAL, vol 47, no 5, pp423-424
Geoffrey Beatty, 2021, Laugh, Cheer, or Recoil? The Depiction of Physical violence in the Netflix Animated Anthology “Love, Death, and Robots”, Available from: https://blog.animationstudies.org/?p=4268 [online] [Accessed 22th November, 2021].
Rebecca Rose Stanton,2021, Controversial or Comfortable: What Is the Secret to Acceptable Violence in Animation?
Available from: https://blog.animationstudies.org/?p=4241 [online] [Accessed 26th October, 2021].