Natural Born Killers Essay Research Paper Violence

Natural Born Killers Essay, Research Paper

Violence is a changeless on our screens whether it be an anvil falling on

a sketch character, a war zone on the intelligence, a battle in an action film

or a saloon bash in a soap opera. But does this screen force green goods

behavioral effects in the viewing audiences? This is one of the most frequent

and hotly debated statements in mass media. Is it the instance that

audiences are effected by what they see and that the manufacturers of media

texts are inciting or increasing violent behavior, or make audiences

hold the ability to understand what they have seen without being excessively

influenced? It has to be ascertained as to whether audiences are

passive or active. This topic has caused contention within several

of different schools of idea and political orientations over the old ages. They

hold either broad or lone little fluctuations of sentiment so it is

hard to come to one definite decision as each 1 besides has valid

and apprehensible accounts. It is hard to deny that & # 8216 ; the

whole point of communication is to act upon one another by conveying

information & # 8217 ; ( Vine, 1997 ) , but to what extent does this influence take

control? To look into this affair and come to a decision as to

whether or non screen force does incite violent behavior in the

reader, we will be critically looking at two of the major ideological

theoretical accounts every bit good as utilizing some specific media texts to formalize and/or

criticise these theories.

First there is the Hypodermic Needle or Hypodermic Syringe consequence. This

theory has it & # 8217 ; s root in 1950 & # 8217 ; s America when dominant concerns and the

so authorities wanted to detect how far the public were influenced

by what they saw on telecasting. The Hypodermic Theory came from this

Media Effects theoretical account, which had a heavy accent in psychological science.

Businesss and the authorities likewise wanted to cognize how much & # 8216 ; media is

purportedly & # 8216 ; injected & # 8217 ; into the consciousness of an audience & # 8217 ; via

telecasting ( Price, 1993 ) . They wanted to cognize if through this

comparatively new medium the populace could be persuaded unquestioningly to,

for illustration, ballot for a certain political party or purchase a specific trade name

of rinsing pulverization.

The Hypodermic theoretical account proposes that the media has a really direct and

highly immediate consequence on the general populace, who accept the

injected message without inquiry due to their passivity. It is the

thought that manufacturers of media texts can carry us to make what of all time they

privation and we will unimpeachably follow. When we bring the topic of

force into this field, a follower of this political orientation would state that

the violent behavior witnessed on screen would be influentially

accepted by the audience without inquiry. For illustration, if a reader was

shown the ill-famed and much discussed movie & # 8216 ; Natural Born Killers & # 8217 ;

( Oliver Stone 1994 ) , the Hypodermic theoretical account would state that due to it & # 8217 ; s

alleged glamorisation of motiveless force, where the chief

supporters are seen as romantic common people heroes who get off with their

offenses in the terminal, the reader would merely take in the message, accept

it and so violent behavior would stem from that. & # 8216 ; Natural Born

Killers & # 8217 ; is noteworthy for the fact that the narrative spins the thought of

heroes and scoundrels onto its caput. Traditionally those who commit the

force are the scoundrels who are punished for their offenses, while the

constabularies are seen as heroes who save the twenty-four hours. In this case the constabulary

are overly violent, so one of them is a liquidator himself, and these

authorization figures end up being punished. The chief characters of Mickey

and Mallory Knox ( Woody Harelson and Juliette Lewis ) are the & # 8216 ; natural

born slayers & # 8217 ; who violently slaughter without evident ground, yet due

to Mallory & # 8217 ; s opprobrious upbringing and witty one-liners they gain sympathy

and, in a sense, likability.

One of the Hypodermic theoretical account & # 8217 ; s mistakes is that it assumes the audience

will take in what they & # 8217 ; ve seen and will be influenced by it in a

negative manner. There are positive facets which can act upon but these

are mostly over-shadowed and handily forgotten. This theoretical account would

state that the baffled messages of right and incorrect within & # 8216 ; Natural Born

Killers & # 8217 ; would shoot the reader to accept the force of the movie and

so copy the behavior. If the slayers had been seen finally

punished in the terminal, it would be a positive reading, as the reader

would cognize non to mime as penalty is where that behavior leads.

Ultimately it is kids who are seen to be the most at hazard from

these effects. David Buckingham suggests that kids are regarded as

non being mentally equipped to understand that what they see is non

what they should make:

& # 8216 ; Thus imitative force, which has remained the cardinal focal point of

anxiousness in such arguments, is mostly seen as originating from the inability

to separate between fiction and world. Children copy what they see

on telecasting because they lack the experience and the rational

capacities that might enable them to see through the semblance of

world which the medium provides. & # 8217 ; ( Buckingham, erectile dysfunction. Barker and Petley,

1997, p33 )

But it is non merely kids who need protecting, harmonizing to the

Hypodermic theoretical account.

Another job arises for the Hypodermic Needle when 1 considers a

text which has a message, but the bulk of readers see another

message to the 1 intended. An illustration of this are John Ford & # 8217 ; s

Westerns, such as & # 8216 ; The Searchers & # 8217 ; . Viewing audiences have read messages of

force, racism and sexism within his movies, yet Ford denies he put

them there in the first topographic point. The Hypodermic theoretical account says that what the

manufacturer of the text intends the message to be is precisely what they say

it is and nil else, as the audience is inactive and they will all

have the same message. But even if Ford did mean those messages to

be the 1s read this does non intend that his viewing audiences are influenced to

become violent, racialist male chauvinists.

This theory & # 8217 ; s major failure is that it does non take who the audience

is into consideration. It sees the population as one mass, all

intellectually and culturally the same. It makes great premises that

everyone of us who watches force on the screen will have the same

messages and violent behavior will result. It does non take into

consideration the fact that non everybody thinks or reacts the same.

For illustration, person who works in the constabulary force will respond

otherwise to person who does non when watching & # 8216 ; The Bill & # 8217 ; . They

go active readers as they bring more to the reading than person

who has non experienced what is being portrayed on screen. If we did

non b

pealing our ain life experiences and individualism to a reading, so

everyone who has watched & # 8216 ; Natural Born Killers & # 8217 ; would hold all come

off with precisely the same feeling and this would hold instigated

violent behavior. If people were merely inactive and accepted

everything they saw on the screen and allow it act upon their behavior

without oppugning it, so they would hold all become violent to the

extreme after watching that movie, something which we know is merely non

the instance. And it is adult females, kids and the on the job category who are seen

every bit vulnerable as they are assumed to be intellectually inferior, while

those who study the effects, white in-between category males, are someway

above being effected by the media. Surly this lone goes towards what

they say is the world if the topic as it is they who say readers as

a mass will be effected, so by discluding themselves they are

confuting their ain theory. Stuart Price ( 1993 ) indicates that despite

this & # 8216 ; moral candidates & # 8217 ; still keep onto this theory with & # 8216 ; posthumous

support & # 8217 ; , and that to some extent it is a simple manner for them to

criticise and explicate something they do non like or to the full understand.

The 2nd theoretical account we will look at differs greatly from the Hypodermic

one, in that it focuses more on the reader. In the 1950 & # 8217 ; s Katz and

Lazersfield started a school of idea which transformed the inquiry

of & # 8216 ; how the media effects the reader & # 8217 ; , to & # 8216 ; what the reader does with

the media & # 8217 ; . This is what is known as Uses and Gratifications. Monetary value

( 1993 ) explains this as placing specific groups through empirical observation. Group

must be looked at to see how many people there are within them, every bit good

as their ages, gender, business, leisure chases, societal position and

so on. This differs from the Hypodermic theoretical account as it sees groups within

society as opposed to society as a mass of stray, indistinguishable

persons. In this theoretical account who and what a individual are is the key to how

they use the media text and what satisfaction they attain from it.

This brings in the thought that an person, because of who they are and

where in society they have come from, will respond otherwise to a text.

This was touched on earlier when discoursing & # 8216 ; The Bill & # 8217 ; . An person,

depending on who they are, will hold a different reading of a text.

Sing something with the high force content of & # 8216 ; Natural Born

Killers & # 8217 ; , it helps construct personal individuality in that the reader sees it

and cognize what non to be like. The reader can judge between what is

right and what is incorrect. Our society truly condemns the behavior

of the characters and as active members of that society so do we. We do

non seek to emulate them, even if when watching it is a recreation and

signifier of escape, but that is it and nil more. It is non world

and we accept that. And the fact that readers watch the movie and make non

automatically become more violent clearly gives this backup.

However, a major job is that this theoretical account does non take the existent

media text into utmost consideration ; everything is the reader. It

does non analyze the manner of production or what the manufacturers original

messages were, merely the manner they are read. Again, in the illustration of

& # 8216 ; Natural Born Killers & # 8217 ; , it would non take into consideration the

messages manager Oliver Stone makes about the manner the media could

influence society. It is, in many ways, the opposite job from the

Hypodermic Needle, but in concurrence with that theory one can see that

it is non adequate to state that force on the screen causes violent

behavior.

In decision, if screen force produces behavioral effects on

viewing audiences, hence making a more violent society, it would be more

evident in our mundane lives. Images of force are all around us in

many signifiers of the media. If we were all effected in the same manner so

everyone would hold the same reaction. If everyone reacted to and

mimicked behavior seen on the screen so our society would be one of

changeless force in every state of affairs conceivable. This is merely non the

instance. The James Bulger slaying where two immature male childs caused the decease of

a yearling by purportedly miming a scene from the violent horror movie

& # 8216 ; Child & # 8217 ; s Play III & # 8217 ; has been blamed on screen force. However there

was no grounds, as Martin Barker ( 1997 ) explains, that the male childs had

really seen that movie even though that is what the imperativeness latched

onto. So where the effects of screen force were blamed there were

more than probably other elements which helped convey the state of affairs into

being. More than merely what such persons watch has to be taken

into consideration, but besides who they are and where they have come

from. If it was merely that force on the screen instigated violent

behavior and nil more, what of other instances such as Mary Bell, a

miss who killed two really immature kids. She had non seen & # 8216 ; Child & # 8217 ; s

Play & # 8217 ; or & # 8216 ; Natural Born Killers & # 8217 ; , but had experienced existent life maltreatment at

the custodies of her female parent. It takes more than merely watching force on

the screen to do it. An single may watch a violent movie and so

execute the Acts of the Apostless in existent life, but one would so hold to look at what

they, as a reader, originally brought to the reading.

Another instance Barker ( 1997 ) high spots is that of a adult male who killed his

kid believing he and his married woman were the scriptural Joseph and Mary after

watching the scriptural heroic poem & # 8216 ; King of Kings & # 8217 ; . While holding violent

content nowhere near that of & # 8216 ; Natural Born Killers & # 8217 ; , it shows that what

the reader was conveying to the text was non the & # 8216 ; normal & # 8217 ; reading of the

bulk of people and that more of who he was should be looked into

than merely faulting the movie, as it seems pathetic to propose that

was the original message meant by the movie shapers.

It is excessively small to state that screen force produces behavioral

effects as it is a generalisation. Besides behavior does non look to be

the right word. When watching force people react emotionally in

different ways, non behaviourally. A reader may be appalled by the

in writing and bloody force of & # 8216 ; Natural Born Killers & # 8217 ; , exhilarated

during a manus to manus combat in & # 8216 ; Rocky & # 8217 ; or even amused by the

extraordinary slapstick force of & # 8216 ; The Three Stooges & # 8217 ; . The message of

the shaper of the text, the text itself and who the audiences are as

persons are all as every bit of import as each other, and so all have

to be taken into consideration. One without the other two is non

plenty, as we have learnt since the Hypodermic Needle Effect was foremost

proposed that it takes more than merely screen force and screen

force entirely to bring forth behavioral effects on viewing audiences.