Violence In Society and Macbeth

In today’s society violence is present more than ever before. The main effects are placed on kids; for the younger crowd violence is in shows like Disney Kim Possible and the classic Power Rangers and movies like the Saw series (previously mentioned in the post The Intro Post of My Blog About…Intros) have kids seeing action packed and gory violence in every direction. Furthermore, with gaming consoles such as Xbox360 and PS3 becoming more common in households around the country (myself included), video games are having a more drastic effect on kids. Call of Duty 4, Gears of War, and Grand Theft Auto IV are all newer video games with the objective of simply killing the opposition at any cost. In Gears of War the player even has the option of using a saw attached to their gun to sever a near-by enemy in half. Even in a play as old as Macbeth is filled with violence; Macbeth goes on a killing-spree as he murders several people in power around him. In the movie there the murderous scenes are gruesome, as Macbeth cuts the throats and stabs his targets and in the final scene Macbeth is beheaded. This violence is why people went to see the play when it was originally made and still the reason why it fills seats now. it just shows that violence as been entertaining people forever and it’s now that society is more violent today than it had been previously, but the media is the major difference that is allowing all the violence to find it’s way to every newspaper, magazine, movie theatre, game consoles, and television. If you listen to the news on the radio or watch it on T.V., you notice that they almost sublimity throw out random violent events. The other nights I was listening to the radio on the way home and the news reporter goes… “10 people died and 23 were seriously injured when a church collapsed in Virginia early this morning.” When I think about this little clip of violence, it is absolutely meaningless to me. Not to sound ignorant but the news has no effect on me except making me sad. Violence is something that people have been attracted to since the beginning of time, and today the media is using every possible tactic to get it out there.