Violence in Our Children's Cartoons

Violence in our Children's Cartoons

How Does Television Violence Affect Children's Behavior Does television promote violence and crime among children? Although most people look at television as an entertaining and educational way to spend time, some people think there is too much violence in television and that is influencing our young into becoming aggressive in nature and to tolerate violence.

Cartoons are the most violent programs on television (Johnson, 1999). Mostly all cartoons have consent fighting between hero and villains. Some cartoons have funny looking character torturing another character. Can violence on cartoons make a kid or a young adult to do some kind of violent act? Yes, in Ohio a five year-old boy set his house on fire that killed his little sister. The boy said he developed the idea by watching the cartoon Beavis and Butthead (Josephson, 1995). Other example of a child performing a violent act was a six year-old Jeremy Nezworski imitated an act of hanging himself like a ghost after he watch the act on the cartoon The Scooby Doo Show, and the boy killed himself (Josephson, 1995).

Teenage Mutant Ninga Turtles is thought of to be one of the most violent cartoons that ever appeared on television according to Terry Harrison, a preschool teacher (Brady 60). The sound of a three-year-old boy yelling "cowabunga" is a war cry that unleashes chaos in the classroom. "Suddenly we are faced with a little gang of ninja's trying to kick and punch each other in the face," and when they are told to stop, the boys reply, "The turtles do it so why can't we?" This is just another example of how children apply behaviors observed on television programs to their real situations (Brady 50). The worst cartoon for children is probably South Park. This cartoon has many accounts of violence in it. There is violence such as derogatory language and numerous violence acts with intent to hurt someone. In fact, every show ends up with the one character, Kenny, encountering a very horrible and repulsive death. The show, when viewed by young children, is a sure ticket for disaster. The show is about elementary children and there different adventures with each other. The children have very foul mouths and many prejudices. The cartoon is definitely not a show that should be viewed by children or even early teens. The show is more based for adults but could be confusing