There’s an interesting piece by the ever-lovely Nadine O’Regan (right) in the Sunday Business Post about the correlation between of on-screen violence and real-life violent crime – or, we should say, the apparent absence of any correlation. Quoth Nadine: “[I]t came as an absolute delight this week to read the results of a new American study, which suggests that films like the bloody but brilliant No Country for Old Men and Eastern Promises might be – far from what the doomsday psychologists have prophesied – exactly what people need to keep them away from dangerous behaviour of an evening. According to the figures in the survey, in the last decade, screenings of violent films in the US have decreased assaults by an average of about 1,000 a weekend. ”In the short run, if you take away violent movies, you’re going to increase violent crime,” Gordon Dahl, the study’s co-author, an economist at the University of California, San Diego, has said. Dahl and his co-author, Stefano Della Vigna, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, are not claiming that violent films are never a problem – they make clear their studies do not address the long-term effects of exposure to violent images.”For the full paper, jump on over here …
One thing the paper indicated was that the movie did not have to be violent to have the effect: it just had to be arousing, that is, be highly attractive to potential offenders or young men.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should hand out free movie passes to all young men on the condition that they only use them for violent or adolescent fare. If they want to see Atonement they will have to pay.
You don't think Keira Knightley might be just a tad 'arousing' or 'highly attractive' to young men? I think they'd all be demanding their money back ... while shuffling awkwardly around the foyer. Cheers, Dec
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