Do we become what we see?

[Beanieboy]

I remember a friend saying that he wasn't going to go see a movie because he didn't want that kind of thing "inside of him." The older I get, the more I feel that I absorb, and have a harder time tolerating graphic violence in movies.

Most people have seen the 70s classic, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but as I grow older, I don't know if i want that "inside me." I don't want to absorb the violence, or be witness to it.

I met some good friends to see Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, but was assaulted by the graphic violence that I saw.

Do you think that we absorb what we see? Does it become a part of us? If so, should we morally resist such things?

In I Heard The Mermaid Singing, the character said that she had to watch what she took in, because what goes into the eyes and mind stays with you, like putting sugar in the gastank, and gunks everything up.

Do you agree with this, or not?

I guess all of this was brought up when I heard this morning about the 3rd graders who were planning to kill their teacher. Something is seriously wrong with the world, and seeing torture porn, like Touristas or Hostile seems to be as much of a symptom as a cause.

 

[stan1980]

The answer is yes, to an extent. A while back I was a little skeptical that watching violence on TV makes children more violent, but low and behold every single psychology test or paper (and there has been a lot of research into the subject), pointed to the fact that children who had just watched violence on tv compared to children who had watched a non-violent show, would become more aggressive.

A normal way of testing would be that they randomly split children into 2 random groups, and ask them to play some sort of physical game or sport. An observer would then rate the children's aggression. Then one group would watch say a violent family programme such as the A-Team, and another would watch a non-violent TV programme. They would then go to play the chosen game or sport again, and the observer would again rate the aggression of the children. The results were always that the aggression or violence of the children had increased in the group that had just watched a violent TV programme.

Edit - This response was in the case of watching violent TV shows. Whether we become, for example, more frisky when we watch programmes of a sexual nature, is another question. I suspect in general, yes, but you'd have to do repeated tests to be fairly confident in your answer.

 

[cantata]

Children are very susceptible to outside influence.

However, as we get older, I think we are more capable of thinking critically about what we see, and our previous experience will colour the ways in which it affects us. For example, if I watch a violent film, I tend to take away from it a sense of horror and sadness. But perhaps someone with more aggressive tendencies might feel exhilarated.

 

[Beanieboy]

The answer is yes, to an extent. A while back I was a little skeptical that watching violence on TV makes children more violent, but low and behold every single psychology test or paper (and there has been a lot of research into the subject), pointed to the fact that children who had just watched violence on tv compared to children who had watched a non-violent show, would become more aggressive.

They have done a study where they had children play with a Bobo doll (Its an inflatable Balloon that looks like a Weeble Clown. When you punch it in the nose, it rolls down, then the weight in the bottom makes it come back up.)

The children who played with the doll showed agression later. If I remember correctly, some of the children were simply shown tape of children punching the doll, and also tended to mirror the agression (especially punching the other children.)

 

[Beanieboy]

Children are very susceptible to outside influence.

However, as we get older, I think we are more capable of thinking critically about what we see, and our previous experience will colour the ways in which it affects us. For example, if I watch a violent film, I tend to take away from it a sense of horror and sadness. But perhaps someone with more aggressive tendencies might feel exhilarated.

I take away from it more of a sense of horror. I was mugged and hurt pretty badly, and emotionally, it feels really similar. You have the same tenseness in your body, and for two hours, it is a lot on my psyche.

It's different than suspense. I love Hitchcock.

However, movies like TCM, which part of me wants to see simply because it is a classic, and from what I understand, not that bloody since it is low budget, I also hesitate, because I know some of the darkness of the images (someone is hung on a meathook, someone is hit with a bat, etc.), and those kind of images, as I get older, seem to burn in my brain.

One of the things that they teach you in Buddhism is to internalize things. For example, in a dim room, you light a candle. You meditate and focus on the flame. After 5 minutes or so, you blow out the candle, close your eyes, and try to hold the image there. The idea is of meditating on light, and goodness.

So, in that way, I often feel like if I am watching violence, that it actually becomes a part of my thinking, just as meditating on loving kindness slowly changes the way you act outside of that meditation time.

 

[keith99]

Children are very susceptible to outside influence.

However, as we get older, I think we are more capable of thinking critically about what we see, and our previous experience will colour the ways in which it affects us. For example, if I watch a violent film, I tend to take away from it a sense of horror and sadness. But perhaps someone with more aggressive tendencies might feel exhilarated.

I think a lot depends on HOW the violence is treated. Sadly by and large it is treated badly. I watched Eastern Promises. I left almost sick, not because it was a bad film, but because it was a good film. Perhaps the simplest way to put it without ruining the film is to say people who died or suffereed were people, not plastic 2 dimensional figures. (warning it is graphic, realistic and not a fun film. Do not watch it if you want to leave feeling good).

Far too many films have numbers die, but all that die are 'bad guys' or people we never really meet.

 

[flicka]

There are some movies I won't watch now that I may have watched when I was younger, not because I don't "want it inside me" but because my tastes have changed and I don't enjoy the same things anymore. Sometimes I think the only difference between me and those who make a big deal about WHY they won't watch something like TCM is the fact that I'm not looking for attention and don't have to explain my choices to anyone. Why other people need everyone to know exactly why they do/don't do everything is beyond me but hey, to each their own.

 

[Q2004]

They have done a study where they had children play with a Bobo doll (Its an inflatable Balloon that looks like a Weeble Clown. When you punch it in the nose, it rolls down, then the weight in the bottom makes it come back up.)

The children who played with the doll showed agression later. If I remember correctly, some of the children were simply shown tape of children punching the doll, and also tended to mirror the agression (especially punching the other children.)

I believe it was actually a room full of toys; one group of children watched a video (might've been in person, but fairly sure it was just a video) of an adult hitting the Bobo doll and the other group watched an adult ignore it, interacting with the other toys. The experiment showed that the children would emulate the adults - the first group attacking the Bobo doll/being more aggressive in general and the second group playing non-violently.

 

[tapero]

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[Beanieboy]

I'm not "looking for attention." Rather, I'm discussing something, and contemplating something. It's not more looking for attention than one who is "looking for attention" by posting their opinion to total strangers on a website. People have asked me if I have seen Hostel. I've read about it, where you are supposed to be shocked that rich people pay money to torture innocent victims, but you paid money to basically watch torture porn. You aren't much different that the people in the movie. People will often ask me why I always refuse to see that kind of film, and having had my head split open by someone that mugged me, it's really hard to watch, because it happens in real life, and I don't know if I want to invite violence into my life, even if I am watching it vicariously.

Buddhist thought is the opposite of Western thinking. Most will think that the order of importance is: What you do, what you say, and least, what you think. If you kill someone, that is really bad. If you tell someone you want to kill them, that's bad. If you wish you could kill someone, that's not so bad.

Buddhism teaches the opposite, because your thoughts fuel your words, that fuel your actions. First you wish to kill someone, then you talk about it, and then you put it into action.

If you simply supress the action, the fuel is still there, and the action is waiting to happen. If you stop the thought, it is stopped at the source.

Yesterday, I was watching I Am Legend. It's really well acted, and an interesting story, and the scariness is partly the idea of mutant people, and partly the idea that we have an extremely agressive, violence within us which is only contained by our socialization and inhibitions. The mutants can only live in darkness (kind of like vampires), so, again suggesting that evil comes not from without, but potentially from within, and the cause is manmade, something we have brought upon ourselves.

In the movie, he says that Bob Marley believed that we could help humanity by literally injecting people with music and love. He was going to go to a Peace Rally, and a gunman shot him. Two days later, he still appeared at the rally. When asked why, he said, "when there are so many people trying to destroy the world, who never take a day off, I can't either."

Someone also mentions that if you simply listen, that God speaks to you, and there are no coincidences (a belief from Hinduism, I believe). So, I was thinking about that - the idea that you inject people with love and positive music, or the people who were meditating in DC and found that crime lowered 25%, and I wonder if Marley was onto something.

The Black Eyed Peas, in the song, Where is the Love, mention that child want to become what they see in the media. Black people are often seen as criminals, gang members, agressive, drug dealers, so I wonder how much do we create that by showing it, and having others imitate it? If we are telling young girls that they should look waify thin, are we not creating that, and does that message not become absorbed?

Even if you think that you are a "strong minded person" that isn't influenced by others, aren't our subconscious affected, whether we lilke it or not?

When I was in psychology, they did a study with students. They showed one group dramas, and another group violent movies. What they found was that the group that watched the violent movies became desensitized to violence. This carried over to real life, because they tended to be growingly less sympathetic to interviews of people that had been raped, assaulted, etc. They cared less, they sometimes had the attitude that the person was asking for it, etc.

So, yes, I think it does "get inside you" if it starts affecting how you interact with the real world.

 

[Beanieboy]

Mathew 15
17"Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' 19For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

If this is true, then how do they some to be in the heart?

 

[tapero]

1

 

[Beanieboy]

Hi, can you clarify your question?

Thanks!

I don't even think that question was in English.

What I meant to say was:
If it is true that such things come from the heart, then where do the things of the heart come from?

From what Jesus was saying, one may eat something with, say, dirty hands, and the dirt then passes through the body and then is eliminated. However, one has to think that he meant that evil of the heart is not eliminated, and one has to ask, if the dirt that he was referring to comes from eating (and then it "going into you"), how do the things of the heart make their way into the heart?

I love watch The Matrix for a number of reasons. I like the philosophy of considering what is reality, of the belief that believing effects what you do, etc.

However, when Columbine happened, part of what influenced them was the Matrix. They called themselves the Trenchcoat Mob. They saw themselves as Neo and Trinity in the amazing shootout scene in the building.

Does that mean that watching the Matrix is evil itself? No. I'm sure that you have to already have something rotting in your heart to take something like the Matrix, which is fighting against oppressors, against those that would as soon kill them than grant them freedom, as simply killing random people you don't like. Then again, I have seen Christians who read the bible, look at God killing Onan, or the people in Sodom and Gomorrah, and walking away with the message that killing sinners is just as good, if not better, than redemption of sinners, totally missing the message of Christ. Some even wish their condemnation to hell, thinking they deserve it, rather than being redeemed, which makes you wonder whom they are truly serving.

When you watch something like Hostel, however, or a number of other movies where there is no redemption, but rather, the torture and ultimate death of the main characters, what can one bring away from that? Simple entertainment? And if that is entertaining - the ultimate death by torture of people, what does that say of us? And what happens to us as the result of watching such things as entertainment?

As CGI gets better and better, it also seems that things become more graphic, and more realistic. Should that be what we are watching? Does that "go into" our brain, and change us?

Buddhism says yes. It says that each action and thought changes us somewhat (if I understand Buddhism correctly.) Think of it like this: If you watch someone stealing on TV repeatedly, are you likely to then get a 5 finger discount on, say, a candy bar, or something that doesn't seem that important enough to care about, but is still stealing? Of people that I have met, if you lie, and you get away with it, you tend to lie more in order to avoid responsibility, and you get better at it, and ultimately, become a liar.

There are times for me when even watching Law and Order SVU, because of the particularly "heinous crimes" of a sexual nature, such as a little girl who was kidnapped and kept for sex with men, and buried alive, becomes simply too disturbing to watch.

I know such things happen, and it saddens me when it does, but should we be not only watching tragedies from the news, but creating ones for entertainment, and watching them? Is there a detriment on society to make and show a graphic movie of people graphically eating others, torturing others, or abusing others?