Violence in the meda.

For those of you who remember me, I was Supercryptid. For some reason, it wouldn't let me log in as that username, so I had to make a new one.

Now, there is something about me that you should consider when you read this thread: I have reason to believe that I suffer from a disorder called "scrupulosity". For those of you who do not know what that is, it "is the obsessive concern with one's own sins frequently focusing on acts or thoughts not usually considered sins within one's religious tradition", as quoted from Wikipedia. It is related to obsessive-compulsive disorder, which I have also had in the past.

However, this thread is not about scrupulosity. It is about violence. If you want to say something about scrupulosity, please say something about the topic at hand as well.

It goes without saying that violence has become a large part of our movies, cartoons, comics, and pretty much everything else. Most people have a certain tolerance level of violence. They say that "x amount of violence is too much" and "x amount of violence is okay". Where should we draw the line? Even silly cartoon antics like turning someone into a pancake by hitting them with a hammer is a type of violence. But most people probably wouldn't condemn something so simple as that.

I think my main concern here is the "good guy vs. bad guy scenario". A hero fights for what is right and does what they can to defeat a villain who has ill intentions for the world. Surely, the hero's intentions are justified in doing that. There's a valuable lesson to be learned from such things, since it shows good triumphing over evil. But is that what people watch such shows for? Do they watch it for the moral values? Or do they watch is just because they are entertained by the acts of violence? A hero has a right to fight for peace, but do we have a right to enjoy his fighting?

Even now, I enjoy "action-based" media because I like to watch characters fight. That's true for many people. Assuming that, in the context of a fictional show, a conflict could be resolved either peacefully or violently, I would usually prefer (within reason) to see it settled violently. That's why someone would even watch an "action" show in the first place, isn't it? When you watch a good guy and a bad guy fight, you usually don't think "the good guy's doing something noble", but rather you would think "this fight is cool!".

Now, as for levels of violence, it comes in many degrees. At the least intense stage, you have comedic violence. People usually get bopped and thwacked without lasting injury in these sort of things. Then, you get to a more serious, but mild level of violence. People fight each other, but the biggest injury is usually nothing more than bruising. Higher still, you get to the point where there's a little blood here and there, and maybe even broken bones. At its worst, violence on TV or comics could reach the level of gore, dismemberment, impalement, as spurting of blood. In short, red becomes the most prominent color on the battlefield.

When is violence too much? Is any violence too much?

Now, I could be too stringent if I were to say that all violence, even justified violence, is wrong on TV. I know that I have been too stringent in the past. There was a time when I thought that almost every bad thought that entered my head caused me to sin. I'm not the only one either. In the New Testament, people have been too stringent as well. They even accused Jesus' disciples of breaking the Sabbath by getting corn to eat, but Jesus defended them.