Violent Media

Lan Phan

10/11/2014

Violent Media is good for kids

In his article “Violent Media is good for kids”, Gerard Jones argues about violent media and their effect on children. Violent media doesn’t make them violent person but it helps and prepares them for violence in reality. Sometimes, violent media helps them overcome their personal fears and also help them to gain more confidences

Jones uses his personal experience as his main support. “At 13, I was alone and afraid. Taught by my well-meaning, progressive, English-teacher parents that violence was wrong, that rage was something to be overcome and cooperation was always better than conflict, I suffocated my deepest fears and desires under a nice-boy persona. Placed in a small, experimental school that was wrong for me, afraid to join my peers in their bumptious rush into adolescent boyhood, I withdrew into passivity and loneliness. My parents, not trusting the violent world of the 1960s, built a wall between me and the crudest elements of American pop culture.” (Jones 1) Jones was raised by his parents who didn’t allow him to watch or read anything about violence. His teacher also taught him about the negative effect of violence, violence was bad and wrong; he described himself as a loneliness and boring boy at that time. However when he exploded to Marvel Comics, starting from the Incredible Hulk, he was able to explode about violence. To Jones, the Hulk represented everything he was feeling. He began to make more friends and come out of his shell in school. He overcame his fear and rage. He also gives us experience of his son, Emily, ect… and how violent media can help them through real-life violence.

Jones gives us the example on how violent media help children to overcome their stressful and hurtful lives. “I knew a little girl who went around exploding with fantasies so violent….and girls together.” (Jones2). Emily was an only child and her parents were separating. She had no one...