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My wife is a teacher and one of her students in grade 2 has somehow been seeing beheading videos (apparently on youtube but that seems nearly impossible) becaus
by fudged71 9y ago
My wife is a teacher and one of her students in grade 2 has somehow been seeing beheading videos (apparently on youtube but that seems nearly impossible) because they are left with an ipad for so long. I can't even begin to comprehend what that would do to the brain of a child.
TV for children is very restricted and regulated for a very important reason.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Retric 9y agoBeheading was public spectacle up until very recently, kids are less distressed by seeing violence than you might think. If anything it's people with problems that tend to search for such things rather than such videos causing something.
- pmoriarty 9y agoPeople should read the old, original Brothers Grim stories. Plenty of that was pretty, ahem, grim. Over the centuries it's been sanitized and Disneyfied, but the primal drives that fascinated by that sort of thing have not gone away.
- watwut 9y agoGerman censorship around books for children was quite tight actually. Not all of that was for little children, a lot of it effectively scary stories for older ones. Also half todays cartoons would not pass neither comic code nor restrictions at early movies.
- pmoriarty 9y agoWhat you describe is a later development. There was no comic code or movie censorship in the 19th century or in the centuries before, wherein lay the sources for the Grimm's tales.
- watwut 9y agoThere was however censorship in print in Germany in 19 century and beginning of 20 century. The comic code and movies are simply two additional examples of historical censorship.
- soundwave106 9y agoCensorship and criticism of "vulgarities" I honestly think has been around since... well, since art begins. However, the exact nature of what is a vulgarity often differs from culture to culture and from time to time. In the US, there was no comic code or movie censorship, but there was things like Comstock laws. Would Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" raise many eyebrows today? It did in the 1850s-60s. (http://www.unm.edu/~unmvclib/handouts/bannedboston.pdf http://www.unm.edu/~unmvclib/handouts/bannedboston.pdf) It is true that Grimm's tales were at first meant to be more of an educational archive of folklore that otherwise would have been lost. (https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2015/marchapril/feature/how-the-grimm-brothers-saved-the-fairy-tale https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2015/marchapril/feature/how-t...) However, apparently, it was found after publishing that the stories appealed to parents and children. So between the first and seventh edition, apparently the stories were made "more appropriate" for children of that era. (https://books.google.com/books?id=6gX-hNshMJEC&lpg=PR39&dq=Maria%20Tatar,%20ed.%20The%20Annotated%20Brothers%20Grimm,&pg=PR40#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=6gX-hNshMJEC&lpg=PR39&dq=M...) In those times, that more meant getting rid of any bawdy humor and any references to sex (violence to a "morally correct" end was okay though). Culture changes; it seems like nowadays, some degree of bawdy humor is okay in children's entertainment. However, I've seen many articles wondering if the Grimm tales are too scary for kids.
- Retric 9y agoComic code was a reaction to early and very gritty comics, US comics are still very tame by comparison.
- watwut 9y agoThe tame US comic still does not pass all 41 points of 1954 comic code which was fully endorsed. Nor half "Disnified" cartoons and stories for little children. It is pretty much impossible to defend comic code as written, even ignoring the argument that adults should be able to read horror stories (including those grittier then Game of Thrones) if they like them. Comic code was simply a reaction of people unable to suddenly process that many have different preferences then them.
- Retric 9y agoI am not defending comic code, just stating it was far from the default.
- greenshackle2 9y agoAlso, privacy is a relatively modern privilege, for a long time kids grew up around people having sex. Somehow they failed to be horribly scarred by it. https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wire/the-birth-and-death-of-privacy-3-000-years-of-history-in-50-images-614c26059e https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wire/the-birth-and-death-o...
- Sleeep 9y agoHow did your wife know that the kid was watching beheading videos? Were they cartoon beheading or real?
- megous 9y agoThe child might simply get desensitized. Try watching disturbing violence (war images/videos for example) for a while yourself. Empathic response will blunt itself within a week or two.
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y agoThat's probably the scariest thing about disturbing violence. Ceasing to be disturbing is the bigger issue than being disturbing IMO. But I'm weird and think that it's far better to let children see sex than even regular hollywood violence, and that things like US military recruitment ads and ISIS recruitment videos should be treated identically (restricted behind a warning that they're not for kids). The normalization of violence is a terrible thing.
- megous 9y agoSure. As an adult you can still continue seeing it as wrong (if you did before). It will just not give you chills. Trouble with children is that they may not yet have the moral compass for lack of a better phrase. I would find it important to talk to the child and ask him what he's thinking about the videos, and make sure he understands that the behavior in the videos is horrible, ends the life of another person, what that means, etc. I'd also make sure the child would not get trapped in some cycle of feeling guilty for simply watching some videos and having/not having whatever reactions to it.