Public Enemy Number One

3 Pages 739 Words

In Public Enemy Number One, Mike Males says, “America, from Michael Medved to “Mother Jones,” has discovered the real cause for our countries rising violence: television mayhem, Guns N’ Roses, Ice-T, and Freddy Krueger.” This is a very strong statement. Placing all the blame for society’s problems on these factors is very risky.
Television, for example, does have some excessive violence. The fact that Tom and Jerry, run around throwing dynamite down each others throats, and dropping anvils on the others heads. This is nothing compared to the violence that occurs on the news everyday. Children know the difference between Tom and Jerry and real life. We know that Tom and Jerry aren’t really hurting each other, that they aren’t reality. They are cartoons. You can’t really paint a tunnel on a wall and run through it, children don’t believe this. Why would they believe that they could blow someone up and not hurt them? While the school shootings on the news, are so real, it is hard to believe. Many television shows have positive messages about life, and how to deal with growing up. In a recent episode of 7th Heaven one of the children’s friends, Simon, told him, that they were going to go and shoot the bullies that endlessly made fun of him at school. Simon called the police, told his parents and prevented something that could have been a horrible tragedy. We need to clean up the world, before we can expect violence to be taken out of television.
I think, movies are also being blamed when it isn’t their fault for society’s down fall. Freddy Krueger and Terminator 2 are not the reason why people are killing each other. It is hardly reality for a robot to be melted down, then molded back together, and have knives for arms, or attack and kill people in their dreams. Do you honestly think that Michael Myers or Jason have anything to do with children taking guns into their schools to shoot bullies? People kill pe...