nd screaming victims on television has tripled in the last decade (Johnson 18). Only on television is there violence without pain. Sometimes, television violence is even supposed to be funny, but grownups know, or are supposed to know, that real violence causes lots of pain and sadness. A young gunshot victim is brought into an emergency room and he astonished his Doctors. He expressed surprise that his wound actually hurt. His Doctors first thought, “Boy! This boy is really stupid.” But it dawned on the Doctors that what the sees on television is that when the superhero gets shot in the arm, he uses that arm to hold onto a truck going 85 miles an hour around a corner. He overcomes the driver and shoots a couple of hundred people while he is at it. (Early Concerns 112) Another example of violence in children’s television is seen in the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This cartoon causes confusion between fantasy and reality. Several children really do think it is okay to use physical violence with other children because the Turtles do and the Turtles are the good guys (Early Concerns 115). Children’s cartoons are among the most violent shows on television, often exceeding 24 acts of violence per hour and earning high violence ratings from The National Coalition on Television Violence. Researchers say children’s aggressiveness increases measurably afterviewing the cartoon violence of Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry and Woody Woodpecker, which are rated as very high violence with 55 or more acts of violence per episode. (Early Concerns 113). Just as children learn things from their older brothers and sisters, they also learn from their television heroes- even bad things. Some children who watch lots of violence on television learn to fight more and others learn to become v...
