n and the resistance to that subordination. The heroes that society makes popular are the ones that best embody their dominant values. Victims are those that have the values or characteristics that are deviant from the norms of society. (Understanding Popular Culture, 1989)Society is sometimes forced to save individuals from themselves. One analogy given at a two-day hearing on sex and violence in the media paralleled entertainment violence and cigarettes. Smoking has been proven to damage health, and the government has required the tobacco companies to warn people of the dangers. The warnings that have been made against violent programming have for some reason not gotten the same publicity and are not required by the government. It is estimated that the average television viewer will see 2000 advertisements each year promoting entertainment violence, but will almost never hear the warning that the Surgeon General has determined that TV violence is unconsciously harmful to normal children and normal adult viewers. (Censorship, 1985)Most researchers agree that a main contributing factor for the continuing increase in violence among young people is the incessant glamorization of violence in media. The industry has denied, ignored, and misrepresented these findings. Dr. Levine says brings up the valid point of children being imitators from their earliest months. They are not selective in what they imitate. There have been countless cases of deaths from young people acting out what they see on television and in movies. From imitating real things seen on the news, such as the spree of suicides following Kurt Cobain’s widely publicized suicide, to the slew of violent incidences that seem to have been mimicked from the 1995 movie Money Train. The once highly controversial cartoon Beavis and Butt-head was blamed for a five year old boy killing his two-year-old sister when he set his home on fire. There were several separate deaths i...
