Research Proposal on "Cartoons"

Research Proposal 10 pages (2930 words) Sources: 4

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Cartoons Then and Now and Their Relation to Crime

Cartoons are in the mainly intended mainly to be innocuous and a source of humor and entertainment. This is the general perception of common cartoons that are seen in magazines, newspapers and on film. A general definition of a cartoon is "… A drawing depicting a humorous situation, often accompanied by a caption." (Cartoon) This refers to media other than print as well, such as animated and film cartoons. However, there are a number of ways in which cartoons both in the past and today can be related to crime and have even been implicated by some criminologists and sociologists as a one of the central causes of crime.

On the one hand cartoons can be seen to provide a useful purpose. As one study notes;

Comic art has been used to build morale during wartime… to promote developmental programs in health and family planning in India and elsewhere, to promote peace and to denounce war, to teach religious stories of Buddha and Jesus Christ, to make people literate, and to relieve hunger in Africa and other parts of the world

(Lent, 1994, p. xiii).

At the same time cartoons have also seen by many pundits in a more negative light. "... The medium has not lacked detractors who, for decades, have blamed comic strips and comic books for corrupting the youth, bastardizing grammar, stereotyping minorities, glamorizing war and crime, promoting ethnocentrism, and racism" (Lent 1994, p. xiii).

Modern cartoons have also become more sophisticated as a result of the advances in digital animation techniques. The improvements in this technology and the widespread popularity of modern cartoons has led to often heated debate about their effect on children and how this can be related to delinquency and criminal behavior.

The way in which cartoons can impact on the psychological and sociological development of children and adolescents is a central area of concern that will be discussed in this study. It is a well-known fact that impressionable children who are cognitively and behaviorally susceptible to outside influence watch an inordinate amount of television and cartoons. As one study indicates, "Children from the ages 6-11 spend more time watching television than they do in the classroom" ( Cartoon Violence). This established fact has been linked in some cases to the inculcation of violence and aggression that can lead to criminal activities. As one expert asserts, "The "renaissance of TV animation" has undoubtedly led to more violent cartoons then ever before" ( Cartoon Violence). The link between cartoons, television and criminal tendencies therefore forms an important focus of this study.

Cartoons can also be linked to other forms of crime. Cartoons may incite prejudice and increase racial and ethnic tension, resulting in forms of violent and illegal retaliation. This is a factor that has come to the fore in the recent debate about cartoons that are perceived to denigrate certain religious views and beliefs. This also opens up the discussion about cartoons as a form free speech that should not be censored in any way. Cartoons that satirize and depict racial stereotypes are also seen to be linked to certain criminal activities. Another facet of this subject that will also be explored is the way that cartoons have changed over time, particularly with regard to their depiction of violence, and how this has affected criminal attitudes and mindsets.

2. Cartoons, violence and crime

As discussed above, one of the most obvious ways that cartoons can be seen to contribute to criminal activity is in the inculcation or promotion of violence. This refers particularly to the way that cartoons are viewed by young and impressionable children and the extent to which these children begin to think that violence is an acceptable way of solving problems or getting what they want.

It is a telling and significant fact that the amount of time that adolescents and juveniles spend watching television in developed countries like the United States has shown a radical increase in recent years. It therefore logically follows the United States is a country that watches the most cartoons in the world. Statistics indicate that the average American watches more than four hours of television each day and that children between the ages of two and seventeen watch more than three hours of television per day ( Bennett, 1999, p. 22). This can also be tentatively correlated with statistics that show that crime rates have increased dramatically in the young and adolescent demographic in the United States. For example, about 19% of all person arrested in the country are under the age of fifteen; between 1998 and 1997 the arrests for juvenile violent crime increased by almost fifty percent (Bennett, 1999, p. 22). This would seem to suggest a link between television cartoons and tendencies towards crime among the younger demographic.

As many child psychologists and sociologists have pointed out, while cartoons aimed at children are ostensibly meant to be fiction and fantasy, very often the young child cannot discriminate between reality and fiction; "…although the violence is not real, a child does not know the difference" (Cartoon Violence). This is an important point and one which many experts assert is the foundation for the later expression of violent and critical activities that transgress legal and moral societal norms.

The following extract encapsulates the link between cartoons, crime and youth.

According to psychologists, primary school pupils ape verbal aggression in cartoons such as Pokemon. To reach the conclusion, behaviour in class was compared to the types of shows watched by pupils as young as seven. There is ample evidence physical aggression on TV is associated with increases in aggressive behaviour

(Cartoons turn kids into yobs).

Older cartoons that were seen to be innocuous or innocent, such as Bugs Bunny, are now considered by many experts to be overly violent. More importantly, when Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny indulge in hilarious and gratuitous slapstick violence, or when the road runner is squashed or blown up for the hundredth time, this is seen by psychologists to dramatically affect some children's perception of the consequences of violence and violent actions. As a growing number of studies point out, watching these cartoons tends to inculcate or promote the view that violence does not have real negative consequences -- after all, the road runner is never permanently hurt and appears healthy and restored in the next segment of the cartoon.

It is this disassociation between reality and fiction that psychologists suggest leads to a division between violent acts and their consequences in real life. This is a perception they assert that could well lay the foundations for later criminal behavior and delinquency.

As Dr. Wendy Josephson, writing for Media Awareness Network believes, "… violence is easily soaked up by children at a younger age" and The viewing patterns children establish as toddlers will influence their viewing habits throughout their lives. Since toddlers have a strong preference for cartoons and other programs that have characters who move fast, there is considerable likelihood that they will be exposed to large amounts of violence

(Cartoon Violence).

Furthermore, experts also note that television cartoons tend to add another worrying aspect to the way that youngsters perceive the reality of the world around them. This refers particularly to the aspect to dehumanization. Cartoon characters such as Transformers "… engage in the destructive acts of violence by fighting our real life social problems. With acts of violence, kids learn to think that's how they should solve their problems" ( Cartoon Violence).

Iaian M. Gulin provides another example of this phenomenon and states that,

The cartoon "Zipping Along," featuring Warner Brothers' Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner, is a cartoon which contains 22 separate acts of violence, and is a mere 7 minutes in length. This amount of violence is quite considerable when one knows that a child will witness and average of 25-30 acts of violence in an hour of children's programming

(Gulin).

The effect of violence in cartoons has however increased not decreased with modern animated and 3D cartoons. While older cartoons were obviously drawn and clearly depicted a fantasy dimension, modern animated game and cartoons are more sophisticated, realistic and graphical in the depiction of the characters; which also means that the violence is more real and the impact on young minds more visceral. This leads to another factor that is related to the perception of violence in cartoons. This is the element of imitation. As Ferrel (1999) states, modern cartoons, because of their sophisticated and realistic animation are more capable of inciting delinquency and "…. spin off "copy-cat" crimes, and otherwise serve as criminogenic social forces " (Ferrell, 1999, p. 395). The term ' crimogenic' aptly summarizes the way in which more modern cartoons can act as areas for the genesis of later criminal mindsets that may lead to actual criminal acts.

In support of these views on the way that crime and cartoons are linked at a deeper psychological and motivational level, Lacy… READ MORE

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