Violence and Popular Culture Violence exists and has existed in all societies. In contemporary North American society, we also see violence frequently in media--from news to films to video games. These representations have been blamed for creating a culture of fear and inspiring real violence, particularly among youth. Media analysts argue that the question of media and violence must shift from a focus on violence in media to a focus on violence in our broader society. They argue that we need to make interconnections between class, gender, race and inequality in the debate on violence. This can be a difficult shift to make because contemporary media is rife with overt and subtle instances of violence. Violence is portrayed in the news, music videos, reality TV crime shows, films and video games.  In the wake of the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, media pundits discussed (Opens new window) whether video game consumption was producing violent people. While this is an interesting question, in this module we do not focus on whether violent images produce violent people. Nor do we examine whether media imagery has become increasingly violent. As one scholar (Opens new window)puts it, Violence has always figured prominently in storytelling. Violent imagery has been around since hunters began scratching accounts of their exploits on the walls of caves. . . . Artifacts of Egyptian, Sumerian, Minoan, and Babylonian peoples all depict violent events, as do classical works of the ancient Greeks written 3,000 years ago. . . . The books of the Old Testament, written during the same period, are filled with accounts of genocide, war, human sacrifice, and, of course, various plagues. And as Mel Gibson so eloquently reminded moviegoers with his hugely successful film, The Passion of the Christ (2004), the biggest story of the New Testament culminates in rioting, ritual torture, and public execution. Perhaps more to the point, these grizzly stories have been repeated for centuries to children and adults alike as important works of history and religion. (Trend, The Myth of Media Violence 12-13) This is not to deny that exposure to violent images may contribute toward violent behaviour.(Opens new window) But in a sociology course like this one, our job is to examine the role popular culture's representation of violence plays in the maintenance of cultural hegemony.   Video Watch Mean World Syndrome (2010). (Opens new window)According to the documentary, what are some of the myths associated with media violence? What does George Gerbner say is the reason why violence pervades the media? How does popular culture use representations of violence to perpetuate racist myths? What is "mean world syndrome" anyway? Law-and-order ideology Law-and-order ideology has been chronically present in public, media, and political discourse, but it has assumed an even larger role in recent years. Particular media portrayals of criminal justice interact with ...

1. Violence and Popular Culture
Violence exists and has existed in all societies. In contemporary
North American society, we also see violence frequently in
media--from news to films to video games. These
representations have been blamed for creating a culture of fear
and inspiring real violence, particularly among youth.
Media analysts argue that the question of media and violence
must shift from a focus on violence in media to a focus on
violence in our broader society. They argue that we need to
make interconnections between class, gender, race and
inequality in the debate on violence. This can be a difficult shift
to make because contemporary media is rife with overt and
subtle instances of violence. Violence is portrayed in the news,
music videos, reality TV crime shows, films and video games.
In the wake of the tragic shooting in Newtown,
Connecticut, media pundits discussed (Opens new
window) whether video game consumption was producing
violent people. While this is an interesting question, in this
module we do not focus on whether violent images produce
violent people. Nor do we examine whether media imagery has
become increasingly violent. As one scholar (Opens new
window)puts it,
Violence has always figured prominently in storytelling.
Violent imagery has been around since hunters began scratching
accounts of their exploits on the walls of caves. . . . Artifacts of
Egyptian, Sumerian, Minoan, and Babylonian peoples all depict
violent events, as do classical works of the ancient Greeks
written 3,000 years ago. . . . The books of the Old Testament,
written during the same period, are filled with accounts of
genocide, war, human sacrifice, and, of course, various plagues.
And as Mel Gibson so eloquently reminded moviegoers with his
hugely successful film, The Passion of the Christ (2004), the
biggest story of the New Testament culminates in rioting, ritual
torture, and public execution. Perhaps more to the point, these

2. grizzly stories have been repeated for centuries to children and
adults alike as important works of history and religion.
(Trend, The Myth of Media Violence 12-13)
This is not to deny that exposure to violent images may
contribute toward violent behaviour.(Opens new window) But in
a sociology course like this one, our job is to examine the role
popular culture's representation of violence plays in the
maintenance of cultural hegemony.
Video
Watch Mean World Syndrome (2010). (Opens new
window)According to the documentary, what are some of the
myths associated with media violence? What does George
Gerbner say is the reason why violence pervades the media?
How does popular culture use representations of violence to
perpetuate racist myths? What is "mean world syndrome"
anyway?
Law-and-order ideology
Law-and-order ideology has been chronically present in public,
media, and political discourse, but it has assumed an even larger
role in recent years. Particular media portrayals of criminal

3. justice interact with and help to shape, reinforce, and evolve
this ideology, even as they are in turn shaped by it. The
relationship is thus a dynamic and circular one.
Punitive Crime Control
In law-and-order ideology, society is seen to be in a state of
decline or crisis because of the ever-increasing threat of crime,
specifically violent street crime of the underclasses. The answer
is tougher, more punitive crime control. One key cause of the
crime problem is thought to be a failure of politicians and the
criminal justice system to get tough with street crime. Due
process and other ‘softnesses’ of the justice system are part of
the problem, because all right-thinking people know criminals
are guilty.
Policing
Law-and-order ideology strongly emphasizes the role of police
as "crime fighters," as opposed to various other ways of
understanding their function, for example, order maintenance
and emergency service. The capacity of police to control crime
is considerably exaggerated. Thus, the answer to the crime
problem is partly more police, and police who are allowed to
get tougher.
Source: Aaron Doyle, Arresting Images: Crime and Policing in
Front of the Television Camera. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 2003, p. 38.
Discussion
As you read "Crime Fighters" by Ray Surette, note the ways in
which cop shows misrepresent the roles played by law
enforcement officials. (You may ignore the writing assignments
outlined on p. 104.)
Do these misrepresentations vary between subgenres (e.g. police
procedurals, forensic science shows, reality crime shows, shows
featuring buddy cops, courtroom dramas, who-dun-its, anti-
terrorism thrillers)?
Consider, for instance, the ways in which reality-crime shows

4. like Cops andAmerica's Most Wanted promote law-and-order
ideology. See what documentary filmmaker Michael Moore has
to say in this clip (Opens new window)from his film Bowling
for Columbine(2002):Video
Watch this commercial for the Glock pistol:(Opens new
window)
How does the commercial promote law-and-order ideology?
According to the commercial, who is the typical victim? Who is
the typical perpetrator?
Canadian Reality Check on Violence
Canada makes an appearance in Bowling for Columbine as a
peaceful nation where we don't lock our doors. Is this an
accurate reflection of what was happening in Canada during the
period examined in the documentary?

5. Young Women Most at Risk of Violence
A victimization analysis released in February 2013 by Statistics
Canada (Opens new window)indicated that women aged 15 to 24
were more at risk than women 25 and older to be victims of
violent crime. It also noted that women aged 12 to 17 were more
at risk than women of any age group:
Police reported that in 2011, about 8,200 girls aged 11 and
under were victims of violent crime, representing 381 victims
for every 100,000 girls in the population. Over half (56%) of
the violent crimes against girls were committed by a family
member, and males were the offender in about 8 of 10 incidents.
In addition, nearly 27,000 female youth aged 12 to 17 were
victims of violent crime in 2011; casual acquaintances were the
most common offenders. The rate of 2,273 victims per 100,000
young women in the population was almost twice as high as the
violent crime rate for adult women 18 and older.
The rate of physical assaults against female youth aged 12 to 17
in 2011 was 6% lower than in 2009. Trends in sexual assault
followed a somewhat different pattern. The rate of sexual
assaults against female youth dropped 4% in 2011 after
increasing in 2010.
Males vs. Females
Victims of violent crime were equally likely to be males and
females; (Opens new window)however, a large majority of
victimized females were victims of sexual offences, whereas
males were more likely to be victims of physical assault and
homicide.
Drop in Crime
This recent Globe and Mail article (Opens new
window) confirms that crime rates have been falling for 20
years:
Canada’s crime rate continued to fall last year, with the
homicide rate dropping to the lowest level in 46 years.

6. Statistics Canada said the overall police-reported crime rate
decreased 3 per cent, reaching the lowest point since 1972. The
reduction was largely due to declines in some of the most
common offences – from mischief to car theft.
Since peaking in 1991, the crime rate in Canada has been on a
slow downward slide which experts say is the result of a host of
factors, including simple demographics, policing strategies and
social and economic conditions.
Statistics Canada also reported a drop in violent crime:(Opens
new window)
Police services reported just over 415,000 violent incidents in
2012, down about 9,000 from the previous year. The violent
crime rate fell 3% to its lowest level since 1987.
The violent Crime Severity Index declined 5% in 2012. This
marked the sixth consecutive decrease in the violent CSI.
Police reported 543 homicides in 2012, 55 fewer than in 2011.
The homicide rate of 1.56 homicides per 100,000 population
was the lowest since 1966.
The police-reported crime rate fell for most violent crimes. In
addition to homicides, the largest decreases were in the rates for
major sexual assault (levels 2 and 3), robbery, and assault on a
peace officer.
In contrast, offences causing death other than homicide, as well
as extortion, violent firearm offences and sexual violations
against children were among the few violent offences that rose
in 2012.

7. ·
Violence and Popular Culture
· Law and Order Ideology
· Canadian Context
· Violent Crime and 'Race'
· Creating Fear
· Serial Killers
窗体顶端Inequality and Crime
Social groups commit crimes as a consequence of their social
situations and in response to prevailing criminal opportunities.
Violent crimes are a result of an interaction between offender
and victim. To posit an overriding genetic basis of crime is to
ignore any number of situational factors that result in violent
crime. In Canada and particularly in the U.S., blacks are more
likely to be both offenders and victims in relation to violent
crime. But the notion that blacks are more likely than non-
blacks to commit crime ignores the fact that blacks are much
more likely to be arrested, charged, and incarcerated than is any

8. other racial group. Consider, for example, how America's war
on marijuana targets African Americans (Opens new window).
From The Nation:(Opens new window)
Though whites are statistically more likely to dabble in pot than
minorities, the racial discrepancies of marijuana busts are
staggering. In New York City, for instance, minor marijuana
arrests are down thanks to a Bloomberg-backed effort to give
leeway to people in possession of small amounts of the drug.
But of those who are arrested, often via the NYPD’s
controversial stop-and-frisk program, nearly 80 percent are
either black or Latino. Similarly, in Chicago in 2011, 20,603
people were arrested for having a negligible amount of
marijuana. One thousand of those Chicagoans were white, while
15,862 of them were black.
See also "The Top 10 Most Startling Facts About People of
Color and Criminal Justice in the United States." (Opens new
window)For example:
3. Students of color face harsher punishments in school than
their white peers, leading to a higher number of youth of color
incarcerated
7. The war on drugs has been waged primarily in communities
of color where people of color are more likely to receive higher
offenses.
8. Once convicted, black offenders receive longer sentences
compared to white offenders.
Some social groups in Canada, particularly Aboriginal people,
have endured a long history of violence, deprivation,
disenfranchisement, and exclusion from education and
vocational opportunities. This type of discrimination can
engender attitudes toward authority that lead to law breaking. In
2001-2002, Aboriginal adults comprised 2% of the Canadian
population and 17% of the federal prisoner population.
Aboriginal youth comprised 5% of the Canadian population in
2001-2002 and 22% of the youth prisoner population. In
Saskatchewan, Aboriginal adults and youths are incarcerated at
35 times the rate of non-aboriginals, where they make up 77%

9. of the total prisoner population.
A recent Statscan report (Opens new window)noted that “adults
in sentenced custody were disproportionately Aboriginal. In
2010/2011, 27% of adults in provincial and territorial custody
and 20% of those in federal custody involved Aboriginal people,
about seven to eight times higher than the proportion of
Aboriginal people (3%) in the adult population as a whole.”
Excerpted from: Julian V. Roberts and Thomas Gabor,
“Lombrosian Wine in a New Bottle: Research on Crime and
Race,” Canadian Journal of Criminology 32.2 (April 1990):
291-313 and from http://www.prisonjustice.ca/ (see facts &
statistics)Discussion
Michael Moore addresses the historical myth of "dangerous
black guys" in this clip from Bowling for Columbine:
What is his argument?
The Case of Trayvon Martin
Last year, in Sanford, Florida, George Zimmerman, a white
Hispanic man, shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old
African American.
Martin had gone to the store to buy skittles and iced tea, but
when Zimmerman saw him, he called 9-1-1 and told the
operator, "This guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on
drugs or something." He also said, "these fucking punks" and
"these assholes, they always get away."
Why did Zimmerman think Martin was an "asshole" and a
"punk"? Why did the police initially believe Zimmerman's story
of self-defense, leading them to not even administer a
toxicology test on Zimmerman that night? Why did a six-woman
jury (5 whites, 1 Hispanic) find Zimmerman not guilty on
charges of manslaughter and second-degree murder?
There is a clear correlation between Zimmerman's belief that a
black teenager minding his own business is "suspicious”--a
“punk”--and the media's overrepresentation of young black men
as criminals.
Nationwide protests (Opens new window)against the jury's

10. verdict were as much about the criminal justice system's
overzealous persecution of black men as they were about the
endurance of racist myths.
In a column published in The Washington Post, (Opens new
window)Richard Cohen said he “can understand why
Zimmerman was suspicious and why he thought Martin was
wearing a uniform we all recognize.” The column instantly
sparked outrage:
In response to the outrage his column generated, Cohen later
said, “A hoodie. It's what's worn by a whole lot of thugs. Look
in the newspapers, online or on television: you see a lot of guys
in the mugshots wearing hoodies.”
What is wrong with Cohen’s reasoning here?

11. Case Study
Several weeks after the Columbine shootings: the U.S. Senate
Commerce Committee launched a series of hearings on the
"marketing of violent entertainment to children." The
committee...
· stated it was not there to "point fingers but to identify the
causes of "cultural pollution"
· concluded that youth culture was causing an increase in
violent crimes in youth
· blamed the music of Marilyn Manson and Cannibal Corpse
· declared Mason's music "offensive to everyone in America
who thinks"
· used homophobic statements about whether Manson was a "he
or she" and whether fans had "gone over to the dark side"
· appealed to Congress to make distinctions between works that
used violence to tell "a larger story"
like Gladiator, Braveheart, SavingPrivate Ryan and works that
"gratuitously" exploited violence: The Basketball Diaries, Cruel
Intentions, and the Scream movies
· declared "We need Goth control, not gun control"
· villified Goths--a relatively small subculture--whose members
draw inspiration from Romantic literature and construct identity
by borrowing from horror films and S/M pornography
· labelled the Columbine gunmen as Goths
· pressured Congress to develop policies to regulate media
content
As a result of this moral panic...
· Manson cancelled concerts
· MGM stopped selling The Basketball Diaries
· Warner Brothers Network withheld airing the season finale
of Buffy the Vampire Slayer until midsummer
· students and youth were seen as the enemy and as threatening

12. to public safety
· anyone considered "odd" or "different" was perceived to be a
threat to public safety.
Source: Croteau and Hoynes, 2011
Sadly, these events have not gone away. After several mass
shootings throughout 2012, the year ended with a horrific
tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, where a young man went into
a school and killed 20 children (ages 5 and 6) and six adults
before killing himself.
How has the media portrayed the Newtown tragedy and other
mass shootings?
Discussion
Read "Disaster Porn!" by Timothy Recuber.
How do you define disaster porn? What are some of the more
common criticisms of disaster porn, as recounted by Recuber?
Do you agree with Recuber that disaster porn's alleged danger,
"namely, the lack of compassion it is said to engender," has
been "overstated"?
The gross-out comedy, This Is the End (2013), is arguably a
parody of so-called disaster porn.

13. 窗体顶端Serial Killers
A serial killer is not to be confused with a mass murderer.
While a mass murderer is someone who has killed "a mass" of
people at one point in time, a serial killer is someone who
commits murders at separate points in time--that is to say,
"serially." When they are not carrying out their bloodlust, serial
killers blend in and behave seemingly like the rest of us. An
Obsession
North American popular culture is obsessed with serial killers.
While real serial killers do exist and have existed for a long
time, fictional serial killers (and fictionalized versions of real
serial killers) overpopulate the books we read, the games we
play, and the films and shows we watch.
Dexter, played by Michael C. HallBut why? One reason,
arguably, is because popular culture often makes serial killers
out to be compelling villains. Difficult to detect, serial killers
terrify us because they promise to kill again.
They also make for compelling heroes. Like an Aristotelian
tragic hero, fictionalized versions of serial killers are often
internally conflicted (they want to kill but they want social
acceptance) and, from early on, are doomed for life.
As the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle defined them,

14. dramatically effective tragic heroes have four key traits:
· Virtuous
· The tragic hero must have some redeemable qualities. In the
case of serial killers, we tend to imagine that, apart from their
serial killing, they live normal, healthy lives and are otherwise
virtuous. On the television show Dexter, for instance, the title
character is a pleasant guy who aims to do right. He even tries
to justify his serial killing by targeting only other killers.
· Typical
· This means that the character behaves in accordance with the
traditional social roles associated with the character's gender,
race, and class. One reason why Dexter, and so many of popular
culture's serial killers, blend in is because they appear
"normal."
· Realistic
· Similar to the last two qualities, this means that the characters
must seem real. Serial killers seem "real," partly because so
many of them are based on real-life serial killers.
· Consistent
· The character's actions should be consistent throughout the
drama. Part of our fascination and identification with serial
killers is that, throughout the drama, they seem internally
conflicted. They want to seem socially acceptable, but they also
want to carry out anti-social behaviour.
(In more than one way, serial killers do not abide by Aristotle's
definition of a tragic hero. For example, serial killers are
usually not of noble birth. The point here is that the archetypal
serial killer sets up dramatic conflict in ways similar to those
generated by Aristotelian tragic heroes.)Fame
Given that so many serial killers attain fame, we might want to
question whether fame is a wholly desirable quality. Author
David Schmid argues that
the iconic status of serial killers in contemporary American
culture is compelling evidence of the collapse of the difference
between fame and notoriety. In particular, the decline of merit
as a defining factor in fame means that nowadays to be famous

15. and to be notorious are frequently the same thing (Natural Born
Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture 9).
Serial killing brings publicity and, as the saying goes, there’s
no such thing as bad publicity.
窗体底端
ABOVE ARE COURSE MATERIAL
Here is assignment detailWrite about 350-500 words about
material reflection And around 150-200words reply to essay
below Disaster Porn + Zombies
Post editor Meg Greenfield wrote that “this is a society… that
dotes on disaster porn: burning high rises, crashing express
trains, population devouring wild beasts, and all the rest of that
cinematic hype” and it is interesting to see how disaster porn
can be utilized to display and inform about humanitarian issues
to an extreme of exaggerating cinematic made-up beasts such as
vampires and zombies in which the population fears to take over
our world.
I want to talk about the recent obsession of zombies within the
media and the violence that comes with it. The show The
Walking Dead comes to mind, and in this show it is normal to
stab a zombie in the head, since that is the only way to kill a
zombie. The Walking Dead shows children shooting and
stabbing zombies to survive and they are always living in fear,
trying to find a safe place to live without being eaten alive by
zombies. The world in The Walking Dead is completely run
down and the population of actual living people is very sparse
and it even resorts to living humans killing other living humans
over territory and the goods they could possess. Society is

16. obsessed with this show and it portrays the disaster porn of man
eat man, trying to survive while also fighting off the zombies
that could eat you and turn you into a zombie.
The original term disaster porn was rooted in concerns over
real-life disaster news coverage and genuine human suffering
but now disaster porn has a huge field in CGI cinematic effects
and exaggerated world destruction fantasies. It is as if the
population is so numbed from seeing genuine human suffering
that it does not impact the viewer anymore and the media is able
to show movies/tv shows about the world falling apart and being
drawn into that delusion because they know it could never
actually occur, but mind you there are some individuals who
believe dooms day/the apocalypse will come, who believe
zombies or vampires could exist.
Recently I watched World War Z in which a hybrid-zombie
virus takes over the world and the world crumbles in flames to
these zombies and only a small part of the population survives
because they have found another disease in which to inject into
their systems which does not attract the zombies to them. The
media loves to feed off of this zombie frenzy which is a
category of disaster porn.
I just believe as viewers of the media we have become so adapt
to viewing humanitarian disaster porn that we are not affected
by it anymore, in most cases people actually believe real-world
disasters gain too much coverage and it becomes “old news” at
one point, whereas cinematic disaster porn still captivates
audiences because this form of media is so exaggerated that it
captures viewers’ attention to feel sympathetic to human
suffering, even though it is blown out of proportion and our
world is not burning down or being taken over by zombies.
Overall disaster porn has lost its influential power to encourage
society to support western military action under the pressure of
humanitarian good but it is still useful in the means of gaining
viewers in the media, more for pleasure then humanitarian
action.