However, in literature and story telling the images were generally self-generated. In visual media someone else provides the image. __________________________ Bill Goss College of the Rockies Box 8500 Cranbrook, BC, Canada V1C 5L7 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ph: 250-489-2751 or 1-877-489-2687 (toll free)
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 6:29 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences Subject: Re: Media and TV And let's not forget that classic (European) fairy tales are quite bloody and gorey, and I believe that is quite true of most cultures' mythological stories. Annette Quoting David Epstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, Richard Pisacreta, Ph.D. went: > > > If the latest research is 30 years old, its time some people got to > work. > > I agree with that! > > > The latest playstation kickboxing games, and others, look real as > > hell to me. When students tell me that the movie "Ghandi" was > > boring except for the massacre scene, and my 15 year old comes home > > a few months ago and tells me that a few of her classmates thought > > that the images of 9/11 were "cool", an alarm bell goes off. Women > > fainted when they saw the original Frankenstein with Karloff in the > > 1930's. Today people watch mass murders, rapes, decapitations, > > buckets of blood exploding, and eat popcorn at the same time. Don't > > tell me we're more "sophisticated" today. > > I won't. Instead, I'll present some literary evidence that children's > fondness for images of gore was very much apparent in the 1930s (the > decade you cite). Here's an excerpt from a poem published by Ogden > Nash in 1935. The title is "Don't Cry, Darling, It's Blood All > Right." > > ...Hardboiled, sophisticated adults like me and you > May enjoy ourselves thoroughly with Little Women and > Winnie-the-Pooh, > But innocent infants these titles from their reading course > eliminate > As soon as they discover that it was honey and nuts and mashed > potatoes instead of human flesh that Winnie-the-Pooh and > Little Women ate. > Innocent infants have no use for fables about rabbits or donkeys > or tortoises or porpoises, > What they want is something with plenty of well-mutilated > corpoises. > Not on legends of how the rose came to be a rose instead of a > petunia is their fancy fed, > But on the inside story of how somebody's bones got ground up > to make somebody else's bread. > They'll go to sleep listening to the story of the little > beggarmaid who got to be queen by being kind to the bees and > the birds, > But they're all eyes and ears the minute they suspect a wolf > or a giant is going to tear some poor woodcutter into > quarters or thirds. [...] > > I'm not sure that the children of 1935, as described by Nash, were > very different from the students you're describing now. Might they > not have perked up during the massacre scene in _Gandhi_? Might they > not have described the images (not the events, but the images) of > September 11 as "cool" (or the contemporary equivalent)? > > Someone show me evidence that there's been a change. > > --David Epstein > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Annette Taylor, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology University of San Diego [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
