So, I was eating dinner (Salmon and french fries, the kitchen was smoky, my eyes stung, no one else was bothered.) My li'l Brother told some anecdote in which he said 'it's people' and his science teacher asks 'soilent green?' and 'have you seen the movie?'. That somehow brought the conversation to canibalism and if it was OK to eat people (Mom thought it important to distinguish between eating people that had already died and killing people to be able to eat them) and my Brother says, to me, 'did you see that episode [of family guy] where they were stuck somewhere and Peter began eating Joe's legs?' and before I could answer our dad goes all righteous and says my brother should not watch the show and how it has no redeeming qualities and is horrible and so on.

This turned to a sort of debate between 'Them' and me regarding whether it was true that lewd humor or violence in games and television causes inapproprite action and mimickry of things witnessed in games and televsion, OR it was more true that [makers of] games and television used the media to portray extreme examples of what already existed in society and shows did not make people imitate what they portrayed.

Well, it went on, and we agreed on certain points, but nothing was resolved...

Sometimes, my family members decide they don't want to argue with me anymore and just start cleaning up the table until I am sitting along and still telling the room why I am right.

Anyway, one point that was made is that I can't use myself as an example of whether the media can ruin society through convincing them that certain things (certain things being whatever is deemed inappropriate and objectionable in society in this particular debate, and which is debatable) are OK, normal, or should be imitated, becasue I was quite the critical thinker from a young age and 'normal children' can't tell if a show is satiring our society by protraying an extremely dysfunctional family that lives in a universe of cartoon physics, or depicts real life, and therefor is an accurate representation of all families and whatever the characters do is normal and OK.

I'm not being most clear. It's better with feedback.

Anyway. My parents, and my siblings who have kids all have some sort of guidelines for what they will allow their children to be exposed to. I'm not entirely against a family having some rules or guidelines, but I think it's a little harsh to say that a certain creator's show has no redeeming qualities, when the speaker does not even watch the show to know. I think this offends me because saying that something is not allowed at all (as opposed to in certain company, or in certain amount, or when the viewer reaches a specific pre-determined age) is pretty close to book banning.

I'm Catholic (or raised as such), and back in the day the church actually had lists of books that their members were not allowed to read under penalty of something harsh. Maybe they could get some special dispensation from a biship if they had a really good reason, I don't know. It's just, book banning, the the evil cousin book burning really bother me. (Farenheit 451 was on TV the other day. I have also read the book. Personal opinion of Michael Moore aside, I greatly dislike that he made reference to this work in naming one of his movies. I mean, maybe he was trying to say that the current regime covered up as and caused as much potential harm as book burning, but that's an extreme analogy. I just dislike that he went and put his work right up there with 451.)

Argh!

OK, if I had a kid, and they came home raving that they wanted some violent and controversial video game that public protest and outrage had made instantly more popular than paid advertising could have, I think I'd have to be all, 'Sure! Let's go rent it now!' and then sit right there with the kid and play it with them. Because, a teenage boy is not going to act the same around his mom as his friends and if he has to play the game with his mom saying 'let Mom show you how to slap the ho!' or something he's going to tire of the game fast.

School calls to say the kid was found with some drugs? OK, let's watch Trainspotting and Basketball Diaries and Kids and all the really horrible movies with drugs in them together, all in a row, overnight, so they can't sleep and then drive them to school the next day. For every comedy about smuggling pot, you have to watch one movie with a really disgusting strung out heroin addict or crackhead. Starting to get the idea that pot is funny and only other drugs are serious? Let's tell some art-school-day anecdotes about people with addictive personalities who gotted started on some 'harmless' gateway drug and became junkies. Put the controversial films to good use.

It's just...I so hate when people try to censor others. If there *is* a kid with an issue and plays Grand Theft Auto all day and then somehow thinks that it's normal or Ok to shoot the neighborhood, it's not the video game's fault. Dude! Where's him Mom and Dad? Not talking about cannabalism at the dinner table I can tell you! They are propbably at work or missing or something. Hook that kid up with a Big Brother or something! Damn. I know ther are families who struggle, maybe a kid only has one parent and he/she has to work to pay bills (where'd they get the games, then?) and regrets not being home more, but I *know* there are some rich families with two parents and a nanny and still no one is really spending time with the kid! Seriously! THose are the kids that need some help!

If you seriously live in some 'bad neightborhood' where cars get stolen or stripped and there are drive-by shooting or suicide bombers, I really really doubt watching television caused the violence. It's more like something else caused the violence adn television just showed the rest of us so we could be aware of the situation and try to help solve the problem.

Watching family guy is not going to do anything, except maybe make you appreciate show tunes and get beat up for being considered gay when you imitate the characters. (ha ha) Really! Why is it so objectionable if your 15-year-old boy says 'damn' and 'freakin' and talks about canabalism?? Hello! He could be planning out serial murders!

I watch CSI frequently and it's not like I want to go be like Tammy Felton and manipulate, rob and murder people, jump bail and end up dead! It's not like I want to go become an entymologist or a stripper or gambler either!

But, then, I am the special critical thinking one. No other kids in the world, especially those in poor families in bad neighborhoods can think for themselves and know what they see on television is not an accurate portrayal of reality (please not ethe sarcasm). Even stuff you see on Discovery channel is edited in some way. Reality TV is sincerely fake.

Dude, I didn't grow up with every advantage, and neither did my parents. Yeah, by the 90's we were doing well, but before that, eating a lot of canned food and receiving hand-me-downs from various neighbors and cousins. I know it's not money or neighborhood that makes a person have a certain set or morals. I knew this one girl in particular who came from the type of neighborhood where stray bullets could and did come through walls or windows of their residence and apart from havign a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend, she probably would have been considered to have high morals and excellent behavior by most of America.

So, it's not poverty, or neighborhood, or television, or access to video games that makes kids act out or get in trouble. Siblings from the same family can turn out very differently!

I think censorship is really wrong and my sister doesn't want her kids to watch THe Incredibles, because there is some gun violence (or something like that).

I think if you shelter kids *too* much, when they get out in the world, they will have no defenses prepared. I don't believe that wee lads and lasses should play Grand Theft Auto on a daily basis and watch arty films about the Marquis De Sade every weekend, but I do think that it's kinda wrong to say that something should never be viewed. Allowing a child to only see positive examples is as wrong as letting them only see negative examples. If it's the 'only negative examples' that parents fear, then all they have to do is start the kids off young with family video and gaming night and make sure that they are exposed to all *different* kinds of things when in the company of friends and family who can be supportive and answer questions, and ask questions.

People just need to talk to their kids!

Freakin let your high schoolers read Jean Genet! Make sure the kids know what real physics is, versus cartoon physics. Don't let them learn about DNA from cartoons and anime alone! etc!

If you're on the f-list, I may be preachin to the choir with some of you (assuming you read) but I had to get this stuff out, and it's my journal.

I just sooooo hate censorship and people telling others how to think or what they should be opposed to or whatever. I think, maybe it's true the most important thing is to learn to love, and to be loved, but one of the other important lessons in life is surely: learn to think for yourself.

Learn to think for yourself! That's it. Maybe I'll add it to my business card.