First, we must define the "negative effects" of children's behavior. "In 1991, children under the age of ten committed more than 1000 acts of aggravated assault and 81 cases of forcible rape. Juveniles 12 and under committed ...murder, robbery, larceny-theft, and forcible rape"(Bennett 32). Generally, we can all assume that the aforementioned crimes are wrong,but the fact that they were committed by children, shows a fault in the society. It is hard to believe that simply viewing a movie could be so detrimental to children. But there is indeed evidence of specific reenactments of actions in movies. Evidence "...comes in the configuration of corpses, mutilated by disturbed teenagers to resemble victims in slasher movies..."(Violence in America Bender&Leone 163). If movies are so bad for children, wouldn't it be easy to just not allow children to see "violent" movies? This seems to be a simple solution, but one that cannot work for many reasons. The main reason is, mainstream movies that do well in the box office tend to air on public television. "We now view movies on television replete with graphic sickening violence. Some television stations now show these movies in the early evening, when children could be watching"(Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society Tipper Gore 60). Unfortunately, most of these movies are extremely violent, containing graphic sex scenes, bad language, and of course violent deaths. From his book, The Index of Cultural Indicators, William Bennett says, "The following are the approximate number of deaths recorded in five popular movies:

MOVIE DEATH COUNT

Die Hard 2 264

Rambo 3 106

The Wild Bunch89

Robocop 2 74

Total Recall 74

New movies are just as packed with violence. In the movie Natural Born Killers, by Oliver Stone, a young couple named Mickey and Mallory fall in love. Being so carefree, as young lovers are, they terrorize the country by killing people for sport. Mickey ends up in jail, starts a riot in the jail, kills MORE people, and escapes to return with Mallory. There is excessive violence throughout the entire movie and it portrays violence and murder as a comical subject.

It's not just the movies that are dangerous, but also the commercials for the movies. A commercial during a Saturday morning cartoon show advertized a Clint Eastwood festival with captions from a movie containing a graphic murder scene.(Gore 60)

Throughout the past thirty years, violence in the media has increased, and so has violence in our society among young people. "The fastest growing segment of the criminal population is our children"(Bennett 30). There have been several tests conducted over the past three decades determining what causes social violence.

The National Committee on the causes and prevention of violence reported in 1969 that violence in the media had a negative effect on children. Violent films encourage violent forms of behavior and promotes violence in daily life as being acceptable. Professor Malamuth, chairman of communications studies at the University of California and Professor Edward Donnerstein, a psychologist at the Center for Communications Research at the University of Wisconsin, have both conducted studies that suggest viewers of media violence are detrimentally affected.

Many psychologists seem to agree that the more violence viewed, the more accepting children are of violence, the more it desensitizes them, and the more likely they are to become violent. Dr. Eron and Huesman of the University of Ilinois did a 22 year study of violent behavior due to "a diet of violent entertainment."

The quarter of the children with the heaviest exposure to violence in 1960 at ages nine and ten were found to be convicted of of criminal offences during their adult lives 150% more often than the quarter of children with the smallest exposure to violent entertainment.

Violence has been prominent in film for many years and has not subsided to say the least. There are obvious negative effects on children who view violent films, varying from petty theft to murder and rape. Children should be taught to not watch violent films and parents should discuss with their children the dangers of watching violent films.