Why so violent?

Are you an avid film viewer? Prefer casual viewing? No matter your movie watching status, I’m sure you’ve noticed a difference in the amount of violence in films over the last while. If you’re old enough to remember, you know how mild the films were throughout the 40's, 50's and the 60's even. Perhaps you’ve heard this statement before from an aged film viewer (I have): "The movies coming out now are so violent compared to the ones we had growing up." While I won’t disagree with that statement, let’s take a look back at an animated cartoon that ran from 1940-1957. This cartoon won 7 academy awards and was witnessed by millions of kids growing up at that time (not to mention many millions more from all the years it has been in re-runs). The Cartoon is called "Tom and Jerry." Not only is it a surprisingly violent cartoon, it’s also packed with racist prejudice and harmful stereotypes. To back my argument, take this quick and watered down version of the 1950 Tom and Jerry episode entitled: "Little Quacker", for example: (There are 3 central characters in this episode and the pandemonium all occurs in a barnyard: A little yellow duckling named Quacker; a brown mouse named Jerry; and a gray cat named Tom) -Tom swings a meat cleaver at Quacker, misses and chops an entire loaf of bread in half (from front to back). - Tom swings the meat cleaver at Jerry, almost beheading him, but only catches his whiskers. - Jerry tricks Tom into chopping his own tail with the meat cleaver (he miraculously retains his tail in the next scene). - Tom runs full boar into a 2x4 (set up by Quacker, and Jerry), gouging him right in the throat. -Tom gets up and runs face first into that same upright 2x4. - Tom swings the meat cleaver at Jerry and Quacker, misses, hits the post of a lean-to roof and brings the entire roof down on his head. -Tom swings the meat cleaver numerous times at Jerry while Quacker swings ANOTHER meat cleaver he attained numerous times at Tom, they both miss several times. -In the entire aforementioned chopping process, Quacker chops a telephone pole in half, and Tom tries to outrun the falling pole, but the end of the falling pole hammers him like a nail in to the ground. -Tom attains a shotgun and tries to lure Quacker to the other side of the barn with a duck call whistle. - Jerry changes the duck call whistle with a lit stick of dynamite and the dynamite blows up in Tom’s face (the top part of Tom’s head flies up into the air during the explosion). -Tom chases Jerry and Quacker into a tree, shoves the barrel of the gun through, the barrel loops around and is now pointed at Tom’s rear. -Tom thinks he’s "gonna get ‘em!", he pulls the trigger and blasts all the fur away from his own rear. -Jerry and Quacker hide in a worn out rubber tire, Tom picks up a near-by sledgehammer and swings it at the tire. -The sledgehammer bounces back and pummels Tom in the face, causing him to blackout and fall over backwards. - Tom chases the two down with a self-propelled grass trimmer and accidentally shaves all the feathers off the front side of the mother duck (Who has finally appeared to rescue her baby). -She finds out what Tom did to her baby, calls for the sailor-tattooed and extremely buff father duck. - He appears and savagely attacks Tom with the Lawn trimmer. This episode doesn’t really raise any eyebrows until you really sit and write down what happens within it. Is society Desensitized much? Yea, verily. It probably wouldn’t have been so bad and my argument here would be less legitimate, had the cartoon not been so mainstream. In conclusion, if one really wants to pin the medal of blame upon somebody’s chest for why the film industry has gone away from their mild ways, quite frankly I believe one could point a finger at the cartoons that were created (Looney Tunes as well), during the "Golden Age of Cinema." It certainly would have eventually happened anyway, but these cartoons undoubtedly accelerated the process.