by Walter T. Runn

Created on: June 09, 2010

Film As The New Literature

As a child, my parents constantly told me that rather than watching movies, I should read books because movies will decrease both my creative capacity and my educational potential. I have always disagreed with them because as much as I gained from reading books, I felt that I gained a lot from watching movies and television as well. When I was younger, I felt that watching fairy tales really helped me come up with stories that I would write on my own. As I grew older, I began to analyze and peel each film layer by layer, and I was very surprised to find many features of many films that helped me broaden my perspective as a global citizen and as a person in general. Some of the films that have done this include the films 9, The Kingdom, 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days, Brokeback Mountain, Coraline, Gladiator, and Watchmen. All of these films address either social and/or individual issues that are very present in our world today, such as homosexuality, violence, self esteem, and racism. I have also found many research indicating the negative effects that TV and movies have on people, especially children. The most common argument against allowing children taking part of this media form is that TV and movies promote violence, risky behavior, and increases the chance of obesity (Gavin). It is true that these things are promoted and caused through this form of media; however despite of all of these negative effects, there are more we gain than we lose given the proper methods and proper use of TV and film.

Our culture is very quickly moving towards a very visual society: YouTube and Facebook, both very visual online networking systems are dominating the internet. The money made through tickets bought by movie-theater-goers is greater than the tickets sold to professional sport matches (Plantinga). Mary L. Gavin, a specialist who writes for Nemours and Kids' Health, a non-profit organization devoted to children's health, in her article “How TV Affects Your Child”, implies that this movement is not a positive movement to children. She states “As kids get older, too much screen time can interfere with activities such as being physically active, reading, doing homework, playing with friends, and spending time with family” (Gavin). Due to fear of this happening, many parents have placed rules and regulations regarding TV and film viewings. Some families do not even have a television in their house because they hold to their belief

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