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The basis of this investigation, conducted through the integration of primary and secondary research, was to expose the motives behind the increase in ultra-violent films. The project was an important examination, not only of this literal increase, but a study of the current young generation of persons and their consumer tastes as developed by the alteration in their societal environment. As psychologist Lesley Russel explains, “It’s also to do with technology, because we’re so exposed to so much more violence... now I mean all you have to do is turn on the TV or the internet and you can see things.”
My hypothesis, ‘The new cult breed of ultra violent films represents a degraded form of morality yet have a prominent place in 21st century as a result of the atmosphere of fear and terror propagated by the state of the social and political environment’ was partially proven as it was agreed that the films were amoral and perpetuated amoral themes. The first portion of the hypothesis is mostly proven as audiences agree that there is an overly exposed theme of depravity among ultra-violent films, yet whether they have a place in society as evoked by the state of society is debated. The teenagers assessed within the focus group adamantly disagreed claiming “the reason people may ‘require’ this level of stimulation is because film makers keep pushing higher and higher levels of violence- if anything the society we have grown up in would condemn this portrayal of life as it lessens the value we place on real life events- like 9/11”, coming to the consensus that “I don’t think the state of the world affects our tastes”. My interview with Lesley Russell revealed a market for these films has been created, correlating to the same point put to the focus group with, “Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing but I do agree that... people are interested in it because of the type of society that we’re in.”
The reason for this may be a lack in clarification or understanding from the focus group that resulted in a group mentality of agreeing with one another, thereby posing a limitation to the reliability of my results, as with my interview whereby I was not able to directly conduct it and thus may not have exposed the full potential over her professional knowledge. However, these methodologies exposing differing perspectives efficiently provided the necessary means to conclude that these new films do have a place in our society and that this is probably divided evenly between entertainment purposes and that of a “therapeutic” experience for today’s youth. Despite this, ratings and film producers trying to ‘out-do’ one another will always win out over morality and appropriateness exposing a definite aspect of continuity in society despite what other changes may present themselves.
In terms of my Personal Interest Project and my connection to it I have not merely learnt what it means to be socially and culturally literate and how the concepts of society and culture integrate into every circumstance but further in depth knowledge of the horror industry and the importance of teenagers to be able to retain their awareness of ‘real world’ violence. We need to maintain the social and cultural literacy of our populace and, accordingly, not dissolve into an indifferent, desensitised society.
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