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<title> Don't blame the TV </title>
There is always an ongoing discussion on the topic of how the TV and the movies affect us, with its bad language, overly violent action and to scary and bloody images. I am one of those people who find it hard to believe that we should be so easily influenced (and stupid) to let some fictive story control our minds and ways to act.
I am a huge Hollywood film addict. I try to see everything I can from comedy to action and horror. I have been doing this ever since I have been able to sneak in to a 15 rated movie and I still know that you cant pick up a bottle and smash it over someone's head without seriously hurting this someone. They (the filmmakers) have not been able to fool me into believing that it is possible to jump out of a train moving at high speed without at least breaking a few bones. Simple physics and a little common knowledge about the human anatomy has thought me that.
I am not totally ignorant of the effects TV might have on some people. But I do think that there is more to it than just watching TV and suddenly you are a serial killer in the making. I think that everything around us influence us. Such as books, music, news and everyday things. It is often said that books and music don't influence someone (at least not in the same way as a raw action movie) to go out one night and bash someone's head in, and that it is the violent images of the TV that drives people to these acts. I find this to be wrong, since everyone interprets a text individually and therefore it is difficult to say what influences a person. As a matter of fact several convicted killers have claimed to have been influenced by books. Example: Mark Chapman, the man who shot and killed John Lennon in 1980, indicated when asked why he did it, that got the idea to kill Lennon from J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye. He said he felt that he and the main character in the story, Holden Caufield, were very similar because they were both angry social outcasts, who were recovering from a mental breakdown. This novel has surfaced several times in the aftermath of murders and shootings during the last half century of the American history. 
The reason that TV-violence is an interesting topic to discuss is the events that trigger the discussions. A few recent examples are the high-school shootings that occurred earlier this year in the US (I am not sure about the dates). There were of course some opinions that pointed to TV-violence as a reason why these shootings took place. Now, I am not saying that this is totally wrong but I also think that there are other circumstances involved. The fact that almost anyone can get and own a gun in the US, in accordance with the upbringing and the surroundings in many suburbs in the metropolitan areas looks too me as it might be a bigger influential power. 
The debate of entertainment-violence and its influence has been going on for a long time and there are strong arguments both for restricting it as well as not. I like it, I don't want a ban. So far the evolution has been moving in the direction of less or no censorship, but I suppose it is possible that something may change in a near future to make us all choose to ban the violence on the TV.
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