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<title> Jean-Claude van Damne and the V-chip or Need we be protected? </title>
The amount of excessive violence in media is becoming a problem almost everywhere in the world today. And of course, it is what it will do to children that concerns us the most. Violence can be found in many very different forms on TV. The nine o'clock news often contain very violent depictions of (very violent) current events. Documentaries can show violence. Tom and Jerry are constantly beating each other up, cracking heads and squashing feet. Bellafante state in her article that a problem with using the V-chip would be its unability to notice a difference between violence in Terminator 2 and violence in Schindler's List. I am not sure there really is, or should be a difference between it. Showing Schindler's List to young people is surely the right pedagogical thing to do, but it gives them nightmares in the same way the showing ofArnold Schwarzenegger fighting futuristical bad guys would do. This brings up another aspect of stopping children from watching violence; Are we doing it to protect kids from having nightmares, that is for their own good, or merely as a way to prevent them from "taking the violence to the streets", and thereby perhaps kicking a grown-up in the head? As much as I would dislike that happening, I think we should get our priorities right. When a child has taken the step of kicking down a senior citizen the Karate Kid-way he, (or she for all that matter), becomes a juvenile delinquent and we care no more about its further destiny.
	 Besides, I am not certain if there is such a clear connection between the watching of Steven Seagal or Jean-Claude van Damne and the violent youths in the real world. Humans are a fierce race, some of us more than other. In many cultures still, as in the world of animals, the strongest one is king. 
	 Comparing violence in Terminator 2 and violence on the news I think the violence on the news is worse by far. (Violence in Swedish is also particularly scary, maybe because it then becomes to close to home.) Perhaps I have reached an age where one can differ between pretend-kicks where no one actually gets hurt and grewsome depictions of gunned-downed bodies decaying in opened massgraves? Sometimes I think we underestimate children and their ability to understand the world around them. It is indeed very hard for adults to understand children and what can be harmful for them. Kids' minds work in another way than ours do, and they can find everyday-things horribly scary and with the same logic see Arnold Schwarzenegger as a World Savior.
	 All things considered the world is a cruel and violent place and an attempt to protect its children from violence all together would be a fulltime-job. If children were to lead their lifes in such complete vaccum it would be extremely difficult for them as grown-ups to adjust to the harsh reality. Even the fighting politicians seem to find the arguing for or against the V-chip, (and here preferably the for) a good springboard for political attention, and care for the use of it as merely that. It is a smart way to portray a hero, a good man who keeps guard of our homes, our kids and what we are exposed to from the TV. If the TV is such a menace to society we should all get rid of our TV-sets! When push comes to shove we simply can not bare to sacrifice Days Of Our Lifes or the Superbowl final just to protect our children from what may or may not be bad for their young unmoulded minds.
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