violence!

 I remember being an open proponent of screen violence when I was younger.  I've mostly given up expressing any kind of support for it, because people are so stuck in their views.  But I've come to realize, where people who decry it are mainly concerned with the destruction and loss that ensues when murder occurs, what I've always found stimulating was more the fantastical elements; movies that take what you normally see and combine them in ways that you don't normally see them.  For instance, in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the main villain is this weird lump of metal that can liquify at any moment.  Its' arms can meld into swords and it can physically blend itself with certain kinds of objects.  And in a couple different scenes you see the sword/knife/stabbing weapon effect being used.  One particularly noteworthy one was when this guy was drinking milk and the machine shot its arm through the milk container and the guys' head.  I think even at the age I was at when I saw it, there was a degree of sadness that accompanied it, but it was also just not something I would expect to see.  You can go through any war zone and you're extremely unlikely to see anything of the sort.  And very few of any of the people I've ever met have been in a war zone even.  Violence in movies is a safe way to be shaken by the very real possibility of death and destruction.  Nobody is going to be gleeful and joyous 24/7.  If you're not going to be exuding bright cheer all day, why not take that boredom or possibly even anger or sadness and channel it appropriately?  As wrong as it may be, no movie is going to be make anyone happy.  Satisfied, entertained, sure, but happy?  Even comedies have a degree of tension that carries them forth.  Ghostbusters, as much fun as it was, was about a fight between humanity and an evil inter-dimensional entity.  You had a guy abusing his education and job description, getting rejected by the woman of his dreams, and he and his friends having to resort to smoking because they were under so much pressure from their job (Apparently they were so busy, they never got a chance to change their business hours of 24/7).  

Obviously there's been cases where kids watch violent movies and become violent themselves.  I personally think that's most likely a combination of things 1) Deficient parental guidance.  2) Over-saturation.  I didn't spend the entire day watching the likes of Platoon, The Terminator, Terminator 2, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.  There was not a single day I spent entirely watching movies until I got to be about 14 and even then it wasn't a regular thing.  I didn't even see A Nightmare On Elm Street until I was about 14 because people were so concerned with me being forthright about my penchant for violent movies.  Honestly, I think part of the reason movies like The Terminator resonated with me was because I was not a particularly happy child growing up.  I've always been somewhat melancholy.  I wouldn't say I was depressed, per se, although at times that melancholy has extended into depression.  I don't know exactly why that is.  My guess is it was passed through my mom being so sad as I was growing up. Osmosis, in a sense, I guess.  One of my favorite movies when I was about 7ish was The Last Unicorn.  If you really watch that movie, you'll find it's a pretty dang melancholy movie.  It's not some chirpy "hi ho, we go" or "hakuna matata" kinda thing...  

I'm not trying to say that kids across the board should be allowed to watch The Terminator, or anything else for that matter.  It should be understood by the kid that human beings do have the capacity to die (and that things like blood loss etc. can make that happen somewhat quick) but it should also be understood by the parent that the people you see in movies, even if it's based on true events, are not real.  People, men (boys), especially, have a taste for warfare.  That taste should be tempered as a boy becomes a man, as it has in my case (and I'd assume most other men, to varying degrees), but I'm not sure it should be outright discouraged.  It's a delicate balance, admittedly.  You want to teach kids to increase in their value of life, and to all the more so behold rightly in their sight what should be precious, but God did create men to be fighters.  (He didn't create men to be murderers.)