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Liked It “A sound and thoughtful take on pretend weapons, war games, video games, and other things that we blame and avoid without good reason.” see full review » see other reviews » |
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“A sound and thoughtful take on pretend weapons, war games, video games, and other things that we blame and avoid without good reason. ”
Solveig S wrote this review 3 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“The full title of the book here is Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence. In it, author Gerard Jones presents a thesis that exposure to violence --especially fantasy violence-- is not unhealthy to children, but actually critical to proper emotional, social, and mental development. It's the inverse of the "violent media makes violent kids" angle that most of us are used to hearing, and it's pretty interesting and compelling in places.
jmadigan wrote this review Friday, November 14 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Basically, Gerard's book boils down to the fact that when kids watch violent media, it helps them develop emotional coping mechanisms to work through the stressful and frightening things in their lives. When a kid picks up a coat hanger, points it at her playmates and pretends that it's a gun, she's not practicing for some future school shooting as much as coping with stressors in her life by feeling powerful and in control. The key is that the kid knows it's make believe and can tell the difference between, say, cracking someone on the head with a bat and having a mock sword fight with the empty cardboard tube. It's about facing and triumphing over their imaginary monsters. It's about the sense of power and control that this brings.
Gerard returns again and again to the point that kids are attracted to things that make them feel powerful in the face of what we adults may have forgotten is a very intimidating world. Whether it's Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Pokemon, Superman, or professional wrestlers, kids dig it because humans like to feel powerful and safe. Jones even hits some impressive insights when he talks about why pop idols like Britney Spears infatuate little girls so much: Spears is, in some very important ways, just like the ass kicking Power Rangers. She moves around the stage with powerful, kinetic energy, with backup dancers and even the camera reacting extravagantly to every kick, punch, and hip thrust in her routine. Girls like that kind of power, and they like pretending to have it. It's just in a different package than ninjas, barbarians, or super heroes.
This is just one example of the kinds of things that Killing Monsters presents in ways that I wasn't used to, and I enjoyed seeing different perspectives and conclusions. Jones mixes in reports from his own workshops that he's done with children of various ages with real research done by psychologists, sociologists, and other scientists. And for someone not trained in as a scientist, Jones displays an impressive amount of acumen for understanding and critiquing research on the effects of violent media. Even though he may use different terms, I often caught Jones talking about things like the confirmatory information bias, overgeneralization, and selection bias in the research he examined. It's not just some dude with an opinion. It's some dude with an informed and thought out opinion.
So while I'm not about to sit down with my 4-year old daughter to watch the Die Hard trilogy with her, Killing Monsters has made me rethink some of my assumptions and I'm not about to freak out just because she points her fingers at me, makes "pew! pew!" sounds, and gleefully shouts "I KILLED YOU!" Instead, I'll just clutch my chest and fall down. She loves that.”
“Short book by a former comics writer who now runs some kind of workshops (without lathes) for kids. Moderately interesting in places. He does a decent potted history of moral panics against new media, starting with the dime novel craze. He's also pretty good at analysing the flaws of research on linking violence and scary media,. He points out that the lab research generally involves forcing children to watch decontexualized clips then trying to measure aggression, but that that experience is different to normal TV watching. He also criticizes over-wide definitions of "aggression" which may actually be measuring emotional arousal.
TheophileEscargot wrote this review Tuesday, July 15 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
However, there's also a certain amount of irritating psychobabble. His thesis is that games of fantasy-violence are emotionally useful in allowing children to explore their emotions, but doesn't provide much more evidence than anecdote.
He also criticizes parents for not allowing their children toy guns, toy swords, or rough play. Maybe it's more of a US thing, but I don't really know any parents who are that ideologically rigid: they may be too rare to really worry about.
Overall, it's a bit clumsily written and not wholly persuasive. However, I'm not really the kind of person it's supposed to persuade. Might work better for nervous parents who are susceptible to proof by anecdote.
Also, for the first time I've seen "tow the line" used in an actual printed book. Now that's a bad influence.”
“With all the video games, imaginary gun play, and stick fighting in my childhood, by the standards of popular media I ought to be an extremely violent person. Instead, having read Killing Monsters, I understand why I played the kinds of things I did as a child and am a pacifistic.”
Ezra F wrote this review Thursday, December 13 2007. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
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