Movie Violence

Since I am not a fan of viewing blood, and the violent actions that causes it; I

decided to watch a movie in which the violence is less grotesque. The movie that I chose to watch was “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.” I chose this movie because I have recently read that the children’s book series Harry Potter has been rated amongst the most violent books meant for young readers.

If you look at “Harry Potter” through a uses and gratifications perspective, children would most likely watch the first “Harry Potter” for entertainment, but continue to follow the series out of curiosity. Since “Harry Potter” is an ongoing series that is continually publicized by the media; more children want to know what it is about, so therefore in order to ease their curiosity they watch the movie. The more a child watches of “Harry Potter” the more of a Harry Potter fan he or she becomes. Since Harry Potter is now becoming a role model for these kids, they will eventually start to play Harry Potter, and most likely mimic what they see in the movies. Most of the scenes in the “Harry Potter” series contain at least one or more acts of violence. One of the worst scenes in Harry Potter is one that includes two of the professors, and their demonstration on how to battle with their wands. After their demonstration they also chose two students; Harry and Malfoy, to do a student demonstration. This scene practically tells children that are viewing it that it is okay to fight with one another. The worst example set in this scene is that the professors are not even stepping in to stop their fighting, which sets the example that it is okay to fight.

Even though I have seen the “Harry Potter” movies numerous times, I have never realized how much violence they show. Within the first few minutes, Harry was violently fighting with dobby the house elf, as well as being verbally attacked by his uncle. Within the first half hour of the movie, Harry and Ron were being violently attacked by the “womping willow.” Within one minute there were about fifteen acts of violence against Ron and Harry, and the consequences for those acts were that Ron and Harry got detention, which sets the example that the bully does not get in trouble, rather the person that gets attacked gets in trouble. If I had viewed this scene prior to obtaining a higher level of moral reasoning, I would have gotten