These days most American families favorite thing to do is come home and put on their favorite show. Hollywood studios make billions a year in ticket sales for blockbuster movies. While the drama or action that these programs show may be entertaining, these shows do have a negative effect on a person’s mind and body. Due to the lifestyles that these shows portray some people now have an unrealistic outlook on how they should live their life. Some people will even go to the extent of visiting a plastic surgeon in order to resemble that celebrity.
Currently the hottest thing on television is watching someone else’s life. Reality television stars are some of the biggest celebrities of today. These stars influence many teens to change their wardrobe, buy expensive brands, buy the stars favorite makeup products, and even changing their diets to be like the celebrity. Although some of these changes may not be drastic, it does take away one person’s individuality. Some viewers do go way beyond the minor changes and reach drastic measures in order to be trendy or “fit in”. In order to see the impact that reality tv has had on apparel trends, Jericho Communications had put out a shopping survey that was given to people ages 13 to 65 across the United States. The results of the survey showed that today’s shoppers purchase clothing with sexuality in mind. These shoppers who had sex in mind while purchasing were also viewers of reality tv. The adults that participated in the survey consider “The Apprentice” one of their favorite shows and more than half of the participants' shop with sexuality in mind. With that being said, the female participants on “The Apprentice” frequently wore miniskirts in order to get ahead on the show rather than really showing initiative, which is not a realistic representation of the business world.
Television is making the world we live in a more sexualized. It is common to see sexual content throughout television shows and movies throughout all age demographics. Crime Watch Daily covered a story about the “Cannibal Cop” Gilberto Valle a story about an NYPD that lived a secret life on the internet. That secret life was vicariously living through fetish websites the corresponding anonymously with others like him about rape, kidnapping, and cannibalism. He eventually was caught by his wife and turned into the FBI by her. Crime Watch Daily hired a famous psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz to study Valle. During that time period, Valle confessed to Dr. Dietz that the origin of his dark fantasies was when he watched the movie “The Mask” starring Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz. The scene that would change his life for the worse was when Cameron Diaz is tied up and bound and The Mask comes to saves her and swallows the dynamite and says “That’s a spicy meatball”. While that particular scene does not really show any sexual content, throughout the whole movie Diaz was always dressed in provocative clothing and meant to look “sexy”. This movie was marketed towards adolescent teens. While it is up to the parents on what their children watch, most parents do not control the media their children or adolescents are exposed to. Not only do parents often not pay attention to how often their child is consuming television, they also do not realize the shows that introduce them to problematic behavior. In the book “ Kids and Media at the New Millennium” by Donald F. Roberts he does an analysis of children’s media use. In that analysis, he discovered that more than half of pre-teens to young adults have a television in their bedroom. The study also showed less than half of children 2 to 7 years old have a television in your room.
Television and movies not only sexualize mainstream media, they also put out mass amounts of violence animated and real. In almost all adult movies there is at least one scene portraying something of violent nature. Not only in adult movies do they portray it but in children’s television shows as well. My little sister watches a show “KC Undercover” and in every episode, she is physically fighting with multiple people. Recently the National Television Violence Study watched ten thousand hours of television shows over the course of three years and found that more than five thousand hours of it contained violence. Children’s shows being the ones that were most violent. Children view over 10000 acts of violence a year.
While violence and sexuality is a big issue on how media affects one’s brain, it also can affect their wants and desires. While watching television there are at least twenty commercials within a 30 minute time period. Those commercials normally are on in order to convince the viewer that they want what they have to sell. This can include anything from food, electronics, cars, and even homes. For instance, when a tv show takes a commercial break and the next thing you see on tv is a big juicy steak from Outback, it makes you want to get up and go to Outback. Apple takes a big part of this marketing advantage by placing apple devices in almost every movie or tv show we see. When we see our favorite stars using them it makes us want to get one and feel like a part of the elite.
More recent television shows have made things like teen pregnancy a mainstream thing and acceptable when 10 years ago it was taboo. Shows like “16 and Pregnant”, “Honey Boo Boo” and “I am Jazz” can cause adolescent teens to act out emotionally due to what they view on television. During 2016 and early 2017 the internet sensation “Cash Me Outside” girl Danielle Bregoli took over social media. She came to fame after being on an episode of “Dr. Phil” where she and her mother spoke on her disrespect and rebellious behavior. Instead of Bregoli being shamed for her actions and behavior at such a young age, she became one of the social media stars that teens idolize.
Throughout mainstream media, television, and movies there's is an extreme amount of profanity, violence, and sexuality. While all of these outlets are very entertaining for us, it can have a negative effect on our brain. It can change our wants and desires from materialistic items to personal changes, and lifestyle.