Blame Hollywood

Mass media plays an important role in influencing our daily lives, the decision that we make and the topics to be discussed between friends and family. Well, it may not be successful in telling us what to think, but instead what to think about. The mass media has the ability to mentally order and organize the world for us. Hence, the mass media is a powerful tool that constantly gives us updates and affects our lives to a great extent. The biggest player in the media industry currently is the Hollywood industry. The western culture has very much influence our way of life especially in Singapore as Singapore is one of the highest country to consume American products. Therefore, we can safely say that most of our perception that we build on overtime are mostly American views.

I came across an article recently titled "Nicole blames Hollywood", dated on the 22nd of October 2009. The article can be found on http://theblemish.com/2009/10/nicole-kidman-blames-hollywood/. According to the article, it says that "... (Nicole) condemned Hollywood for contributing to violence against women by portraying them as weak sex objects." The article also said that "Nicole should also blame Hollywood for placing too much emphasis on youth and beauty thereby forcing aging actresses to inject their faces with Botox." There is an increasing number of people using Botox to make them look younger and it is considered to be a norm to be practicing it nowadays. Hollywood plays with woman's insecurities in telling them that they are not good or pretty enough and hence, Hollywood encourages them to practice plastic surgery and Botox to enhance their beauty. According to the Cultivation theory, it suggests that the mass media is responsible for shaping, or ‘cultivating’ viewers’ conceptions of social reality. It does not influence the audience attitude directly, but instead it is cultivated indirectly. Mass media portrays beautiful and thin actresses which many of them uses plastic surgery and botox. This indirectly gives the message that having natural beauty and being fat is unacceptable and ugly. Hence, people in general will tend to have that kind of perception about beauty as well although beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
The theory also states that heavy viewers of the television are exposed to more violence and therefore are affected by the Mean World Syndrome. People who watches a lot of television are likely to be more influenced by the ways in which the world is framed by television programs than the individuals who watches less television. According to http://www.9-11heroes.us/news-children-violence.php, it says that "It has been shown time and time again that being exposed to violence does influence children - and not for the good. Kids who see violence often can become numbed by it so that they do not consider it anymore any "big deal" to see another human being killed. Eventually they may start accepting violence and force as a means to solve their problems." In my opinion, watching and being exposed to violence through mass media will lead children to think that violence is acceptable and it is not wrong to use it to solve problems. Hence, it's no surprise that crime rates such as gang fights are increasing at this day and age. It is up to the viewers to filter the messages portrayed by the mass media and not be too influenced by it. The judgments that we make are for us to control and we should not be swayed by the different views and perception portrayed by the mass media.