Killing Women A Pop-Music Tradition Analysis

Claire Zhou
Professor Heather ESL 50
27 October 2014
Different Attitude toward Violence
In “Killing Women: A Pop-Music Tradition” John Hamerlinck reveals that the seemingly harmless world of pop music has developed its own style of woman-killing songs. Violent misogyny in songs is not new. In the 1920s, a song called “Careless Love” sang by Lonnie Johnson, “in which he promises to shoot his lover numerous times and then stand over her until she is finished dying”(417). In fact, killing women who have been with another man are common plots in popular songs, this kind of songs often conceals the truth of killing. However, the themes of killing women are in many forms of music. Like the famous song “Run For Your Life,” which reveals
a fact of premeditation, stalking and threats to the target. Even the MTV generation has covered women-killing, such as “Man in Black” and “Delia’s Gone”. Nevertheless, Hammerlinck daims the music has no effect on behavior, so that means music does not cause violence and the singers are not vicious. Moreover , people are not concerned about the lyrics. If the melody is beautiful, who cares about the meaning? Indeeed, Music is one way an indifferent attitude towards violence is represented. Other ways society takes a casual attitude toward violence can be found in the video games we prefer, the TV we watch and the sports we play.
Playing video games is good way to spend time, but now video games tend to paint a violent picture. For example, Halo is one of the most admired and influencial games in shooting games. In this game, people can shoot each other. In just a few minutes, players can see many people laying down the ground. When a player kills someone, the player will smile and want to kill more. In another game called Naruto, there are two players at the same time in this game. If one player has more skills, the one player can kill the other. Usually, the player can see blood and corpse on the screen. When people play games, people will concentrate on it and do not have time to consider the violence. According to the statistics, approximately 90% of children in the U.S. play video games, and more than 90% of those games involve mature content that often includes violence. According to a study by Anderson, media is violence exposure that is teaching children and adolescents to see the world in a more aggressive kind of way. Through this suvery, it shows very strongly that repeated exposure to violent video games can increase aggression by increasing aggressive thinking. It proved that the violence has spread in the younger generation.
Norman Cousins, author of “The Decline of Neatness”, “Nothing is more essential in education than respect for the frailty of human beings; nothing is more characteristic of the age than mindless violence” (158).
In other words, the author tries to talk about the disadvantages of violent movies. Watching TV and movies are common ways to relax; however, they are filled with violent scenes. Like UFC, a competition of wrestling. In my opinion, I really hate this show, because it is too cruel, and I can not see the humanity in here. Whenever one player punch as an other player’s face, I can hear applause and laughter; this makes me uncomfortable. Another scary show is The Walking Dead. When I first heard this name, I was not interested in it. Then I watched a little bit, and I figured out I did not like it, because all I could see are blood and kill, all I could hear was scream. I even had a nightmare when I watched the walking dead. However, there are 11.5 million people watch The Walking Dead. Through watching violent movies, children may not care about human beings, may not know how to respect other people. The International Society for Research on Aggression (IRSA) concluded that evidence shows that media violence consumption can act as a trigger for aggressive thoughts or feelings already stored. It is a useless way for children to grow up; therefore, we should choose the movie and TV shows carefully, not letting violence cover our
minds.
I believe doing sports is good for our health, but now sports are getting more and more violent.
In America, football is very popular. However, as we all know, there are injured players in every football match. In September, Lamar Holmes for Atlanta Falcons had a foot injury and his return was questionable. When he got hurt, the fans of other team were laughing. Ice hockey is another dangerous sport. Former Estevan Bruins defenceman Nick Egan has passed away, Egan is believed to have died of a heart attack. He was only 21 and grew up in New Jersey, but the ice hockey took him away. As George Orwell said, “Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules, and sadistic pleasure in violence. In other words, it is war without shooting”. Sometimes, a player intentionally attempts to injure another player. This proves that violence really exists in some sports. When players genuinely recognize and acknowledge one another, it marks the game for us as a humane competition, so we need a proper attitude to treat the violence in
sports.
John Hamerlinck indicated that music can send a message of violence. In fact, there is a lot of violence in our daily life, but people do not regard it as violence. On the contrary, people may get too used to it. It is important for people to know that violence is useless for our life; it may hurt people. As Martin Luther said, “Nothing good ever comes of violence”. Therefore, we should deny the violence in our life. Many people have died because of violence, everyone can only live once. Only if you understand the bad effect of violence can you find a way to resist it.