Negative Influences of Hollywood on Society
Introduction
Hollywood is based on California State in the US. The film production giant produces some of the most successful American movies that have continued to spread around the world and kept a highly rated reputation due to their effects on the viewers. Essentially, this organization has grown to become a renowned film producer of various movies meant to attract the preference of all their target consumers. However, despite this expansion, Hollywood is associated with producing unrealistic fantasy movies, which the viewers tend to reflect upon, wish to live these glamorous lives, and eventually imitate what their starring exhibit on television. Hollywood is greatly attributed to being a media channel that drives its viewers’ emotional, behavioral, and attitude, especially if what is being presented is entertaining and educative. The mass media tool also influences, motivates, and informs the target customers all over the world. On the other hand, Hollywood movies are also associated with producing films that exhibit negative values, thoughts, ideologies, and perspectives. Mainly, Hollywood is associated with promoting violence, sexuality, encouraging substance abuse or moral degradation among teenagers, and fantasy that affects viewers and the starring. Therefore, it is imperative to discuss Hollywood’s negative impacts on society to disambiguate the social impact against the economic value of this movie production firm.
Background
Films were originally welcomed in America during the industrial revolution, where technological inventors sought a patent on electrical gadgets and appliances. Some of the appliances applauded were the motion picture projectors and devices, which were an interesting evolution that would be readily embraced in the film market industry. While movies are mainly produced for entertainment, they expanded to influence other people differently. Films are essential in relaying messages as society perceives, exhibiting how societal values or cultures are changing, and conveying political messages, as well as for education reasons. However, while movies have myriads of purposes and reasons, their success and impact solely depend on the audience’s reception, as the producer’s primary target is to profit from their films.
Hollywood Promotes Violence
Watching a box office film often elicits a lot of awe in the viewers. While the person watching acknowledges that the movie’s overall tone is unrealistic, the aftermath effects of such sessions have deeply embedded side effects where people consider the world a violent place (Gildemeister 4). Indeed, Hollywood presents violence, deaths, and mass destruction as an everyday experience, thus fueling the viewers’ curiosity to seek out movies with such highlights. Particularly, the organization does not provide the complete information about violence. Instead, producers censor their scripts to hide some of the realities associated with wars (Gildemeister 13). As a result, people are blinded from recognizing the reality of the problem so that they can actively act upon it to relieve the world the aggression and the travesties of wars.
In fact, that is why when young people are frequently exposed to violent scenes, there are long-term and short-term effects that result from the same, especially in children. In the shorter term, kids exposed to aggressive behavior exhibit need to imitate what they observe from the films. In addition, teenagers often show aggression through their emotions, thoughts, and behavior at home and school. Mostly, childhood exposure to aggression yield into adulthood violence like spouse abuse and physical assault on others (Denzin 99). Due to extensive assault, engagement in fights and chronic exposure of people to violent scenes in real life, violent Hollywood content yields into a public health threat as more people are admitted to hospital with actual injuries, unlike the unrealistic ones conveyed on the motion movies, especially when they attempt stunts demonstrated in the films.
Hollywood’s Fantasy Negatively Influences the Lives of Stars and Viewers
Most movies are produced with a basic concept that the stars have perfectly wealth lives. In most films, the lead characters are exhibited as wealthy and greedy individuals who slowly transport the minds of the viewers into believing that unethical living translates into wealth (Zachary 1). On the other hand, actors are overwhelmed with the need to show their fans that what they perceive about them is true in their daily lives. Due to the overexpression of actors as fun-loving, well-behaved, and violence abstaining, these professionals ensure to live their lives per their fans’ expectations. While people perceive movie personalities as mortal people, they have real-life issues. For instance, Paris Hilton is serving a jail term, Jamie Spears is a teenage mother, and Lindsey Lohan is in rehabilitation (Zachary 1). However, viewers will always overlook such issues and only concentrate on the exaggerated personalities depicted in the movies.
On the other hand, young girls are often influenced negatively by the lifestyles of their female role models in Hollywood. The over-presented attitude and impossible standards of appearances have serious repercussions on young people’s body image (Radnor 1). As such, teens have been reported in cases of inadequate confidence, anger issues, and dissatisfaction with body looks. Moreover, eating disorders have become prevalent amongst actors and their viewers as the need to maintain appealing appearances. Subsequently, the viewers are inclined to have bodies that resemble those of their role model to fit in with their peer groups (Radnor 1). Notably, most people do not prefer good old-fashioned films, nor do they sell much compared to movies that are edited to associate with the misfortunes of the viewers. The reason being most viewers rush to watch fantasy movies since they are an escape to the world’s reality (Radnor 1). However, despite a temporary escape, the real problems facing people in their daily lives continue to haunt them as Hollywood only solves their problems for a few hours then they come back to reality.
Hollywood Movies Influence Alcohol and Tobacco Abuse in Teenagers
In today’s world, films are the primary leisure activity for most teenagers. In fact, through the movies, youngsters perceive what is acted is the truth, but in reality the scripts are edited to appeal to the viewers. Recurrent watching of Hollywood movies imbibed with alcoholic scenes is highly associated with increased occurrences of binge drinking among the American teenagers (Bergamini et al. 1). Frequent watching of movies where favorite celebrities are taking or buying alcohol greatly influence young people’s attitudes towards this behavior more than their parents (Chai 1). In fact, teenagers who watch many movies with alcoholic scenes are more likely to begin drinking and continue this habit for a lifetime compared to their peers who do not watch such films.
Consumption of tobacco products is highly associated with the scenes found in Hollywood movies (Bergamini et al. 5). The glamor that movies exhibit when a star lighting up a cigarette in public have an appealing effect on the viewers as they consider that it is acceptable to smoke as there are no side effects as their role models demonstrate (Charlesworth et al. 76). Notably, a significant percentage of box office movies contain scenes where the actors are engaging in tobacco smoking. The link between teens drinking and video content is that young people’s minds do not recognize the consequences that come from too much consumption of alcohol as it seems acceptable with their movie role models. That is why teenagers are the most affected by the consistent portrayal of attractive drinking habits, as they cannot discern reality from the fantasy exhibited in Hollywood movies (Chai 1). On the other hand, tobacco smoking is revealed with such glamor that teenagers see it as a means of developing masculinity, stress management ability, enhanced body image, attractiveness, weight control strategy, sexual appeal, and companionship (Charlesworth et al. 75). The personal notion in teens that art imitates real life activities leads them into copying inadequate behavior like substance abuse in a bid to find their identity and remain relevant to the world and their peers.
Hollywood Extensively Promotes Irresponsible Sexual Behavior
Most scenes in Hollywood films contain sex contents. Apparently, these acts are attributed with attacking the moral values of society as the viewers are exposed to obscene and the glamor of engaging in sex sprees (Denzin 99). The problem is that fans do not understand that sex scenes are special effects that producers rely upon to eliminate the chances of realizing the presence of weak dialogues, preposterous plots, or poor acting. As a result, the sex scenes in films fuel the curiosity in the younger generation and lead them to explore the idea of coitus at an early age (Gildemeister 13). Particularly, the glamorous exposure to sex scenes does more harm than good since they are dangerous, intimidating, and confusing for young people who do not understand the concept. Portraying sex on the big screen has short-term and long-term side effects (Gildemeister 4). Mostly, sexually charged films encourage young people to engage in unsafe sex experiences. Consequently, cases of lost virginity at early ages are recorded risky sex ordeals, and involvement in multiple partners. Worse, films with a lot of sex content do not acknowledge the importance of monogamy and marriage (Denzin 100). Instead, viewers are taught to engage in sexual relations with multiple partners for satisfaction.
Conclusion
In essence, the above discussion has indicated that Hollywood’s presence in the film industry has myriads of negative influences affecting society in social and ethical values. Apparently, while this organization has been in existence since the industrial revolution era, the scenes continue to exhibit negative influence to viewers regardless of their age differences and psychological capacities. It is worth noting that Hollywood films promote violence from childhood to late adulthood, which has significant repercussions, including spouse and general aggressive behavior towards others in society. In addition, the glamorized fantasy significantly affects the lives of the stars and their viewers as they try to maintain the perceptions of society, which hurts their health and social and economic wellbeing. On the other hand, Hollywood is attributed to have influenced more tobacco and alcohol abuse in teens since they perceive that what is presented on screen is real, thus fueling their need to belong with their peers and be accepted by the world. Lastly, Hollywood promotes sex as obscenity and nudity are highlighted in almost all films. As a result, marriages are broken, early indulgence in sex ensues, and unsafe sexual habits become prevalent. Hollywood has many negative impacts on society, and unfortunately, teenagers are the most affected. Therefore, intervention strategies should be designed to help eliminate the adverse consequences resulting from too much television indulgence.
Works Cited
Bergamini, Elaina, Eugene Demidenko, and James D. Sargent. “Trends in Tobacco and Alcohol Brand Placements in Popular US Movies, 1996 Through 2009.” JAMA Pediatrics, 2013, vol. 167, no. 7, pp. 634-639.
Chai, C. “Teens’ Drinking Habits Influenced by Hollywood Movies: Study.” Global News, http://globalnews.ca/news/214263/teens-drinking-habits-influenced-by-hollywood-movies-study/. Accessed 4 November 2016.
Charlesworth, Annemarie, and Stanton A. Glantz. “Tobacco and the movie industry.” Clin Occup Environ Med, 2006, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 1-7.
Denzin, Norman K. Hollywood Shot by Shot: Alcoholism in American Cinema. A. de Gruyter, 1991. https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=iEmaXMsHuT0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Hollywood+Shot+by+Shot:+Alcoholism+in+American+Cinema+by+Denzin,+Norman+K.&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Hollywood%20Shot%20by%20Shot%3A%20Alcoholism%20in%20American%20Cinema%20by%20Denzin%2C%20Norman%20K.&f=false Accessed 4 November 2016.
Gildemeister, Christopher. “An Analysis of the Portrayal of Catholicism on Prime-Time Network Entertainment Television, 1950-1980: Protecting Children or Protecting Hollywood?” Parents Television Council, 2014, pp. 1-32.
Radnor, A. “Celebrities and Their Influence.” Teen Ink Magazine, http://www.teenink.com/opinion/entertainment_celebrities/article/82342/Celebrities-and-Their-Influence/. Accessed 4 November 2016.
Zachary, W. “A Negative Influence.” Teen Ink Magazine, http://www.teenink.com/opinion/entertainment_celebrities/article/82314/A-Negative-Influence/. Accessed 4 November 2016.
