ABSTRACT
"Hollywood", uses, abuses, and drowns audiences with torrents of violence in its entertainment product. This chapter explores these issues, summarizes some of the relevant research findings on the ways in which violence affects viewers, and discusses the ethical issues implicit in violence as entertainment. Violence is a pervasive factor in contemporary America. Violence has become very nearly a character in its own right, an end rather than a means to the drama of the piece. At the same time, the realism of the violence has intensified. In a bygone era of Hollywood movies and television, violence stopped short of being gory, obvious, or intense, with few exceptions. Even cowboy, detective, or crime stories of that era used violence that appeared staged or happened offscreen. Most social scientists today believe that exposure to media violence is affecting us as a society. The victim of violent acts is also a prime factor in how onscreen violence impacts the viewer.
