Does Crime Movies Influence Real-life Crime or Are We Trying to Avert Our Eyes On The Real Cause?

about 2 months ago

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Movies and TV shows were just some of the visual media content that helps to provide us with entertainment. With the combination of people acting a role and the use of visual effects, Movies and TV shows were able to depict us a story. Most of the times, they were a work of fiction, varying across different genres but there are also times were they are based on a real-life story, true stories that tells a life of a person which can be either influential of controversial. And with the past years, we've come to watch shows that centers its plot on the world of criminality where some will even go and make a movie depicted from the life of a criminal as if to glorify their actions and this has caused people to fear how making this types of movies can influence the increase of crime rates in the world. But were this fears justified or are there other factors to consider for the creation of these types of media content. That is what I will try to answer in this post.

Movies and TV shows not only provides us with entertainment with the stories that it tries to convey on its viewers but it can also impart us with a strong message as well as lessons which we could apply in our personal lives. With that in mind, it is just valid to think that movies can also influence people to do bad things or even resort to criminality specially when they were made in a way that seems cool and portray the criminals as the main protagonist.

One of such is the show Narcos, a Netflix series that retolds the life of Pablo Escobar, one of the most wealthiest criminal in the world that has the monopoly of the entire cocaine trade in the whole United States. He was also reported to be responsible for the murder of 4000 people including police and government official that may have tried to oppose him. At some point, he was even able to use his power and influence to attain a political position in Columbia, just to show how much power he was able to accumulate. That said, not everything he does were evil. He was also involved in doing some philanthropy and charity work, spending millions in developing poor neighborhoods and building facilities such as hospitals and church which ended up for him to be regarded highly by the public that his funeral was attended by 25,000 people.

With the things that Pablo Escobar was able to achieved and the contrast between how the public regard him as a good person and how the government has deemed him as one of the worst criminal, gives an interesting story to tell to the people but at the same time, it can also teach us that greed, power and criminality had its consequences; that even a person in the greatest heights of power can still fall. Also, having this type of shows made allows our eyes to be open about that things that happens within our society.

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Do crime movies help to increase the rate of crime in the society?

Regardless of the absence or presence of Crime- themed movie, crimes rates would still be apparent as it has been in existence throughout the humans history way before any form of media has been available for distribution. Do you know what really push people to criminality? It's problems such as poverty, hunger, inequality, illiteracy, lack of jobs, mental problems and many more. Like when we saw a robber that was captured on news, some of their reason would likely be because they need to pay for their families hospital bills or does not have a job and not because they thing that stealing is cool because they watched Money Heist so they feel like they want to steal. The more we try to address this problems, the higher the chance that we can significantly reduce the crime rate in our society.

Can movies with no crime elements helps to improve society?

I don't believe that removing crime elements will help to improve the society. Instead, what it only does was to make us ignorant about the problems within our society like how the Joker movie contains lots of violence and crime but it was also able to open our eyes about mental health issues. At the same time, removing crime content on movies and shows will just place a restriction in people's creativity. As a platform that promotes free speech and anti- censorship, restricting creativity will be against the very things that we are trying to advocate.

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