Current Events > Complaints in the US of "violence on television" arose in the 1960s.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I can't help but wonder if it's due to the Vietnam War. Nobody complained in the 1950s about Superman and the Lone Ranger beating people up. And it was still considered ethical to feature guns in children's shows.

Then the 1960s hit, parents became concerned about violence on television, and everything became Flintstones and the Jetsons for the next two decades. I wonder if the initial complaints about children being exposed to violence came about not in response to the programming itself, but rather to the constant war coverage. If you watch the news and see images of dead soldiers and dead civilians, then wake up the next morning to see your impressionable son watching characters in fiction shooting at each other, that could potentially be pretty alarming. When you put those back to back, it almost feels like grooming kids to be soldiers.

I've always thought too much violence on television was a bogus claim. I still do. But I find it interesting that it wasn't an issue until the US went to war with Vietnam.