Et tu Scooby? UK ‘expert’ says ‘those pesky kids’ make children more violent….
I remember a time when Eddie Izzard proclaimed Scooby Doo the ‘Faust of American culture’ and said it was our pass in the world at large! Now the UK ‘experts’ want to slap an R rating on ole Scoob! Next they will have he and Shaggy exercising to set a good example and they’ll limit their calorie consumption (no pizza for Scooby and Shaggy?).
Dr Karen Pfeffer, a senior lecturer at Lincoln University, said that risky behaviour which would normally lead to injury is rarely shown to have negative consequences in cartoons.
WOW! Really BREAKING NEW GROUND over there in the Uk eh?
She claims to have found evidence that there children who watch violent programmes are more likely to engage in risky behaviour and injure themselves.
Dr Pfeffer, who is also an international mentor for the World Health Organisation, will address the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents this week and call for children’s television programmes, particularly live action programmes, to carry ratings for parents to make informed choices for their children.
Among the programmes she deemed to contain the most risky behaviour were Scooby-Doo, Batman, X-Men and Ben 10.
“I have looked at whether television’s portrayal of risky behaviour affects children and have found evidence of children imitating dangerous TV behaviours, evidence of a positive correlation between amount of TV viewing and injury rates and evidence that TV viewing can affect children’s perceptions of risk,” she said.
“The problem is that these characters engage in risky behaviours and experience great violence but the negative consequences of dangerous behaviour are usually not portrayed..
Hey Scooby and Shaggy have a VERY HEALTHY sense of SELF PRESERVATION! They run like crazy at ANY sign of trouble!
And this ‘expert’ throws in some gender bias too, just because! Hey has anyone told her the TeleTubbies are promoting a gay culture?! LOL!
..“TV provides dangerous role models for children, especially boys. It is recommended that children’s television programmes, particularly live action programmes, include ratings for parents on the portrayal of injury content. This would assist parents to make informed decisions.”
Dr Pfeffer’s paper, Risk and injury portrayal in boys’ and girls’ favourite television programmes, will be published later this month.
November 8, 2009. Tags: American cartoons, American culture, Ben 10, Eddie Izzard on American movies, Popular Culture, Scooby Doo, television ratings UK, UK popular culture, X-Men. Art, Comedy, Education, Entertainment, Fantasy, Fiction, Film, graphic art, Politics, Popular Culture, Saturday Morning Cartoons.
Moderate in the Middle 
beth replied:
The bias towards gender is a mere finding that she has highlighted, as any psychologist would if that finding was significant. I don’t see how anyone who derrogates Britain and uses “LOL” when trying to prove a point has any validation when offering an argument. Plus, I’m conducting an experiment on the prevalence of junk food in children’s tv programmes and the influence this has on children, so it’s not so ridiculous that scooby and shaggy’s diet should become more healthy, unless you encourage obesity in children too? A poor argument and pretty much a shit programme anyway.
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March 2, 2010 at 5:48 am. Permalink.