Imagine a generation of young people who are shocked by nothing. Imagine a group of young people who have seen and can bear the grotesque and unnecessarily violent to the point where they consider it the norm. This is my generation, born between 1981 and 1985, which I like to call "generation numb." Through movies, music, and other media my peers have been bombarded by carefully marketed, gratuitous violence, and with each viewing of such violence it becomes more and more difficult to shock us. However, the corporate media is more than happy to meet our new shock levels if a profit can be made. My generation is becoming increasingly indifferent to violent acts which should disturb us, and our sense of reality is breaking down, creating peril for my peers in the present and the future. We tolerate violence and, in the process, become more violent ourselves.

The root of this desensitization lies not so much in the violence of war, which my generation did not truly begin to experience until recently, but gratuitous violence. Gratuitous violence is fighting or gore which is "uncalled-for," "unjustified," of "without need or cause." ("violence."). Th

Violence sells. But why? And why to the young people of my generation? For one, violence seems to sell best to my generation (thus far, for we do not yet have the statistics to gage the desensitization of the next generation accurately). Violent television shows geared toward adults, which premiered on network television during late prime time in my late childhood and early teens, were largely unsuccessful. Short lived shows such as CBS's Public Morals, and Fox's Millennium failed to find a loyal audience in 20-something and older baby-boomer viewers. (Marin). But shows for my generation, like Dragonball Z flourished. While our parent's may have imposed bedtimes which shielded some of us from late night television, what we watched during the supposedly "kid friendly" daytime hours went unchecked. Now that my generation has come of age, and is old enough to watch essentially "whatever we want," shows like The Soprano's, which display even more graphic violence than the networks' early stabs at mimicking the violent films of the time, are thriving.

This "fantasy" violence had appeared in films for decades. But in the late seventies and early eighties, the sharp increase in technology allowed for more elaborate special effects, allowing for more and more fantastic violence in movies and on television. In 1979, the first of the Alien films was released. In 1984, The Terminator debuted. (Schneider). That same year, one year after I was born, the far less sophisticated but bloodier Nightmare on Elm Street was released. (Giles). Around the same time came the Jaws films. The first violent movie I ever saw was Jaws when it made its network premier. I was two years old, and my father allowed me to watch the movie with him while my mother, who had made him promise he wouldn't, was at work. Many of my peers have reported to me having similar experiences. For all the blood and gore of Jaws, it paled in comparison to films that came later.

In the medium of television, violence was largely relegated to prime time in the 80's, so my exposure was minimal. But some of my peers were permitted to stay up and watch The A Team or Miami Vice. In the 90's, prime time was taken over by non-violent sitcoms and crime drama's like Law and Order, where violence is more often purposeful and punished. (Szaflik). However, daytime television became increasingly violent. Cartoons from Japan took over the Saturday morning slots once filled by shows like Fat Albert or The Smurfs, which were noticeably devoid of any gratuitous violence. In my earliest teens, I began watching translated Anime cartoons such as Sailor Moon and Dragonball Z, which almost always began and ended with a graphic fight scene. Professional Wrestling was also a popular viewing choice, from the 80's to the present. Programs like WWF wrestling showed violence as a method of conflict resolution. The children of my generation could imitate this violence using action figures and over sized stuffed toys. Sadly, some children tried to imitate dangerous so-called wrestling moves from the WWF and WCW with their own bodies. More violent programming began to appear more on premium cable channels, like HBO and Showtime, on which 85% of shows contain violence currently(Szaflik). These channels have always made clear that this programming was intended for adult viewing only. But lack of supervision made it easy to access that Saturday night R rated movie I had been forbidden to see in the theater.

The violent movies and television shows released during my lifetime have had a certain allure for m

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