My thoughts on Breaking Dawn Part 2

My mom called me up this week to go see Breaking Dawn Part 2 with her. I've been to see all the other Twilight movies with her, so thought I better finish out the series! Here are just a few thoughts.....



Good things
1. Twist surprise ending. I won't say what happens for those of you haven't seen it, but it was a great surprise!
2. This is the last Twilight movie. 

Bad things
1. All the middle age women sitting behind me who giggled insanely when Edward or Jacob said ANYTHING!!! Not funny things, just anything.
2. Very little plot. There were quite a few parts of the movie that were just downright boring. 
3. WAY violent. There is one scene where several vampires get beheaded in a quite gruesome fashion. I found out that this movie was originally rated R because of the violence. The producers decided to change the sound effects so the beheadings sounded less "squishy" and that pushed it down to PG-13. Ridiculous. I was this close to walking out, and really should have done so.
4. So many kids! Why do parents bring their very young kids to movies like this? Behind us (by the middle age ladies) were a family with three young kids, probably ages 10, 7, and 4. There were a number of other young families as well. This is NOT a movie for kids (see point 3). There is also a pretty lengthy sex scene right towards the beginning of the film. It's PG-13 so you don't "see" anything, but it's pretty darn intense for kids this age!
5. People clapped and cheered at the end of the film. I'm such a cynical crank, but the movie seriously was not that good!

So Breaking Dawn didn't exactly float my boat - I've never been a super fan of the series (see my earlier post, all the way back in 2009 - Death to New Moon), and I've never really understood the hysteria behind the books or the movies. Sorry girls!

A promise from Rapunzel

Today I wanted to take my kids to this little shop in Spanish Fork called "Signs and Wonders" (it is like the Quilted Bear). Hannah asked if I would buy her a bow. Here is how the conversation went.

Me:  "You always lose your bows"
Hannah: "I won't this time"
Me: "Hannah, you can't help it. You always manage to lose at least one bow!"
Hannah: "I promise"
Me: "I just don't believe you"
Hannah: "I PROMISE. And when I promise something, I never ever break that promise!"

Wait a sec.....that sounds familiar! I realized that I had just heard this when I showed Disney's new "I am a Princess" campaign for the Women's studies talk I did on Thursday. Yep, this line is directly from Tangled! Hannah was invited to a friend's house last night for a "late night movie" and they watched Tangled. Disney's new campaign is all about getting girls to emulate the really positive traits of princesses, and it was hilarious and also really great that Hannah picked up on this very thing after watching Tangled! Oh Disney....you will keep me in research for years to come.

Here is the "I am a Princess" video for those of you who didn't make it to the princess class. I actually really like it! It has such a great message!

And I may have bought her the bow. I'm such a sucker! This isn't from today, but here is a gorgeous picture of my little princess!

Thoughts on the mock trial

I thought class today was really awesome. Both sides did a great job of presenting their sides and the supreme court justices asked really well thought out questions. A couple of points I thought were made really well.

Protection for minors
1. The research evidence is strong that video game violence can influnce aggression. The effects may be small, but they are pretty consistent, and do show harm to minors.
2. There have been high profile cases where individuals have played violent video games and then acted violently (like our resident Nutcase Gang fellow!)
3. PLAYING a video game is not free speech. Making one is, but playing one is something completely different.

Freedom of Speech
1. The research has focused on relatively minor acts of aggression (at least in an experimental context, like the word completion task)
2. There isn't enough research on the topic (especially longitudinal research) to warrant such an historic court decision
3. Video games ARE covered by freedom speech...yep, this conflicts with the above, but I thought both freedom of speech lawyers did a really good job, as did the lawyers associated with both of these witnesses!

I was a little surprised at the outcome: generally it falls to the protection of minors side, because honestly the freedom of speech lawyers typically aren't up to scratch (typically, I have to assign people to be on this side, but with this class I got lots of volunteers) But I thought both sides were excellent! I probably went a little harder on the protection of minors witnesses, simply because we ran out of time on the other side (though they had less time to present their case, so hopefully it evened out). Something I do think is just wrong from the freedom of speech side is that they say the research is completely wrong and unreliable. There are issues with doing research on video games, but many of this research is experimental and participants are assigned RANDOMLY to play a violent game or not - how can you say this is biased? This wasn't the fault of the witness who was playing this person - this is actually how they presented this argument in the real court case.

So what do I think? I hate violent video games and don't think children should have them. When we lived in England, there were LAWS about allowing underage children to purchase, rent, or go to a movie. And this wasn't just for the worst ratings (18), it was for movies rated 15, and 12. I worked at Blockbuster video during my PhD (one job that really motivated me to keep going to school!) and we had to watch a training video every 6 months reminding us of this fact, and that the store could get fined, and we could be fired if we rented to underage kids. One interesting note: I actually signed one of the briefs that went to the supreme court supporting that view that violent video games do influence aggressive behavior.

Saying that, I'm also convinced that the research isn't quite there yet.....We are getting close, but you guys were right: there are no longitudinal studies that cover more than a year. We just don't know the long-term effects yet. And there are no studies on real crime (though one that I know of may be coming out soon). In America, we are not so keen to BAN things without lots of proof that they are harmful. And while I would love for kids not to have access to violent video games (because let's face it, some of them are absolutely awful, and I think obscene as defined by the court), I might even feel uncomfortable making these types of decisions without long-term research to back it up.

What this all shows is that this debate will likely go on for a very long time. This summer I went to a conference where some of the main players who wrote some of the briefs and were talked about in court (Bushman, Anderson, Gentile), actually talked about the trial. It was fascinating. And even in this group, views were mixed, with some feeling strongly that the supreme court messesd up royally, others felt they made the right decision. Regardless, it was a fascinating case, and I hope you enjoyed reinacting it!

I've decided to give you an opportunity for extra credit associated with this trial. You can get 5 points extra credit if you listen to the supreme court case conversation regarding this case and then write a 1-2 page paper with your thoughts on the recording, how you felt the real lawyers did, whether you feel like the Supreme Court made the right decision, and your thoughts on OUR trial. The recording is just 1 hour and is fascinating!

Here is the link:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio_detail.aspx?argument=08-1448

I hope you take the opportunity to do this! They don't give their actual decision on the recording, so you'll have to read about that on the web (just google it, it was all over the news at the time....no recording of that to my knowledge).  I'd love to hear your thoughts on the actual Supreme Court Case!!!

A great mom/son moment brought to you by The Piano Guys

We are in Phoenix for my conference....WAY hot! I brought my 7 year old, Nate with me to the conference and we have had a lot of fun (okay....maybe I skipped out on a few sessions of the conference...shhhh!) We are staying with my brother and his wife. Tonight Nate asked to put on "cello wars" by The Piano Guys. Now, I have a long history with Jon Schmidt and The Piano Guys. I've been playing Jon Schmidt's music for over a decade now, own a bundle of his CDs and have heard him in concert several times now. And I LOVE how his career has blossomed now that he is with Steven Sharp Nelson----they do amazing stuff! Well, Nate heard "Cello Wars" and has been hooked ever since. Tonight we put it on and he did the most awesome Star Wars dance ever. Then he proceeded to dance to "What Makes You Beautiful" and then "Michael Meets Mozart". Then it was time for bed, so I said he could listen to one more Piano Guys song in the room we are sharing......and it's now been an hour an a half! We've been snuggling together and listening to every video we could find from the Piano Guys. Nate has now informed me that he wants to play the Cello and thinks that Steven Sharp Nelson is the coolest guy in the whole world. I love music so much, and particularly this style of music, so I'm obviously really thrilled about this! It was such a great moment tonight and it makes me love The Piano Guys even more!

Nate asked if we could post his favorite video, so see below. Very cool!

 

 

And here is one of my favorite Piano Guys videos:

 

 

Okay, one more.

 

Why The Avengers ruined my weekend

We had a media moral dilemma at our house this weekend. My seven-year-old, Nathan got invited to a birthday party of one of his really good friends. The party plan? Eat pizza and watch The Avengers. When he got the invitation, Nate was SO excited: I mean, birthday parties are a big deal when you are 7 years old. But when I saw the activity, my heart sunk.  Nate REALLY wanted to go to the party, but I have seen the Avengers and it is absolutely, 100% not appropriate for kids this age. It's PG-13 and I won't even let me kids watch some of the PG movies. I was a little surprised: the family who were having the party are a great LDS family down the street. But I guess it's just a job hazard of studying the media every day for over a decade now, that I am more than a little wary of what my kids watch on TV!



We had A LOT of conversations about what we could do. Nate thought maybe he could still go, but then just watch the parts "that aren't bad" (according to him)....unfortunately, this movie is pretty much non-stop violence so that would be hard to do! He also thought he could go to the first part and then just leave when the movie started, but the entire party was the movie :( Seriously, this is was really tough! We talked about how sometimes Choosing the Right isn't easy at all. We looked up The Avengers on my favorite website www.commonsensemedia.org and talked about what was in the movie. And that seemed to really hit Nathan hard: after that, Nate decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to go to the party. But what to do? We decided that instead of going to the party, he could invite one of his best friends over for a "late-over" where they could eat snacks and watch a movie that was okay. He invited his friend Zach over, they ate popcorn with Marshmallow topping (sounds so gross, but Zach brought it over) and watched Robin Hood (the animated version). And they had a blast! So, the party was forgotten and all is right in the world. What struck me was that I wasn't prepared for how hard this conversation and decision was to make. It was a no brainer to me, but Nate really really really really really wanted to go. No matter how much I know, or how much research I do, being a parent in this media generation is STILL hard! But I'm proud of Nate for making the right decision in the end, and I think he learned a really good lesson, even though it was not an easy choice. Bring on the next thing.......

Facebook official

Well, I'm officially Facebook official! Here is how we announced:




















We already have three little coynes, but will soon have four! Baby #4 due may 2013!

So, my mother CANNOT keep a secret, so once I told her that we were telling people, she immediately told her entire side of the family. When I found this out, I thought we better hurry and announce or everyone would hear secondhand! Facebook is by far the easiest way to get the word out, so we put this up yesterday. And within hours we had over 100 likes and 60+ comments....which when you consider my previous post makes me feel all warm and snuggly, I suppose! It's not very personal, and I woud have prefered to tell everyone face-to-face, but in today's world, this is what we do, especially for people who are far away or we don't see very often.

Is "liking" a status prosocial?

I'm at the prosocial conference right now preparing my talk tomorrow on prosocial media. I had a thought while preparing.....I recently posted a picture of me after I ran a 5k. Not a huge deal, but was good for me. Within a few hours I had 68 people "like" me and 18 comments saying how awesome I was. Which obviously made me feel pretty good, much better than when I post something and nobody likes it or comments on the post (ostracism? I'm not sure).



So I was thinking, is this a form of prosocial behavior in the media? I think commenting certainly is...well, when the comments are nice and complimentary. But is "liking" something prosocial? Am I being a nice to someone when I like their status? Am I saying that I like them or their behavior? Is this beneficial to the person who posted something? I may be off the map here, but I think there is something psychologically beneficial about saying something and 68 people immediately saying they like it. More importantly, they are saying this in public. What do you think? How do feel when someone either likes or doesn't like your facebook staus? Comments or doesn't comment?

I miss you guys! I hope you enjoyed Miss-representation today, it's one of my very favorites! Can't wait to discuss it with you on class on Tuesday!