Death+in+Television

Representations of Death in Television
toc Television has gotten gradually more violent over the years, with gruesome deaths becoming the norm for popular TV shows (i.e. The Walking Dead, Supernatural, How to get Away with Murder.) This influx of grand and horrific deaths flooding the airwaves seem to have impacted the ways constant viewers’ perceptions of death. In fact, it can be argued that people who watch a lot of TV namely teenagers and adult’s entire attitude regarding death has been impacted by how it is portrayed on their favorite shows.A study in the Journal of Communication shows that after subjects viewed movie trailers including violent death, this factor made them no less likely to see the film. In the studies mentioned, it is said that when viewing this violence as a meaningful part of a storyline, it is perceived as a human cost and holds high value to the overall product. If not a deterrent, it can be decided that violent death is simply something we accept as a part of media consumption. With these ideas in mind, I wanted to find how multimedia representations of death desensitize people (specifically children and teenagers) to the topic, by undercutting graphic and emotional deaths with contrasting undertones effectively diminishing the significance.

Death's Taboo
In the following three examples it is obvious how television show’s portrayal of death can impact the viewer. In his article: Graphic Death in the News Media: Present or Absent? Folker Hausch argues that the way the media chooses to portray things can invoke certain feelings in people. Hausch asserts that though death is shown in the media, it is not portrayed graphically. His belief is that people are not normally exposed to brutal killing scenes on the news or in other media, because it is still sort of a taboo in today’s society. Hausch believes that as a whole, the American people are not fully ready to comprehend and accept the concept of death. Another scholar by the name of Dr. Samuel Lawrence also shares this view. In his book entitled, Death, American Style: A Cultural History of Dying in America, he tries to explain to the inability Americans possess in terms of dealing with death. Throughout the book, Dr. Samuel argues that Americans have become more and more accustomed to talking about death, although we are not completely comfortable with it yet.

Death Personified
Through the use of television, producers have been able to twist and taint the image of death. While this may not work as well for older people, the younger generations see these personifications of death and interpret death as something that may not be as bad as it seems in reality. This allows for children to better cope with death and discuss it more freely. In fact, according to Coombs young people have a particular enthusiasm for discussing death. This finding debunks the notion that young people do not, cannot, or should not think about death. Schiappa, Gregg, and Hewes go more into detail when conducting research of college students, to determine if the way death portrayed in particular TV shows has some effect on their perspective of death. They say, “Not surprisingly, television has its greatest opportunity to influence beliefs and attitudes concerning ‘‘groups and phenomena about which there is little first-hand opportunity for learning’’. Because we learn about dying only indirectly by experiencing the death of others, it is reasonable to hypothesize that our attitudes about death and dying could be influenced by mass mediated messages.” The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy shows the embodiment of death itself the Grim Reaper loses a bet with two children and is forced to be their “friend”, which in this case essentially means slave as he is forced to do their bidding not matter how ridiculous it is. The two children use the Reapers powers to do supernatural things, and visit other supernatural, fictional characters. No matter how mischievous the adventure, the Grim Reaper always uses his powers to save the kids and keep them from trouble. With this, the significance of death is immediately undermined as the harbinger of death is reduced to nothing more than a child’s plaything. No one truly fears him as the show progress to the point few characters even respect him. In some cases, Grim just becomes another average Joe like anyone else.

Utopian Death
Regular Show, created by J.G. Quintel, began airing in 2009. It follows the daily adventures of a talking blue jay and a raccoon as they try to deal with their boring jobs as groundskeepers at a local park. Regular Show introduced a new character, Death, to air in the show. Death is the grim reaper of the Regular Show universe, however, he is portrayed as a mortal man gifted with super powers. His appearance, his attitude, even his voice, are all representative of a normal human being. The only notable difference being that Death can create portals and has an indomitable desire for souls. However, as in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Death is virtually Harmless in the shows and usually ends up doing more good than bad for the protagonists. While he is more scary and taken seriously than in the Billy and Mandy episodes, he is still very laid back and relaxed, and is often not taken very seriously and sometimes is just one of the guys. In Stacey Thompson's study on death, she questions the denial of the Utopian-ism of death on TV. Thompson describes thinking of death as the following: “In short, thinking about death is a mode of Utopian thought to the extent that it encourages us to fill in the blanks and express the desires that the empire denies us, which means that death can bring us to think outside of or beyond capitalism, to think of change and of the possibility of a domain different from the dominant social order.”Which could coincide with the conversations young teens had in Coombs' brief study. As pointed out in Boxer's study, teens/children are exposed to death by troupes in television and movies. These troupes then raise questions that are answered in most times positive ways as stated by Thompson. This combination of constant bombardment of messaging about death and positive outlooks of death eventually lead to children/teens viewing death with enthusiasm as is the case in Coombs' study. Essentially, television portrayals of death and constant TV watching inevitably result in teen/children not taking death seriously. In all actuality, based off of these studies the carefree nature towards death and TV messaging are seemingly cause and effect. Teens watch so much TV they cannot help but think of things in a certain way because for most it is all the have to go off on in regards to death.

The Effects of Death in Game of Thrones towards Fans
media type="youtube" key="ZnxvUuSzbMI" width="560" height="315" Since 2011, Game of Thrones, originally a best-selling book series, became one of the most popular shows on primetime television. Aside from it being one of the most watched shows on television, it contains large amounts of violence and death to many of the characters in the show, including the main ones. For example, above is a video of "The Red Wedding", which is a popular scene from the show where two main family member from the Stark family, Catelyn Stark, the matriarch of the Stark family, and Robb Stark, the eldest brother and son of the Stark family, along with his lover and army were ambushed at the wedding of Walder Frey's daughter by Frey's men and Roose Bolton's army due to the fact that Robb refused to marry the daughter that was getting married and to show their loyalty to the Starks' enemy: The Lannisters, specifically Tywin Lannister. With deaths like this in the show, you can also see how fans can show actual emotions towards the death of characters as if they were related to the characters or if they knew them in real life. According to Emory Daniel and David Westerman, they have a theory on why fans feel this way towards the main characters of the show like this and this could even be used for other shows. Their reasoning for why fans feel emotion towards characters when they died is because they create a "parasocial relationship" with the character. This means that the fans feel like they are interacting with the characters as if it's real life. Daniel and Westerman also explain fans' feelings through the Kubler-Ross model. They explain that the concept is the "stages of grief that a person goes through when a family member was dying/died". This explains why fans of GoT tend to make emotional tweets on twitter when certain characters die in the show.

Conclusion
Taking all of this into account, death in television shows are continuously undercut by varying undertones, such as comedy, romance, or heroism. The death on television helps to shape the perspective of how people view death. As Schiappa said, mass media is the only source we have about the experience of death. We have to indirectly learn how to deal with death and many cases Television and other media influence this coping process. Whether or not this is an intentional effort to desensitize youth to the idea of death requires further research however, its existence and success is blatant. Once these people watch these shows they open up their minds to the subject matter. If show involves a lot of death, people allow themselves to have casual conversations about death. The conversation these shows create, lets death become something that is expected and frequently thought of. In a way, whole Television undermines the seriousness of death it does add some relief to its viewers regarding the subject which can be both positive and negative. While it’s good to not fear death, not respecting its importance is as dangerous as harping on it.

Photo References
Harris, William. "How the Grim Reaper Works" //How Stuff Works, Science//. How Stuff Works, 26 January 2009. Web. 23 July 2016.

The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Digital image. Hub Pages. N.p., 08 May 2012. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.

"Rigby's Graduation Day Special". Digital Image. //Cartoon Network//. Cartoon Network, 2016. Web. 23 July 2016.

External References

 * @Death in Fiction
 * @Death in Picturebooks
 * @Death in Media

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