When I was just a kid under 10 years of age, I remember watching a cigarette advertisement . The ads portrayed the smokers as heroes. Not only was the appearance of the smoker so fascinating, but the act of smoking itself was displayed in an alluring way making it seem like a glorious and prestigious style to follow.
Repeated exposure to heroic characters smoking cigarette instilled in me the desire to emulate their behaviour. It felt like putting the cigarette in between the lips and releasing the puffs of smoke in the air was a style that made anyone glamorous. I remember imitating the act of smoking with some sticks or pencils.
There was a milk shop in our area that offered a small gift on purchase of the milk. I once chose a keychain designed like a cigarette. When my father got to know this, he displayed a great disapproval. The reaction was quite unexpected, as my father was not someone who would keep on reprimanding on little silliness every now and then. However, his disapproval over that dummy cigarette was enough to let me understand how undesirable the act might be.
Well, the reproach could develop a sense of rebellion and brought a negative outcome in the future. However, it never happened. I never wanted to smoke again. The reason is that it was not a temporary rebuke but there was a constant teaching via actions that prohibited me from adopting the behaviour. It was the instilling of principles and values that developed my conscience against the act of smoking.
The truth is that the world is full of awful ideologies and behaviours that are displayed in a glorified manner. No matter how much we attempt to avoid the exposure, it is inevitable to happen. In fact, by being unaware of certain glorified harms we may, at times, look or behave dumb. Therefore, the idea of shielding against the exposure doesn’t seem to work in our favour.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean that we should do nothing to protect ourselves from the harmful effects of exposure to negative yet glorified actions or ideologies. The tools that may work as protective agents are critical thinking and instilling strong values. Especially, in today’s era where every one has the liberty to portray and spread their crap on the name of freedom of speech, ingraining robust principles and values has become crucially important to distinguish between right and wrong.
The film industry and media are continuously becoming freer to present aggression, sexism, violence, exploitation and several other harmful behaviours without restraint. Despite the increasing research on the negative effects of media violence on human behavior, putting a restriction on the display of any harmful ideologies has become nearly impossible, as media houses do it on the name of entertainment. Also, their claim to spread awareness, in some cases, can not be undermined.
Therefore the responsibility lies on the viewers to not only develop critical thinking among themselves to separate the reality from the glorification of crime, but also to ingrain robust moral values in their younger generation.
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This post is in response to the HL-Community prompt of week 132 edition 3.
Image created by me using Bing AI.