This week I watch "The Penguins of Madagascar" (a kid's show) and "South Park" (an adult show) and compared the violence to one another.
I first watched an episode of "The Penguins of Madagascar" entitled "The Hidden". In this episode the animals have new neighbors. Merlene, the otter, goes to meet the new neighbors with Mort. Mort gets kidnapped by them and the penguins go to save him.
The only somewhat violent part of the show was at the beginning. The four penguins are practicing an Asian form of fighting on each other. They hit each other with sticks and knock one another over. This act does not seem to hurt them. This could explain why most kids who watch violent shows do not break up fights when they witness them.
The penguins carry guns with them when they go into the repile cage to find Mort. These guns are never used.
The chameleons are the new neighbors. They start capturing all the animals who were looking for Mort. The animals are screaming and running from the chameleons' tongues (which are being used to capture them). You could consider this violent. But in the end, the chameleons apologize for it and say it was the only way they could invite their new neighbors to their house warming party.
The episode of "South Park" that I watched was making fun of all the Jersey shows that are becoming popular on TV. I counted five acts of violence in this that were much worse than the penguins.
First, a Jersey couple moves in next door to one of the character's houses. His mom invites them over for dinner. The Jersey wife starts to make fun of the town of South Park and notes the ugly clothes the other woman is wearing. The South Park mom said Theresa had a big nose which sent her other the edge. She started yelling at the mom, flipped the table, and tried to fight her before her husband intervened. The woman apologized and said 'it wasa Jersey thing.'
Cartman finds out that Kyle's mom is from Jersey so he tells the other kids to not hang out with Kyle anymore. Kyle becomes very angry after Cartman doesn't stop. He pushes him up against a tree, punches him a few times, and yells at him. None of the kids who watched did anything about it, nor did Kyle get in trouble.
The mom from earlier goes to salon to get her hair done and somehow ends up in yet other fight with the Jersey girls who have taken over the shop. Kyle's mom comes in and threatens the ladies until they leave. This action is praised by the other mom.
The townspeople capture The Situation (from "Jersey Shore") and are interegating him about why the Jersey people are taking over the US. He doesn't answer and gets punished by Randy, one of the kids father. The Situation is punched, kicked, and slapped and no one thinks anything of it.
After that, the Jersey people start to invade the town and are about to break down the baracade so the townspeople start shooting them. Several of the Jersey people are shot and killed. To top it off, it's Bin Ladin who saves the town. He hijacks several airplanes and runs them into the ground, killing the Jersey people. He is thanks for this at the town meeting.
The main difference in the violence of the two shows was what triggered it, how bloody it was, and language. "South Park" had a lot of blood and strong language. The violence was trigger by people making fun of one another or their hate for a certain type of person. In "The Penguins of Madagascar" the violence had no strong language and was not bloody at all. The violence was trigger by the penguins practicing their fighting moves.
Here is a pie chart to help show the amounts of violence in shows for children compared to shows for adults.
