Penelope Leach Quotes

The smorgasbord of images now presented to us is getting bloodier. They're becoming more frequent - almost hourly.

As we're bombarded with the imagery that we are and now, post 9-11, it's hard not to get hardened by the world and the amount of violence that's allowed to be shown to kids these days.

Most screen violence is tedious.

No kids should see that kind of violence where Batman is killing as many people as the bad guys.

The worst thing about this modern world is that people think you get killed on television with zero pain and zero blood. It must enter into kids' heads that it's not very messy to kill somebody, and it doesn't hurt that much. That's a real sickness to me. That's a real sick thing.

The television screen is the lens through which most children learn about violence. Through the magnifying power of this lens, their everyday life becomes suffused by images of shootings, family violence, gang warfare, kidnappings, and everything else that contributes to violence in our society. It shapes their experiences long before they have had the opportunity to consent to such shaping or developed the ability to cope adequately with this knowledge.

Television is full of fictional and real violence that's turned into entertainment.

Why do we have to have violence, torture, brutality in crime dramas every time we turn on television? Any new crime drama is going to have, sooner or later, a lot of torture and nasty things that make people flinch. Lots of young people I know shrink and flinch from that kind of thing on television, so I think showing it is a mistake.

I think movies glamorize violence, in the sense that they make it in a way that it's either cool or funny.

'Game of Thrones' cares about children. Children are heirs. There's no hemming and hawing about how they're desensitized to violence or they cost too much to send to college. They're a blessing - in many ways the only blessing - and even the evil ones have parents who love them.

When the Second World War finished, I was 23, and already I had seen enough horror to last me a lifetime. I'd seen dreadful, dreadful things, without saying a word. So seeing horror depicted on film doesn't affect me much.

I don't want to see blood spewing out but I don't mind it in controlled environment. Does it make me squeamish? No.

The more real the murder is, the less interested I am in seeing it. It's hard enough to watch the news.

I do find violence entertaining, but that doesn't make me a bad person. I grew up watching all these action films when I was a kid. My dad would bring back 'Rambo' and whatever, and we'd watch it together. It's not affected me in any way other than I just appreciate the entertainment value of violence on film.

In movies, it's so easy to have this 'boom,' to kill, and I think that's inhumane.

Why are video games so violent? The ones I've seen remind me of the 4th of July, with everything exploding, buildings, cars, airplanes, men and women. Kill, kill, and kill for sport and entertainment.

A movie that gets a PG-13 rating can show someone running down a street killing 27 people. And there are no repercussions.

Our society has gotten to the point where we might soon become less and less shocked by any kind of violence.

Our children are being fed a daily dosage of violence …. I know this stuff sells, but that doesn't make it right.

Violent content on television is more dangerous to children than indecency.

Why on earth does anybody watch that stuff [television violence]?

I was brought up when media still kept totally away from violence when it came to children. I don't think it would have made me scared of violence, but I find it repulsive.

The ultimate [act] that would be the taboo, to show how bad some villain is, was to have somebody being raped, you know? I don't really think it matters. It's the same as, like, a decapitation. It's just a horrible act to show that somebody's a bad guy.

What bothers me is that the cinema - what Fox News calls the "wholesome cinema that our children are supposed to be able to see" - is so violent. I'm not even talking about the content. I'm talking about the way in which it's cut.

It's the post-literate generation that is most disturbing to a movie-maker. The explosions and the knifings. People like to go to what's hot and you can't get past a certain gross unless you involve children who go more than once.