[ljf]

It is hard to know. My old work colleague took great efforts to keep his son from watching any TV, films or cartoons - they did loads of art, listened to music and went to the theatre a little. He was a pretty chill kid when I met him.

One day his son played at a friend's house when he was 3, nearly 4, and ended up watching a hulk cartoon. He spent the next 3 weeks running around the house screaming 'hulk smash' and hitting things with pillows.

Did the cartoon make him that way, or just tell him it was OK to act that way?

[saint_fiasco]

The cartoon makes children act a certain way, then the parents teach them that it's not OK to imitate what they see on TV.

If that kid was kept from watching TV for nearly 4 years, he never had a chance to learn that copying things from TV is wrong, so really it was both the TV at their friend's house and the previous lack of TV at his house that made him act that way.

For adults this shouldn't matter, because they are responsible for their own morality. If you showed a Hulk cartoon to an adult member of a previously uncontacted tribe, they probably won't hulk smash obnoxiously for three weeks.