- Most of us probably don't like it when people get hurt,
but something about violence definitely
fascinates all of us.
Think about high school.
That fight that broke out during lunch,
and you just had to get on a table to get a good view.
Or the last time you saw a car crash,
and you couldn't help but stare out the window
to see how bad the accident was.
Or the last time you paid money to see people fight.
It seems like we actually enjoy seeing violence.
(static hisses) (tense, ominous music)
Let's start with fistfights.
In high school, sometimes these fights even got bloody,
but in general, I don't recall a lot of concern
from other students as much as fascination, myself included.
- [Anchor] Andrew says administrators try to break up
fights before that can happen.
This video shows a principal trying to protect the victim.
- [Anchor] 24 students reportedly suspendeded,
10 of which were on the football team.
Parents saying they want more,
at the very least, they want change.
To make sure something like this doesn't happen again.
(school crowd shouts)
- There isn't a lot of research on fistfights specifically,
but according to data from the CDC,
at least 425 people were killed
by being struck by hands or feet in 2016,
and this data only accounts for 32 states in the U.S.
Trauma expert Duncan Bew told BBC
that people are very much focused on penetrating injuries,
but actually punching somebody in the head
can be just as lethal.
(glitchy electronic sounds pulse)
And a question I can't help but asking myself,
is if this is part of our nature.
According to author John Cottrell,
many animals, from bears to shrimp, have dueling behaviors
that seem to mirror human fighting.
And a study published in 2013
found that human hands might actually have evolved
to make it easier for us to punch.
The research indicated that while both slaps and punches
produce the same amount of force,
the fist allows us to protect our fingers
while hitting a smaller surface layer.
Making it easier for us to inflict more damage
on the opponent.
But even if the intent isn't necessarily to kill
or severely injure,
are we crazy for being drawn to violence?
Communications and psychology professor Brad Bushman
told CNN that violence has been used as entertainment
throughout human history.
He explained that in ancient Egypt,
people would watch others reenact God Osiris's murder.
The gladiator games in Rome were also another example
of ancient violent entertainment,
and now we have the UFC, for instance.
UFC president Dana White explained to CNN,
"everybody loves a fight.
"It's in our DNA, if you're in an intersection
"and there's a basketball game in one corner,
"a soccer game in another, a baseball game on the third,
"and a fight on the fourth, everybody will watch the fight."
And that's not only true, but it's something
that cuts across all demographic and geographic barriers.
I guess this kinda makes sense.
I could go somewhere across the world
and not understand a thing about what I'm seeing,
but a physical fight is a dynamic
that I could easily pick up on
and sort of understand with no context,
and quite frankly, be very interested.
Professor and author Christian Lange
says that violence is a universal language,
and it universally explores the body.
But is violence really a universal language,
or have we made it one by normalizing it?
In order to get more perspective about
how violence relates to human behavior,
I reached out to David Rudesill.
- The emotion of anger is unquestionably universal,
I mean, as mammals, we're all wired to feel angry.
It's part of the limbic system.
And there's a guy named Ekman, who in the '70s,
went around the whole world to different cultures
and he showed them photos to elicit a feeling,
and he noticed that the same muscles on the face
light up wherever you go in the world.
If you go to Japan, you go to New Guinea,
you go to Germany, you go to these very different cultures,
when someone is purely angry, or purely sad,
the same muscles on the face light up.
But, different cultures mask emotion in different ways.
- The Washington Post reported that the global market
is the engine behind Hollywood's assembly-line production
of violent action films,
and a study published in 2017
found that violence results in increased movie ticket sales,
particularly in PG-13 movies.
So are we normalizing violence,
or is this just a reflection of our human nature?
As reported by the American Psychological Association,
there's increasing evidence that exposure to violence
within the media one consumes in childhood and adolescence
can be a contributing factor
to developing aggressive habits.
And according to Michelle Garrison,
young children problematically see good guys
use methods of violence as a means of problem solving.
For instance, superhero movies, where the good guy
can hurt the bad guy without any negative repercussion,
and not seeing any physical effects of that violence
on the bad guy.
(dramatic opera music)
(fist crunches against face)
(sword sharply impales chest)
(kick slams into back)
(glass shatters) (sword whistles by)
- You know, anger is a normal emotion,
and we have the possibility that if you're feeling,
you know, rage, really high levels of feeling,
and I think that many people have a wish
to be able to let loose
of some of these really powerful feelings,
and to see another person up there
really letting go, I think, fulfills some of the fantasies
and wishes that we all carry.
And so, it's really, when you watch a movie
and someone just pummels someone else,
or there's MMA fighting,
there's a real fascination, I think, about it.
- All in all, this all still leaves me wondering
if entertainment is violent because we enjoy violence,
or the other way around.
And more importantly, how is this affecting us now?
(unsettling, glitchy electronic music)