Desensitized: How Mainstream Entertainment is Normalizing Ever-Greater Violence

Introduction

I love watching movies and TV shows as much as anyone else. Entertainment offers escape, catharsis, even inspiration. But there’s a darker undercurrent flowing beneath our screens—one that rarely gets the scrutiny it deserves.

Over the decades, mainstream entertainment has escalated its portrayal of violence in pursuit of novelty and shock value. This escalation isn’t without consequences. The repeated exposure is reshaping our collective sense of normal, blurring moral boundaries, and dulling our outrage.

It’s not merely that “movies are violent.” It’s the systematic expansion of violence—first men fighting men, then violence against women, children, and now even babies in the pursuit of viewer engagement. This cycle is both a mirror and a driver of social realities we’d rather not confront.

In this post, I want to trace this timeline, offer concrete examples from popular media, and explore what it says about us—and where it might lead next.

A Timeline of Escalating Violence in Mainstream Entertainment

1️⃣ The Early Thrill: Violence as Heroism and Spectacle

• Era: 1960s–1980s

• Examples:

  • Bullitt (1968) – high-speed car chases

  • Dirty Harry (1971), First Blood (1982) – glorified gunfights

    
    

• Effect: Violence was thrilling but largely stylized. Heroes used violence for justice. Audiences gasped. It was new.

2️⃣ Normalization of Gun Violence

• Era: 1990s

• Examples:

  • Die Hard series (1988 onward)

  • Pulp Fiction (1994)

  • The Matrix (1999)

  
  

• Effect: Gunfights became standard fare. The audience grew numb to the sight of blood and bullets.

  
  

3️⃣ Violence Against Women as Shock Value

• Era: 2000s–2010s

• Examples:

  • Game of Thrones (2011–2019) – frequent sexual violence

  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) – graphic rape scene

  • Irreversible (2002) – infamous long single-take assault

• Effect: Sexual violence was no longer taboo to depict. It became a device for ratings and ‘gritty realism.’ Over time, viewers stopped gasping. Critics called out “rape as plot device” but it sold.

4️⃣ Real Life Mirrors Reel Life

Parallel Effect: Reports of violence against women globally grew in coverage, and some acts mimicked cinematic extremes. News cycles turned these horrors into further spectacle, forcing us to confront real-life analogs of once-shocking fictional scenes.

5️⃣ Violence Against Children Enters Mainstream

• Era: 2010s–2020s

• Examples:

  • True Detective Season 1 (2014) – child abuse cult

  • IT (2017) – graphic child murders

• Effect: Audiences accepted that even children could be primary victims. Storytellers raised the stakes, pushing taboos to maintain “edge.”

6️⃣ What’s Next? Violence Against Babies

Emerging Trend:

• Emergency (2024) starring Kangana Ranaut – includes violent imagery around infants to shock.

• Squid Game Season 3 – involves multiple scenes across multiple episodes showcasing ideation of violence towards a newborn baby for personal gain

• Effect: To keep viewers watching, creators have started hinting at or showing harm to the most vulnerable. It is the final taboo.

The Media’s Abdication of Responsibility

Mainstream entertainment markets itself as art, but it is also a product designed to sell. And violence sells—until it doesn’t. When audiences grow numb, writers and studios escalate.

What’s often missing is a sense of responsibility for how these images and stories ripple through society. It’s not just fashion and lifestyle that media normalizes—but crime, power dynamics, acceptable cruelty.

People are not homogeneous in how they process these images. Some watch and cringe. Others grow fascinated. A small minority will see them as permission. In societies with vast differences in education, emotional regulation, and social support, these images land unevenly—sometimes dangerously.

The Cycle of Desensitization

Here’s the brutal truth:

• We gasp once.

• We accept next.

• We get bored.

• We need more.

Entertainment reflects this demand, but it also feeds it. It creates new baselines for shock, new ceilings for horror.

We’re not just entertained. We’re conditioned.

A Personal Reflection

As a lifelong fan of movies and shows, I don’t want to stop watching. But I do want to be aware. I don’t want to feel entertained by the suffering of women, children, or babies—even fictional ones. I want to feel the horror I’m meant to feel.

I worry about those who don’t. Or worse, those who get ideas.

We’re teaching our children to say “no” to strangers while streaming shows that teach adults to imagine ever more creative cruelties.

Conclusion: A Call for Awareness

This post isn’t about banning art. It’s about noticing.

Creators can—and must—tell difficult stories. But they should consider why and how they show violence, especially against the most vulnerable.

And as viewers, we should ask ourselves: What are we asking for? What are we normalizing?

Because the truth is, the screen doesn’t just reflect our world. It helps write it.