Mikey - Effects Debate

For the Effects Debate, we have chosen to research about the film 'Mikey' (1993). The film featured a little boy called Mikey Holt, who was adopted by a family, who expected him to be the kind kid they saw him to be. But instead Mikey hid his actual intentions, where it turned out he was a murderous psychopath. He ended up killing nearly all of the main cast and faking his own death, just so that he managed to escape capture and get adopted again.

The controversy around this film, mainly came from the coincidence of its release with the Jamie Bulger case where a little boy is stolen and beaten to death by two young boys. The British Government believed that the film could spur other kids to act violently towards each other.

The film was originally passed as an 18 by the BBFC. But after the Jamie Bulger case, the daily mail announced that the upcoming release of Mikey also featured a child killer. Other films had already been blamed for the violence of the two young children in the case, and so a scared BBFC director was forced to revoke the 18 certificate and the film became officially banned. (Source: The Independant)

From this film it is clear that governments feel that some films, such as this one, should be mediated due to events happening in a particular country at that time. I think a similar example would be a film showing planes crashing into a landmark due to terrorism being banned after 9/11. But to a certain extent other films that have been banned, without a relating event such as a murder, shouldn't be banned, unless the public oppose the release of the film. So this shows that to a certain extent Mediation and Censorship is good, but only to a certain extent.

We think that in relation to the publics view of a film the positive impact of a film can be as strong as the negative impact of a film, but we also believe that the media play a part in emphasising the negative impact more than the positive impact making it seem as though there is an imbalance.

In respect to the question that media can change someone's behaviour? we believe that types of media like, film, TV, games, etc. can in some respects change someone's behaviour for example someone who watches a lot of action films or plays a lot of action games may become so addictive that their behaviour changes to suit what they see in these media sources. But we think that the main behaviour related problem is that if someone is inclined to behave badly or are likely to commit a murder in their nature, then media sources featuring death, killing, torture, etc. could ignite the underlying part of their nature and make them commit a similar style murder/torture. We believe that this is a reason that the british government had for banning the film Mikey.

We believe that the film Mikey, had a justified reason for the film to be banned, but we feel that this could have been released a few years later after the event as the film itself hadn't had any effect on the children in the Jamie Bulger case, but the government saw that it could spur others to commit a similar crime.