Oral examination subjects--solved variants

5. How do movies or television influence people's behaviour? Use reasons and specific examples to support your answer.

Since 1895 when the Frenchman Luis Lumiere invented the first motion picture camera, more than 100 years passed. The movie industry evolved becoming one of the most popular means of entertainment. Throughout the time different topics were the viewer’s favourites, from great books, to war stories, science fiction movies, and many others. The movies changed with the viewers’ tastes and the industry developed very much. Most of the movies people watch nowadays are made by the biggest industry of dreams called Hollywood. Nowadays there are movies made for young children, for teenagers, for gown ups, for the whole family and for every age.

In my opinion, children are the first affected by what they see on TV or on DVD. They are too young to understand the difference between reality and fiction, and sometimes mix these two up. In children’s movies there is a lot of violence. The heroes fight for rights, territories, in the name of a great good. Children identify themselves easily with all sorts of characters and end up copying their behaviour, fighting with the colleagues at school, hitting them or behaving badly at home with parents.

But this does not only happen with children, also teenagers are exposed to the danger of copying their models on the big screen. Teenagers start smoking easier if one of their idols is smoking in a teen movie, or get drunk. Many teenagers want to copy the stars’ appearance and try to lose weight ending up with serious diseases like bulimia.

Whether we watch TV or movies, it’s one and the same thing. We can watch on TV the same movies we watch at the cinema or on DVD. And furthermore, on TV there are a lot of channels dedicated to children entertainment and many shows, some of them quite damaging. For example, there are children who spend too much time in front of the TV, they lose the contact with the real life, they overeat, they lose self-confidence, and social abilities.

In my opinion parents should be very attentive and look after their children, encourage them to make friends, and restrict their time in front of the TV.