Dragonball Z: Lord Slug and Piagets Cognitive Stages of Development - Essay Example

? “Dragonball Z: Lord Slug” and Piaget’s Cognitive Stages of Development “Dragonball Z: Lord Slug,” which is also known as “Dragonball Z: Super Saiyan Son Goku” in Japanese, is a feature cartoon movie released in 1991 and was dubbed in American English in 2004. It was released in DVD in 2011. It was watched internationally. The cartoon movie is about a group of villains headed by Lord Slug who want to conquer earth while Goku’s team – Goku, Krillin, Piccolo and Gohan – all plan to stop Lord Slug and his minions – Angila, Wings and Medamatcha – from conquering earth. The fight that ensues in the latter part of the cartoon movie kills Wings, Angila and Medamatcha, but it also almost kills Gohan and Piccolo. The final fight was between Goku and Lord Slug, who transformed into a giant, and this fight was extremely violent with explosions, destruction and excruciating physical pain. Children who are exposed to “Dragonball Z: Lord Slug” can be anyone from 2 to 15 years old, but the general audience could always be older or younger. The problem is that children in the sensorimotor stage and the preoperational stage are prone to violence for they all have the tendency to think illogically and for the latter to show egocentrism. These characteristics are crucial not only in the development of children into individuals with violent tendencies but also in the faulty interpretation of any violent cartoons that they see and interact with. Based on Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory and the fact that “cartoons sanitize the outcomes of violence,” it is likely that children in the sensorimotor and preoperational stages who watch violent cartoons will sooner or later imitate the violence in it, while older children may learn important values from it (Kirsh 548). According to Scheibe (65), Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory is the key to “the understanding of social information provided by the media,” and so it can clearly explain the relationship between violence in the media and children’s violent behavior. There are four stages of cognitive development according to Piaget, and these are expected to occur in the same sequence. The sensorimotor stage, which extends from birth to two years of age, is the time in which infants and toddlers acquire information through their senses and through the manipulation of objects. This is also the time at which they may have developed deferred limitation as well as object permanence, basic language skills and self-awareness. The next stage, the preoperational stage, which lasts from two to seven years of age, is the time when there is reorganization of understanding and the development of symbolic thought. However, this is also the time when the child’s thinking is illogical and his problem-solving approach is unsystematic. His thinking is also egocentric and animistic, and his judgments reflect centration and a difficulty to distinguish between fantasy and reality. The third stage – the concrete operational stage – which lasts from seven to 12 years, is characterized by the ability to be able to recognize more than one dimension of an object but where the mind has only a concrete understanding of things and ideas. The fourth and final stage, which is the formal operational stage, is the point in a child’s life when adolescents can demonstrate the ability to think in abstract terms, to solve problems systematically, and to be able to mentally follow through hypothetical-deductive reasoning schemes. Based on these aforementioned concepts, it is children in the sensorimotor and preoperational stages that have the tendency to imitate the violence in “Dragonball Z: Lord Slug” if they watch it. On the other hand, it is the children and adolescents in the concrete operational stage and formal operational stage that should be able to learn something valuable from the same cartoon movie. The capacity of the brain of children in the sensorimotor stage and preoperational stages of cognitive development are clearly not cut out for logical thinking, and so this creates their tendency to think that what they are watching is morally good. Based on Piaget’s theory, children in the sensorimotor stage are characterized by basic understanding of things. According to Scheibe (65), children at this age may have already developed “object permanence, a capability for deferred limitation, and a basic grasp of cause and effect,” but they still basically have no understanding of how to tie this phenomenon of cause and effect with daily practice. Knowledge of cause and effect would normally make one think that they would know that some acts of violence would cause pain. The problem is that children in the sensorimotor stage most likely still do not have a notion of pain or may not even know that pain can be caused. Moreover, although, according to Scheibe (65), children in the sensorimotor stage possess “basic language skills” and “self-awareness,” these are basically not enough for them to be able to carefully process the content of violent cartoons for they do not have any sense of morality yet. Cartoon violence “sanitizes” the outcomes of violence by not showing “the victims suffering in a life-like manner” (Kirsh 548). This is highly dangerous because in reality, the physical acts demonstrated by the cartoon characters actually cause pain in real life if performed by humans. However, since, according to Scheibe (65), children in the sensorimotor stage only obtain their information from “senses and object manipulation.” Thus, they may not be able to realize that, in cartoons, pain is often underestimated, thus there is a great chance for these children to falsely interpret such violence as something light, harmless and one that causes only temporary pain. Since these children may already possess a crude concept of cause and effect, they may actually think that such seemingly light and harmless punches, kicks and wrestles will not be able to fatally destroy someone’s life and may even make one a hero. In the preoperational stage, according to Scheibe (65), there may be “rapid growth and reorganization of understanding and symbolic thought,” which means that they would be able to properly understand and interpret details of visual images such as cartoons. This means that, in “Dragonball Z: Lord Slug,” there is therefore a good chance that children would be able to interpret the aim of the protagonists and the evil of the antagonists in the story. They would be able to know that Goku, Gohan, Krillin and Piccolo are the protagonists while Angila, Wings, Medamatcha and Slug are all on the antagonists’ side. Children in the preoperational stage, since they have undergone a reorganization of understanding, basically know that one should take the side of the protagonists. Through their understanding of the details of an event such as a visual event like a cartoon, they also understand the reason why the antagonists are evil and should not be imitated. In “Dragonball Z: Lord Slug,” the villains Angila, Medamatcha and Wings are characterized by shrill voices, pointed eyes and a sinister-looking face that children in the preoperational stage would usually identify with their basic model of evil. Moreover, one can see in a particular scene that Medamatcha releases four green mini-monsters that drain an innocent-looking Gohan’s energy, thus causing sympathy in the child viewer and making him or her conclude that Medamatcha is the antagonist. For these various reasons, these children therefore know that Angila, Medamatcha, Wings and Slug should not be imitated. However, the problem with children in the preoperational stage is that their thinking is still “illogical” and their approach to any problem-solving situation is actually “unsystematic” (Scheibe 65). This is the most dangerous aspect of a child watching violent cartoons. In the cartoon “Dragonball Z: Lord Slug,” there are various scenes depicting violence which may be imitated by any child in the sensorimotor stage or in the preoperational stage. Such scenes like the one where Master Roshi sleeps with a pornographic magazine on top of his head may actually be interpreted as something that condones the use of such reading materials. A child in the preoperational stage may therefore unconsciously pick up this notion and may then find himself or herself engaged and interested in pornography as he or she moves into adolescence. Another scene in the cartoon that may be illogically interpreted by a child in the preoperational stage is the idea of Goku, Gohan and Piccolo surviving a most physically excruciating battle against Angila, Wings, Medamatcha and Slug. Since the protagonists survived their ordeal, the child viewer who may not be able to think rationally may actually interpret the whole battle and all the painful kicks, punches and squeezes that the protagonists have experienced as something trivial and worse, as something that may be inflicted without causing that much damage. These children may also think that pain is nothing since anyway no one among the good guys died. The result of this rather illogical interpretation could then be that these children may grow up inflicting pain on others without any remorse for it because of the reason that at least such pain did not cause death, and that such pain even made Goku, Gohan and Piccolo the heroes that they are praised and admired for. Moreover, children in the preoperational stage may begin thinking that the only way or the best way to resolve conflicts is violence. The fact that Goku, Gohan and Piccolo did everything and even heroically risked their lives for the salvation of earth and the destruction of Angila, Wings, Medamatcha and Slug somehow makes the children viewers think that every good man here on earth has a license to kill the bad guys. In fact, “there is clear evidence that television violence can cause aggressive behavior and can cultivate values favoring the use of aggression to resolve conflicts” (Murray & Murray 3). In fact, children in the preoperational stage who have been exposed to violent cartoons may actually grow up as individuals who would later on establish elaborate values and schemas that promote the idea of “licensed violence” as long as it is done in the name of justice and even religion. Moreover, according to Scheibe (65), the tendency of children in the preoperational stage to be egocentric, or their “inability to take into account other perspectives than his or her own,” may actually even further their illogical interpretation of any violent cartoons. Therefore, if a child viewer watches “Dragonball Z: Lord Slug,” he would have the tendency to interpret the details of the cartoon on his own. This would then translate as a propensity to falsely imagine oneself as Goku, Gohan or Piccolo, or even Angila, Medamatcha, Wings or Slug, depending on the child viewer’s form or depending on the quality of the cartoon character with which he has identified himself the most. The result would then be to delve deeper into the nature of the character until the child absorbs the identity and until he unconsciously acts and thinks according to the character’s image. This would then be highly dangerous in the long run because all the characters in “Dragonball Z: Lord Slug” are actually depicted as extremely violent, whether they are antagonists or protagonists. Since the identity of Goku then could not be divorced from the idea of a violent hero, the child who identifies himself with Goku cannot imagine that he cannot be as violent as his chosen character. Children in the preoperational stage also tend to be animistic, which means that they “[attribute] human motivation and characteristics to inanimate objects” (Scheibe 66). Therefore, if these children watch “Dragonball Z: Lord Slug,” they will tend to view the inanimate powers of the characters – both protagonists and antagonists – as having particular human qualities. Child viewers will therefore tend to focus on the destructive qualities of a whistle as demonstrated by Gohan. They can also consider Medamatcha’s four mini-monster power as something very interesting despite its fatal qualities. Eventually, these child viewers, especially those who have identified themselves with Gohan or Medamatcha, may end up adopting only the desire to destroy whoever they consider to be the enemy, Children in the preoperational stage also tend to reflect centration in their judgment, which means that they tend to “[focus] on one central characteristic of an object or person to the exclusion of others” (Scheibe 66). In the cartoon movie, since the most outstanding quality of all the characters is their tendency to resolve conflicts through violence and destruction, children viewing them may actually focus only on the character’s violence and destructiveness without regard for their other more positive qualities like concern for earth or concern for their friends. These child viewers may then grow up as narrow-minded individuals who believe that violence is the only way to resolve conflicts. Older children, on the other hand, will tend to get something valuable from “Dragonball Z: Lord Slug.” Children in the concrete operational stage are “able to take into account more than one dimension of an object and perspectives of it” (Scheibe 66). This means that if children in the concrete operational stage would watch “Dragonball Z: Lord Slug,” they will be able to see through a character’s violent and destructive qualities, and they may be able to conclude that these characters merely resort to violence because their enemies are relentless or are themselves violent. Thus, children in the concrete operational stage who watch violent cartoons may be able to conclude that characters may perform violent acts but they themselves are not violent. These children may then grow up thinking that violence is only a matter of choice, although sometimes it is a matter of necessity – but that it is never their nature. In the same way, children in the formal operational stage can comprehend “systematic approaches to problem-solving,” and they can do this because they demonstrate “abstract thinking” (Scheibe 66). Perhaps, if children in the formal operational stage would watch “Dragonball Z: Lord Slug,” they will be able to watch the cartoon movie more objectively with less involvement and identification on their part, knowing that these characters and the story itself are merely fictional. The events and the violence may therefore not be applicable to real life. Although the cartoon movie shows Goku finally saving Earth by destroying Lord Slug, older child and adolescent viewers may think that there are definitely much better ways of saving Earth and that there is no likelihood of Earth being attacked by a giant. These child viewers may therefore grow up as individuals whose values are independent of the shows that they watch on TV. Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory explains why children in the sensorimotor and preoperational stages tend to imitate the violence they see in cartoons. This is because of their tendency to see things as they are without making any judgment, and also the tendency to think illogically and to focus only on one of the character’s qualities. At the same time, Piaget’s theory also proves the idea that older children and adolescents – those in the concrete and formal operational stages – can definitely separate themselves and their own identities from what they watch. This is because of their tendency to consider multiple aspects of a character, the ability to think in abstract terms, and their natural tendency to be realistic when it comes to problem-solving. Top of Form Bottom of Form Works Cited Kirsh, Steven J. “Cartoon violence and aggression in youth.” 2005. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 11 (547-557). Murray, John P. & Murray, Ann D. “Television in Infancy and Early Childhood – Uses & Effects.” 2008. Encyclopedia of Infant and Early Childhood Development, (1-15). Scheibe, Cyndy. “Piaget and Power Rangers: What Can Theories of Developmental Psychology Tell Us about Children and Media?” Read More