Studio Research II Fall 2025: Project 2 assignment: Desensitization

Quotes:

“As a result of 15 years of 'consistently disturbing' findings about the violent content of children’s programs, the Surgeon General’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior was formed in 1969 to assess the impact of violence on the attitudes, values, and behavior of viewers. The resulting report and a follow-up report in 1982 by the National Institute of Mental Health identified these major effects of seeing violence on television:

Children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others.
Children may be more fearful of the world around them.
Children may be more likely to behave in aggressive or harmful ways toward others.”

Meaning:

In my BFA series, there’s a multi-layer of issues it dives into and comments on, but the main problem that’s the main topic is desensitization. Since the start, we have been becoming desensitized since we were kids due to cartoon violence, YouTube, video games, toys, etc. Though it isn’t apparent at first, multiple factors had slowly started to desensitize us, and as the years went on, we have become more desensitized to bigger issues. As we have gotten older, numerous forms of media have slowly started to teach how to dehumanize people who are more unfortunate than we are. COVID has also helped more with dehumanizing people due to the lack of human interaction during that time.

Adjacent Project:

For my adjacent work, I would illustrate mini comics about desensitization inspired by Looney Tunes and the contrast between being desensitized as a kid and an adult. Overall, it’s a dark humor mini-series that provides commentary on this issue. The mini series would be put around campus for others to look at. The mini series is called “Ultimate Pandemonium Bitez, " linking the two to my BFA.

Questions:

When did it hit you when you that you were desensitized?

When do you think we started to become desensitized?

Do you think there’s ways to prevent becoming desensitized?

Do you think there’s a lack of empathy epidemic?

Draft :