o4/o4/11 Lecture. Prudence Murphy.
The content of Prudence Murphy's lecture this Monday was about her recent works and the exploration of basic human activities, (walking, running, washing, brushing, etc) weaving us into her latest work, yet to be presented, titled Boys With Guns, 2011.
What was spoken about during this section of her lecture involved that "fleeting moment" in a child's development, where they learn to experiment through curiosity, and allow their environment and visuals influence how they act and see the world.
The main focus of this particular series deals with young boys and their exploration and fascination with toy guns, or even just the idea of a gun. The object of a gun symbolises power and strength, whereby the boys roleplay certain scenes from movies, create new games, or even learn from news stories.
Murphy speaks about and raises the question of whether these actions with guns are valid, or whether they are projections of adult desires, and rather, more serious than initially imagined. Her understanding of these actions are that, boys or young children are influenced by what the see, however the way they play and act out scenes is moreso a learning process rather than a form of stronger violence. She believes that it is a child's absorbtion in character and play, and rather than frowning upon such actions, she encourages children to do this, as she continues to stress the importance of role play.
A video that was shown to us involved young children renacting the suicide bombings, had some play the 'bad guys' and others play the innocent public who get killed, thus acting as 'dead bodies'. Prudence Murphy sees this as a way of dealing with the trauma as it is current and for some, it is reality, whether it's because the war is happening within their country, or whether they have lost a loved one due to the bombings.
This is where I believe you need to draw a line between playful roleplaying, and in a sense, 'serious training' due to the conditioning of human behaviour and how the critical learning stage is within young children. This so-called 'aping' of violence shouldn't be seen as something acceptable for children, not because we 'don't want children growing up without knowing about violence', but rather because whilst roleplaying, different children can understand things differently, hence leaving some growing up to become 'the bad guy'.
Sure, kids need to learn about violence, however, it also needs to have a limit as to how serious the situation is. I recently came across a photograph of a young girl holding up a sign which read "We are taught not to get raped, but we aren't taught not to rape." Which I think is mirroring, to some extent, this issue of roleplaying and violence. this is because by roleplaying, children are taught about violence, but they are not taught how to prevent violence, nor are they told not to be violent.
As mentioned in the Q & A part of the lecture, Oliver questioned the series by raising a quote spoken by Walter Benjamin, wondering whether or not this act of roleplaying is done with no thought, hence 'killing with no conscience'.
This act of roleplaying could in fact, also be the process of gradually leaning to violence as time goes on, having children become consumed by power, strength, leadership and the urge to kill.
Personally, I wouldn't be encouraging the act of roleplaying violence, however I also wouldn't want to prevent the act of roleplaying violence either. There just has to be a limit between acceptable and over the top, where someone needs to step in and voice what is right and what is wrong.