According to Newtons’s third law of motion, whenever two objects interact, they exert equal and opposite forces on each other(every action force has an equal and opposite reaction). Now, in the context of Literature and Society, the same reasoning could be applied, the transformative purpose or function of literature, which implies that both the reader and a literary piece have a reciprocal experience at a particular time and place. It poses the notion that the effect of a literary piece is felt through interaction from the audience. All forms of literature; novels, poetry, music, videos that involves creativity impacts on an individual through their interaction and how they interpret the contents.
Human behavior is also flexible and can be altered at any given time due a person’s contact or exposure to whatever makes him/her happy. At adolescence, teenagers have a tendency of wanting to experiment everything that they come across. This therefore, could give an explanation as to why there has been a sudden and abnormal change in the behaviors of our school going children, both at primary and secondary levels. Cases of early pregnancies, twisted sexual orientations, drug and substance abuse as well as student-Teacher relationship in the recent past have gone up with or without a case study, it is evident.
The society has failed to make teenagers realize the need to treat sex as a responsibility and not pleasure. Their exposure to sexual content through entertainment literature has reciprocated their urge to try and experiment whichever idea is portrayed there with. In the context of Kenyan music, to be specific the so called gengetone genre which has a huge teen following, our children have been poisoned with the dirty lyrics that the artists openly utter to their ears. Most of which promote sexual immorality in their videos yet we have accepted such kind in our society. Most parents have introduced their young girls to family planning giving them a justification to engage in premarital sex whenever they like. As a result, they irresponsibly fall to sexual chemistry without protection against pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
There is no universal religious assent to same sex relationship. If I take the advantage to ride on the provision of the[American democracy under President Obama] that, through the supreme court that accorded dignity to same sex marriage (BBC NEWS-26th June,2015).This movies has seen many western movies incorporate the idea of same sex relationship as part of a society. For instance, watching Tyler Perry’s “The Oval” where a character Kyle is in love with another male character Don to an extent of confronting Don’s wife. Similarly, watching Netflix’s “who killed Sara?” you encounter other two male characters who date and goes to the extent of wanting to raise a child. These movies regardless of whatever they portray have effects on our kids when they watch them. Gayism has never been an African thing. If we never had same sex relationships when the African parenting never allowed the interaction of boys and girls traditionally, why have it now when we have mixed primary and secondary schools and institutions of higher learning?
Drug and substance abuse has also gone up in our schools. It is a problem teachers face but no rational combat mechanism has been developed. If an investigation could be carried out right now to determine this, then the results will shock the world. Taking you back to the current teen’s favorite music genre-gengetone that publicly praise bhang smoking and other drugs, appeal to our teens both boys and girls. Believe me, I am a teacher and this children will tell you they smoke in form of a joke in class when they mean it. As a result, it gives them the courage to approach teachers who look young in their hallucinated consciousness. Take your time and watch the video of the song “Kimangoto” by Boondoks gang featuring Timmy That and you will get the whole idea. They make it appear normal a male student harassing a female teacher and vise versa, and in reality when you take action, they have the advantage. Our society believes a student more than a teacher when it comes to defense.
Literature is good, entertainment as well. Transformation in the modern societal set up is productive. Negative transformation is like a self processed poison. Bowing to the pressure of destructive literature will eventually yield a rotten society where obscenity and unethical behavior will be the new normal. Our teenagers should be guided. Guidance and counseling departments in schools should be active. Parents should teach their children on sex from the onset of their adolescence..
The post Teens And Entertainment -By Shem Godwins first appeared on Opinion Nigeria.
