Mary's Third RTF Blog 09-19-10

Although most of the current population does not realize it, the Cultivation Theory presents itself in nearly any human being's everyday life. This theory can best be described as the creation of a skewed perception of reality due to prolonged exposure of any false truth. The man who originally came up with the theory, George Gebner, stated that Cultivation had become one of the main sources of "storytelling" in society. Children especially spend mass amounts of time watching TV and on the internet, which can begin to shape their attitudes early on. By viewing a distorted perspective of the truth for so long, we seem to not only believe it, but also apply it to situations which are completely irrelevant. For example, it is not uncommon for a full grown adult to feel threatened when walking by another person, if simply they are of a different race. Females, myself included, often cringe if they are 'threatened', which due to Cultivation, is around almost any race but their own. Even in a crowded area, the thought of the other individual taking on the persona of what has been viewed for so long seems inevitable. Consider being stuck somewhere (say, an elevator) with a man of Asian descent. One would immediately expect for him to scale the wall, climb through the roof, and, impossibly so, ascend to the nearest floor and thus save all those involved. Not very likely to actually happen. Cultivation has caused mass belief in things that are relatively improbable to happen. Walking past someone of a different race does not automatically spell danger. It becomes our job, then, to correct the damage that those before us have caused, which comes of course, not without a few more movies that stereotypically define almost all of America.