A father walks into his son's room with something wrapped around his hand. Unwinding the whip, he swings it at his son ripping the flesh off the boys back. A mother covers her baby's face with a fluffy pillow, while putting her baby to bed, cutting the air supply to her newborn. Ordinarily, violence refers to physical trauma or injury: something is violent if flesh has been torn or bones have been broken, but violence also suggests that the trauma has not just occurred accidentally; it has been inflicted. This is a picture of horror, but also a picture of reality; Violence is an American tradition. In the movie, Violence: An American Tradition, our eyes were opened to what America is like. Ethnocentrism, Objectification, Domestic Violence, and Racism are only a few topics that were focused on in the movie.
             When individuals know that others are present, and they as individuals do not bear the full burden of responsibility, and make the assumption that 'someone must have taken care of it', or 'somebody has already done something about it', is known as Diffused Responsibility. This phenomenon has been thoroughly researched since the murder of Kitty Genovese in New York in 1964. "She was attacked at night just outside her home. She fought the murderer off, but he returned and attacked her again as she lay in the street. Repeatedly he ran away and returned, the murder taking a full half hour. Although she was screaming for help in a densely populated neighborhood, no one came to her assistance, or even alerted the police, although police established afterwards that her screams were heard by at least 38 of her neighbors." In the movie, many different scenes are seen with this occurring theme. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is usually linked to domestic violence such as child abuse. Shaking a baby to death, or putting a pillow over the baby's face, are good examples of diffused ...