Westworld's Assumptions about People and Violence

Okay, so I think one of the main things that bothers me about Westworld isn’t necessarily the gratuitous amount of violence, nudity, and sex, or the lack of interesting characters and storylines (I’ll put “in my opinion” here so no one yells at me); but that it's just one of the many pieces of contemporary media that assumes most people, if given the chance, would want to be violent and to hurt others. Not only is this concept frankly unoriginal (and boring, overdone, Euro-centric, masculine), but it’s an idea that’s, at least, more suspect than people give it credit for.

What makes so many writers, philosophers, and people on my Facebook feed think that humans are naturally predisposed to violence? That we really want to hurt other people, and are looking for any excuse to do so? If Westworld really did exist, would it get much business? Would people really pay to kill and (sexually) assault others? Would they not fear those acts having any affect on their mental health?

Why do the creators of Westworld and of Westworld make the theme park violent? Both being businesses and money-driven entities should provide an obvious answer (and one of the most common excuses given for violent media): “they’re giving the people what they want”! Here, and in medias like Westworld, presents a conflict between Miller’s concepts of Television Studies 1.0 and 2.0: are these forms of entertainment giving us violence because we want it, or are they making us want it by giving it to us?

Westworld allows us to ask why media depicts violence as enjoyable so often, and why media assumes that its audience agrees that humans are naturally bad, naturally violent. It also allows us to investigate social issues: why are so many of the parks attendees white men? Are they more likely to be interested in committing violence? Why is that? This then allows us to ask about the creators and the audience: who made it, and who watches it? Why are they interested in violence? Why do they assume people are interested in committing it? By presenting these questions, Westworld allows us to investigate the many aspects of our relationship to violence, and to what extent our media perpetuates or creates it.