A discussion held Wednesday in the Memorial Union elicited strong reactions about the media’s portrayal of violence against women.

The discussion was in response to the showing of a video, Dreamworlds II, which featured video clips from MTV that demonstrate violence against women.

“I couldn’t sit through it,” said Noel Wrucke, a volunteer program director for ACCESS, an assault care center for battered or raped women. “I was very offended by it.”

Wrucke said she experienced culture shock when she saw the video because she did not have cable at home. “Is this what my 16-year-old son is seeing at his friend’s house?” she asked.

Nkosi Poole, a senior in civil engineering, said the video did a good job of picking out parts of the music videos and putting them together.

“The violence is diluted in the music videos, so it’s not really noticeable,” Poole said. “There is much more violence than I thought. I knew it was there but it never bothered me. The video made me wonder how much of what we’re seeing goes into our thoughts.”

Julie Wooden, a graduate student who has worked at the YWCA for 3 1/2 years, said the younger generation is especially desensitized by violence in the media. She brought up the case of a 6-year-old girl who stabbed her friend over a Barbie doll. “They don’t even see anything wrong with violence at that age.”

McGriff said he remembered people laughing at the scene in the movie Pulp Fiction where the boy’s head was blown away in the car. “We are a violent society,” he said, “and the violence is not restricted towards women.”

Milton McGriff, a senior in English, said to start changing things, we have to change ourselves first. “We have to start by ending the violence within us,” he said. Dawn Haynes, a resident assistant in Willow Hall, said she feels people have an obligation to change what they feel is wrong. “If you don’t like it, it’s up to you to change it.”