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FCC Report - TV Violence Should be Regulated
tanman writes "CNN reports that a draft FCC report circulating on Capitol Hill 'suggests Congress could craft a law that would let the agency regulate violent programming much like it regulates sexual content and profanity — by barring it from being aired during hours when children may be watching' The article goes on to quote from studies showing a link between violent imagery and violence in life, and discusses the 'huge grey areas' that could result from ill-defined concepts of excessive violence." Government as Nanny, or cracking down on an excessive entertainment culture? Which side of this do you find yourself on?
They can do it again.
I think I'd prefer the gratuitous sexuality. That's way more fun than violence.
24/7
Engineering is the art of compromise.
When one is absent the other will be there take fill the void.
I like violence, I am sure many other people do too. Currently its presented in a virtual enviroment where nobody gets hurt.
I am sure many people would have no qualms in making actual violence more of a reality.
Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
Gratuitous, horrific violence is OK, just as long as you don't say any naughty words!
I believe this is fairly common in Europe. I remember movies like Red Dawn and one of the Rocky pictures either being forbidden or having to be re-edited for viewing in Germany.
I've always found it strange that the U.S. has such conflicted a conflicted attitude towards sex, with numerous "morals" laws and restrictions, yet a massive hard- and soft-porn industry. Contrast that with the pretty much "anything goes" attitude towards violence which the American public seems to revel in.
I don't mind them limiting the hours it can be shown, but I would have a problem with them trying to ban it totally. As is, I refuse to watch a lot of television because of the levels of violence. I just don't want to see that stuff and don't find it entertaining at all.
For the same reasons I won't go watch movies like Saw or Hannibal Rising. Silence of the Lambs was good, but Red Dragon and Hannibal Rising were nothing more than an excuse to see how disturbing they could get.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I'd say that there needs to be some censorship in this area, but it needs to be well defined like it is here in the UK. You can show violence, sex and whatever else you like AFTER 9pm, up until 9pm you have to keep it tame. This means people can still show anything they like but parents have a fairly good idea of what will be involved after the watershed (9pm).
I like muppets.
Stop regulating content completely and let parents do the regulating with parental control settings that are on pretty much every digital cable box nowdays.
Seeing lots of violence normalises it. Hearing lots of fucking swearing normalises that too.
This is well documented. The idea that gaves and movies etc provide a harmless relief valve are completely without merit.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
that's rubbish. tv violence has nothing to do with real life violence. the source of violence is bad parenting. instead of wasting all this money they should've given it to someone who could use it to really solve this problem, like social service or schools.
USians demand right for ultra-violence in media, get upset about female anatomy being shown (e.g. Janet Jackson's boob on tv). Europeans get upset about kids getting exposed to violence (big fuss in the UK at the moment because 5 teenagers got shot dead in the country in the last month, people really worried about level of violence) but happy with nudity... go round France, Italy etc and there will be billboards by the side of the road with topless models advertising perfume etc.
:-)
mmm... your choice
they could rule that any violence shown on TV must be absolutely realistic.
:-)
Not the idiotic "bang, you're dead" type "violence" that you see all day long in gangster films and the like.
No, they would have to show the real thing - where someone who is shot takes quite a long time to die, and does so under very disconcerting circumstances.
My guess is that people would turn off their TV sets rather than watch something like that. And they would complain on their own accord - "think of the children!", but this time it would be a grassroots thing, rather than something which is being mandated from the top.
And to boot, having seen such scenes would probably make children a lot more squeamish about playing with toy guns and "shooting" people as well...
Or perhaps I'm still too optimistic about people in general - perhaps doing something like that would not achieve anything, except turning the nation's children into hardened psychopaths much faster than they are now...
A.
The FCC found one study that gives them evidence to extend their authority, ignore the Constitution, and further entrench the government in our lives. What a surprise. Really, for an organization that was initially designed to de-conflict the radio spectrum, the FCC sure has expanded. Police powers are supposed to be left to the states. The federal government is intruding on their power and citizens' rights. If its so bad, parents should do their job and not let kids watch it. If its so bad, then no one will watch it, and they will put on other programming. The thing is, people are watching it, and its what people want. Let me make my own decisions, and stop trying to be my parent. That's not the purpose of government. Defend me from the big, bad media companies, please, cause I don't have the common sense to turn off the TV and read a book.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
I'm writing this movie about a dude named Phreedom O'speech. He's a good guy, tries to be fair to everyone, and the common people seem to really like him. However a group of terrorist find him to be a threat to their goal of world domination and decide to chop him up into pieces with an axe: first they chop off his fingers. Blood, bones, and flesh spew everywhere. They rip off his eyelids just to torture the poor guy, but they don't stop there. Off go his balls in one fell swoop of the terrorists knife. The people that respected poor Phreedom O'Speech mourn his death, but did nothing to prevent it, merely sat and watched... too busy writing shitty analogies at 3:30am that are bound to get modded as off-topic, flamebait, or my personal favorite: Insightful :(
I would censor violence... Think about it - what is most likely to pose a threat :
Gun-nuts or nuts-nuts?
Well that's one way to get the Iraq war out of the media before the next election, ban TV coverage under a "think of the children" violence clause.
Horay, in just a few more years TV will have moved online and we'll never have to hear about this issue again!
not adults. So keep your knee-jerks in check. You will get to see your gore, only late at night.
I'm a grown-up man who has watched action movies all my life, and I am getting pretty sick of the violence. It sometimes seems like directors try to one-up each other with titillating depictions of evil and suffering.
I'm pretty sure mankind doesn't have an innate NEED to hurt each other despite what some psychologists hypothesized a hundred years ago - rather that it is a quick problem-"solving" (ego-scratching) solution that many stick to - and I'm pretty sure that if you expose people to violence all their lives they will become violent. Monkey see, monkey do.
Another interesting thing is that in Sweden we have only a fraction of the level of violent crimes as compared to USA. I don't think we are by nature a more docile people, it's rather probably the result of a lack of handguns and generations of limited media violence. And we haven't had a war in 200 years.
I'm leery of censorship and nanny-state style regulation of media, but the current system doesn't make a lot of sense. Sex and profanity are tightly controlled while violence isn't, yet violence is probably the most potentially damaging to viewers of the three. I think it would make a lot of sense if a single body had the task of rating tv, film, and video games and did so with a consistent set of guidelines as to what is appropriate.
Fuck the children [not literally], I pay for cable not them. If cable/tv/whatever is bad for them, then make a law banning them from watching TV.
Why should I be left with shite "family oriented" programming when I'm the one paying the damn bill?
When 6 yr olds start paying for cable maybe then we should consider what's in their best interests.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
"by barring it from being aired during hours when children may be watching'
Ten, fifteen years ago I might have agreed with this. But we have TV ratings now, and we have V-Chips that can cut off content based on that rating. So long as the ratings accurately describe potentially objectionable content in a program, of what possible use is rescheduling it as well?
I can also foresee some sort of chilling effect: I seem to be under the impression that, after hours, broadcast television can show practically anything up to hardcore pornography, but even after midnight you'd be hard pressed to find a bare female breast, and then only on basic cable or some European import on PBS. Of course, I can agree that perhaps we do want a chilling effect on violence, but there's still the First Amendment and all.
Television exists to stuff the viewer's eyesockets with advertising. The programming content serves to keep your eyes "glued" for the advertising.
There's little of value on television that one couldn't learn more profoundly by going to the library, reading an encyclopedia article, talking to someone knowledgeable, taking a walk, or just reflecting. And anything that television does teach is likely not as worthwhile as any of these alternatives.
Television being what it is (consumer hypnosis, not education), it's hard not to conclude that television is really meant to be a significant challenge on the obstacle course preventing serious thinking (and political action) in this brave new world.
Bad government and multinational corporations thank you for watching.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
They have a watershed, after which you can show pretty much whatever you want. However, before the watershed, no gratuitous violence, sex or swearing. Watching movies on daytime TV in the US, I was appauled that the FCC seems to judge whether a film is suitable for that audience by how many times someone gets violently killed on screen - every other aspect of the movie is left intact, which seems pretty fucked up, as the actual violent scenes are not as half as violent as some of the (non-swearing) language and personal interactions also depicted. I always found US TV censors to be fucking ridiculous, to be honest. Laughable, in fact. No swearing, but you can hear this guy go on about how much he wants to kill a bunch of people for no apparent reason, then never get his comeuppance, leading kids to believe violence is cool. Kids aren't stupid, and it's their lack of stupidity which means they have to be shielded from violence. Kids learn about their world from watching adults interact. We're not born with all our social graces hard-wired. If kids are allowed to watch TV (or even sneak off to watch it on their own), then there's a very good chance they're going to see something that could skew their perspective on life.
Parents need to quit blaming the industry and ruining entertainment for everyone because they find something offensive. The best solutions. Don't buy it...review the content before allowing children to see it...or just remember that the TV lets you change channels and turn it off. It reminds me of Jon Stewart playing a clip of a politician detailing watching his son play a violent video game. Stewart: "And as I stood there, watching my son play that violent video game, unable to do anything about it..." Yeah, my point exactly, parents want the government to step in, and I think they should just quit passing the buck and BE THE DAMN PARENT.
Most if not all major problems in people can be traced back to bad parenting.
Watching American Idol or Fox News makes me a lot more likely to go out and hurt someone than Robot Chicken does.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Has no-one in Congress read the Bill of Rights?
No violence, no shooting, no riot scenes? I guess the 6pm news will have to be delayed until 9pm then?
You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
Let's face it, serialized broadcasting where you are told when to watch was always an artificial constraint of media. If all media was turn on the tube and ask for what you are looking for at any point in time, "protecting the children" would not be an issue since they wouldn't randomly stumble upon it.
The real issue is, broadcasters cannot guarantee that a kid isn't around when they schedule a show, but you need to be in order to watch it. Get rid of this and this problem will draw back somewhat. Not entirely, but somewhat.
I chucked the tv 5 years ago. I won't let it back in until I have an apple-tv, a myth-tv and no other way of letting "programming" in. Radio station bandwidth ought to be used to push files out for prestaging on your radio, but what you listen to at what time is best left up to you.
Lastly, and it pains me to say it to some extent, I'm happy that US influence in the world is on the decline. I'm thankful that the dollar isn't as strong or universal as it was and hopeful this will continue. I don't want the jerks that pick a fight with me on Marta in Atlanta to EVER have the opportunity to go to another country and further demonstrate micro-level-war-mongering to reflect this overall influence of violence in the states.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
In an age of personal un-responsibility Americans have seemingly abdicated their will to use the most obvious control....the bloody OFF switch on the TV.
Of course this would mean losing the electronic baby-sitter so many have come to rely on.
Geez! What's a parent to do?
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Being a parent you can't be all encompassing and control every finite moment of your child, that would be a *BAD* parent. You have to learn to trust your kids and learn to set limits which is very very hard if tv is stretching those limits beyond means.
Its a paradigm of media winning the hearts and minds of family and parents just being those people that pay for it all (in ways children can't conceive).
I don't think the issue is necessarily control violence but i'd sure as hell hope my kids see boobs and crotch and weiners long before they see someone eating someones brain for dinner while they're drugged up.
So yeah, i actually appreciate a government discussing something, a split house is nice for actual "debate" and well, politics is dirty, if you can prove parents are all to blame then do it.
No one has yet, but they still just blame parents. Sure there are bad apples and some people should have a license to be able to have kids but there you go, accepting big brother for something you see doesn't impact you but would impact someone else.
catch my drift?
Being a parent my hands are tied and you want to say i need to do more? are you a parent?
Why do I say that ? Well remmember the Roman ? As far as I know death & blood were not faked. And somehow I doubt people were forced to watch, or stopped watching in disgust. Look at when there is an accident the number of passerby which comes and watch. Usually what slow down traffic is less the clown which have a look than the accident itself (especially true on 3 or 4 lanes freeway). The majority, if not all people, have this morbid streak to look at the misery of other and think "well at least that was not me". Make it real and people will not only be even more desenstivized to true violence, but they might even STARTS to enjoy it...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Alright, I haven't read all the comments, so I hope I'm not just repeating what someone else says (I doubt it, the quality of posts around here has been weak for a while) I'm normally all for libertarianism, the government should stay the hell out of how I live my life, until it starts affecting the lives of other. But I think I have to admit that I might side with the "censorship" side of things on this one. Sadly, WAY too many people use TV to babysit, and I really don't see why we need to highlight violence when there's healthier and, well I guess, better things to highlight with the power TV has. Sex and love and doing what you can to help your fellow man aren't intrinsically void of good plots, and they can certainly lead to great ideas and stories that could help guide the impressionable to make our nations really great again. It's a shame that the people who come up with the drivel on TV, with the real power of thought-control they have, waste it on the crap that's fed to us. There are a few smart shows out there, but most of it just helps feed negative messages to the viewers, feeds that consumerist need, and leads to a wasteful life. If suggestions (sadly in the form of legal controls) from the government can help reduce negative images and (hopefully) encourage more positive thoughts in viewers then I'm forced to agree with their doing so. But of course this "censorship" will likely be politically motivated in some way or another and won't serve any purpose but that of the people who want to enact such a law, and it'll just further fuck up an already sick nation. I guess that's the reason I'm against governments sticking their grubby hands in places they shouldn't be.
The unexamined life is not worth living
As it is, most TV shows that contain extreme violence are fairly late at night, so I don't think that really needs to be mandated by the government in the first place. Then again, I generally think the government should butt-out.
Even if there were some violent television shows or movies that were pushed back to 9 or 10 pm, that isn't going to stop kids from watching it. You know what we (kids) will, and already do? Stay up later then we should. And the person to stop us from doing that should be the parents.
That said, parents, if they so wish, should be the people to regulate this kind of stuff in the first place.
<flamebait>
Personally, my parents have never regulated what I've been able to watch on television or the computer. I don't think it's the worst thing in the world to be exposed to life, well, early in life, as I have been. I don't understand why American parents have become such control freaks, keeping their kids on a leash all the time.
</flamebait>
Eddie
the 9pm watershed is outdated when we have such a wide range of broadcasts. cable satellite. The simplest solution with digital broadcasts woiuld be an age rating flag.
let the user set the level they want to recieve and blank the channel when it exceeds thier set rating.
Parents would appreciate the ability to keep thier tv kidsafe when they want and allow the rest of us access to what we want to watch when we want to watch it.
some of us adults have to be up early in the morning, a 9 oclock watershed means limiting our viewing to family safe content.
Do you really want your tv limited to broadcasting quiz shows sitcoms and soaps before 9 so called family entertainment?
of course kidsafe tv is open to the parents disabling it entirely it would also entail parents buying into the scheme (quite literally as it would require some new hardware). Of course this would mean an end to our tv regulators deciding what is suitable for us to see.
It also makes it possible to block tv licience funded broadcasts and make the tv licience opt in for viewers.
Of course self-regulation wouldnt be acceptable to the current regulators, would it .
extending this idea might allow users to block particular broadcasts. For example anything featuring michael barrymore or noel edmonds or chris moyles or janet street porter. They don't necessarily break any standards of decency but i'd rather not have them in my living room.
actually now this does present the real dilema. If a broadcaster flags a show as in a particular catagory you then are trusting that broadcaster to always be right. Thats the problem with giving them the control of censorship of your viewing.
maybe the real solution is the off button and parents taking responsibility for thier choice of what is suitable for thier kids to see.
I do like the idea of perhaps dynamic self censorship.
pick what offends you and have a database of the schedules flagging what you want or don't want to see.
maybe i just need to press the channel change on the remote.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Well, the basic fact is this. If there is violent content on TV or a movie, something really gross, parents have no qualms about engaging in a conversation with their kids and telling them the other side of the story and letting the kids know the right from wrong when it comes to violence. But most parents are very uncomfortable talking about sex to their kids and providing them with a balanced picture. In a ad-supported medium like TV they tend to prefer censorship. If they have to pay for content, like they do for print magazines or books, they usually dont bother. So it is easy to snicker at the parents and the American public for tolerating heavy doeses of violence and flipping out at the first wardrobe malfunction. But the fundamental cause is that there is not enough paid, ad free alternatives to TV. If that becomes possible, GoogleTV or AppleTV or Akimbo service or whatever, the demand for censorship will vanish. [Typing without my contacts. Please forgive typos.]
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Sex is something very common, a part of a _normal_ life. Violence is not! A 12 year old can see someone's head being blown off but 'Oh my god! Shield them from seeing someone's genitalia on TV."
I don't advocate showing pornography to children, but I think they should be able the see the statue of David. I just don't understand why for so long, violence was accepted, but sex was not.
If I had to choose one or the other, I would accept the display of sexuality to children than the display of violence.
I grew up in Eastern Europe, and I have to say that when coming to U.S. I was shocked of how sexually repressed this country it. There was a story in the news how a theatre changed the title of the 'Vagina Monologues' to the 'Hooha Monologues' -- WTF!?
A vagina is a 'hoohaa' now, because a grandmother didn't want to tell her granddaughter who is old enough to read what a vigina is? Well, what the hell is a hoohaa then?
There is a reason why there are so many substitute words for female genitalia in English (hoohaa, pussy, box, coochie, hole, snatch, slot, nooch, fanny -- just a couple I could thin of right now.) This is direct result of sexual repression.
Also, a couple of years ago, when 'March of the Penguins' was in the movie theatres, I was watching it with my wife and there was couple with their young (6-7 year old ) daughter. There is a scene in the movie when the penguins are mating. They were not showing close up of genitals or anything like that. The mother got up, yanked the daughter by her hand and dragged her out. The girl didn't quite understand what to make of her mother's reaction, she got scared and started crying. Then they came back later, just in time to watch the penguin baby chicks die because their parents couldn't take care of them. I thought, 'how sad', that poor girl...
At the same time. This is one of the most violent countries in the world. It is not because of the guns, it's irrelevant, people own guns in other countries but the don't necessarily shoot each ther with them.
And then there is the problem with violent video games. Children in Europe play violent video games. I love Doom, Quake and all of the other ones. But those children do not go and shoot each other as much as the American children. It is as if we cannot simply blaim ourselves, and our culture for disasters like Columbine, we have to blaim video games, or some other things that we can all point a finger to.
Sorry for the rant. Hey if Linus can have a nice 'healhty' rant at the GNOME desktop, so can I at the American society
If our aim is to create a peaceful society, broadcasting images of violence free-to-air is not the way to do it. I say keep the violence levels down, and lighten up on the sex restrictions. People have sex all the time, it's a wonderful natural part of the human experience. Violence is very unpleasant, unnecessary part of the human experience, and I believe a cap on violence levels on TV would be beneficial to our society. That being said, I don't even live in the US :-)
This is all because of people whining about how violence isn't treated equally with sex on television.
Well, it shouldn't be. Seeing violence doesn't have nearly the social effect that seeing sex on TV does. Seeing TV murders doesn't make people want to commit murders. On the other hand the MTV generation is generation of female sluts and irresponsible little boys.
It's the 21st century, we're supposed to see more sex, not less! Oh... and in reference to the backwards comment: The penis goes in the vaginal opening. Not cheek to cheek.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Apply the "utterly without redeeming social importance" standard across the board. We could be rid of half what masquerades as "news," 3/4 of "reality" TV, 8/10 of the current sitcom and drama, 99% of "daytime T.V." and the entirety of the "WWE" all in one fell swoop. By the end of the process there'd be so little left on T.V., people would stop channel surfing and just turned the damned things off.
You know, the ones who talk about Fox News' sacred right to broadcast propaganda and call it news?
You know, the sacred right they've had since the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in the last decade or so?
When you talk about government regulating what they say on TV, some Republicans trot out the constitution like a prayer rug and wave it all around in the air. Their Speech Is Free. How dare the government regulate the media.
(I mean, the government has to decide who can broadcast. And it can only pick a few lucky people, and everyone else can't broadcast on pain of huge penalties.)
(But aside from that, those lucky few should be able to say whatever they want on TV. If you don't like it, print a newspaper.)
The Republicans said, Americans are smart. Americans are free. Americans can handle their own media without getting confused. They don't need anyone to look out for them. They choose what media to watch and what not to watch, and if they happen to see something not so cool when switching channels, oh, they can handle it.
And they are lying through their teeth. They don't really believe a word of that.
Their coming out to censor the media like this is how you can tell.
You're supposed to be able to take care of yourself when consuming the information that powers, oh, this entire democracy. But not be able to handle some violent or sexual imagery.
Megalomaniacal hypocrites.
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Ive watched porn & violent movies since i was a little kid, so by that analogy i should be a raving psychopath by now.
When in fact im quite the opposite. What realy helps is to have parents that keep you grounded (as in down to earth)
I read it as, FCC Report - TV Violence Should be Regular wich actually makes sense.
Some theory has it that excessive violence makes people immune to it and more willing to accept it in their lives. FCC training the US to be mindless killers. Oh okay, killers, they already got the mindless part.
Only kidding, americans. Europeans watch the US, watch you making a complete mess of things, and then, do the exact same thing, because HEY, it must work a second time?
Anyway, what used to constantly happen on a dutch tv program called countdown (music program) was the interviewed american/english popstars would say something and then excuse themselves for saying something that couldn't be aired. The dutch interviewer then responding, no problem and just going on.
Did all this cursing turn me into a sick sociopath unfit to live in modern society? Eh, bad example.
I also remember some full frontal nudity in dutch childerens tv. Did that turn me in a sex obssesed adult as I grew up? Damn...
Well, I also saw lots of violence like jackie chan movies. Did that turn me into an atheletic incredibly fit adult who can pull of amazing stunts at the drop of a hat? AHA! The proof, TV does NOT AFFECT US!
Discovery channel has been taking a nosedive in recent years but apart from the incredibly bad programs that have nothing to do with science or discovery they also started this amazing practice of not just bleeping out some words but even pixellating the mouth saying them. What, lipreaders complained?
A nude person, flipping the bird saying fuck will be just one huge pixel. Well, that is just wrong.
You know another thing I noticed. A "violent" show like the a-team also, at least early on (dutch tv is re-airing them, ah the quality of commercial stations) always included a shot of the people climbing out of the carwreck to show they were okay and nobody was hurt.
Compare this with far less "violent" tv like Law & Order wich might give you the idea that mass murderes are an everyday thing. Oh, in the US they are?
I know that in holland (15/16 million people, area about the size of new york state) we got less then 1 murder per day (average hovers around 300). On tv? 300 per day? Well, not exactly but close. At least half a dozen crime tv series per day and one wouldn't be complete without at least on killing.
So violence on TV is excessive.
Same as sex. Why there is more sex in one episode of sesami street then your average slashdotter has in a lifetime! SHOCKING!!! (but not as shocking as that there are people who actually want to have sex with big bird (Pino in holland and he is blue))
If I do object to violence on tv then it is that every damn police series producer seems to have watched silence of the lambs. yeah nice movie but give that damned plot a rest will you OR I might go into excessive violence mode on your ass.
The simple fact is that in mainland europe (except for krauts but what do you expect from nazis) we got a pretty relaxed attitude to sex and violence and profanity and it doesn't create a society any more violent (a society with more sex I think would be extremely welcome).
But ah, thinkofthechilderen. Can childeren be affected by images on tv.
Yes offcourse they can (wait for it), just as they can be anything else that raises them. If the TV becomes the babysitter/caretaker then yes, the child will adopt the values of that caretaker.
Childeren should be raised by their parents. To many parents nowadays put the child in front of the tv and think that is enough. It ain't. If the child picks up bad influences from the tv it is because it spends way to much time in front of it.
Because there is something else I remember from dutch tv apart from the sex and the swearing and the violence. We only had one channel. (waits for the younger readers to stop screaming in terror) Just one tv station, wich often didn't have anything on during the daytime. No I don't mean anything you want to w
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
One risk with this is that it builds an infrastructure of content rating, marking and censorship. Such an infrastructure would have a lot more uses than just age control.
Its not infringing on others rights and its not a national security problem... therefore why should any of it be regulated? Why should anyone decide what is appropriate for kids except for the legal parents and guardians? I mean im all for giving the PARENTS more ability to disable certain programming-- but having the government mandate what is okay for everyone? I know of lots of governments that were famous for these kind of steps in the past (though they were more extreme)-- still i dont believe they were called democracies. Im sorry, freedom of speech should not be an option when it comes to media and public airwaves. I happen to be in a leadership position at a radio station, and i have to say the FCC is just an unnecessary pain in the ass and an infringement on our constitutional rights. Its the very 1st ammendment for a reason.
Mike
I heart the RIAA & MPAA, im sure its mutual...
TV was destroyed a long time ago in an anti-violence campaign that killed the westerns and the cop shows, so's all you could find were stupid sit-coms, game shows, and lately the "reality" shows, and idiot stuff like the A Team where they shoot automatic weapons non-stop thruoughout the show and nobody ever gets hurt. I just stopped watching network TV about 20 years ago. Never saw a full episode of Sienfeld or Friends or any of the other useless, boring junk.
24 might be worth watching - I've seen maybe 1 episode, 3 years ago I think. But there hasn't been a show that's been worth being in a certain place at a certain time to watch since Star Trek, and I mean the 1st one, not the subsequent things that have a battlewagon starship cavorting all over the universe, so scared to depict real conflict that they spend the whole show concerned about Wesley Crusher's identity crisis.
So, they can go ahead and screw up network TV some more - if that is possible - I don't care.
I do agree, though, that a set of flags in digital broadcast would be good. On the back of DVD and video boxes, you have the amount of violence, sex, and strong language listed. It would be possible to add corresponding flags to the digital TV stream and allow people to install their own filters. If you have it set with a sufficiently fine granularity (maybe put it in the frame header) then something like a TiVo could even re-edit the stream for you. It made me laugh when I was last in America how the sound track on films would suddenly cut out for a second when someone swore, but this kind of thing would be possible on the client side with sensible metadata. If you're not watching something live, then it could even cut scenes where the sex or violence flags hit a certain threshold.
Interestingly, the DVD spec actually has a way of doing this already; you can create multiple paths through the same video footage. I believe it was designed for showing films with and without deleted scenes, but it could also be used to show a lower-rated edit of the same footage. To my knowledge, however, no DVDs have been produced that implement this.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It's the side that wants to make laws that has to prove it's case.
So go ahead and proove that watching porn causes rape. And proove that video violence causes violence.
"This is well documented"
Linky?
FRA: STFU GTFO
I keep track of what my kids watch fairly closely. I wish the ads
were more regulated. I don't want to have to explain genital
herpes, erectile dysfunction, unprotected sexual intercouse or any
of the other nastiness in those ads to my 7 year old just because
we were watching "Mythbusters". The time for that stuff will come
soon enough (sigh).
-- All that's left of me, is slight insanity, whats on the right, I don't know. -- Bob Mould
...or Powerpuff Girls, or GI Joe, or Pokemon. I mean there is cartoon violence in there! And forget about Harry Potter. And we certainly can't let our junior high school kids read the Odyssey. Too much violence.
*sarcasm*
Government agency announces it should have exanded role, increased powers. Experts reportly shocked at this development.
Chris Mattern
My Mosin Nagant takes a 7.62mm round - as does my Lee Enfield .303 (obviously) ... curiously, given that I am Australian and the Enfield served my countrymen in both World Wars - and the one I own is in fact from a relative who was a serviceman, I still prefer the Mosin. What I just stated would be considered heresy to about 75% of firearm owners who know both firearms well - it's just the way I'm wired. The Springfield? Fucking forget about that piece of shit. Man, the old British and Russian rifles fucking piss on the American ones. Anyone else find the same?
Pistols these days... in desperate need of something new - it's as if we've not moved forward for the last 30 years... I own a SiG P226 - it's just about the only handgun I'd ever want to fire. Ever. Why the fuck change what's so fucking perfect, eh cunts?
Fuck the bum of your cunting penis wanker, shit piss.
In the UK now, Sky TV and the cable companies have digital tv replay features, you can go and re-watch popular recent shows at any time of the day - even if they were on over the watershed.
However, for those shows and movies which would not normally be shown before the watershed you have to enter you PIN to watch.
I believe this is an acceptable compromise - if you don't want your kids watching dodgy stuff, don't let them know your PIN.
liqbase
because at this point we need to figure out how to raise decent kids despite in-depth exposure to sex and violence. Let's face it, a signficant number of parents are going to give their kids unfettered internet access, and that renders any TV rules moot.
I'm awake! The answer is BONK!
I don't know about digital TV by itself but the "d-box" decoder that was used for a pay TV network here included an age flag and if something's rated higher than 16 it asks for a 4 digit password. I don't know what system replaced that thing but the new one still has that feature.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
It's funny you say that because I've always thought it was funny that you couldn't show a nipple on TV, but you could show a bomb going off and killing people in a crowded hospital or somebody getting shot.
I just watched the movie This Film is Not Yet Rated. Kirby Dick does an amazing job opening up a peephole into the MPAA. He reveals to the audience that there is no formal criteria for what makes a PG movie a PG movie, and what makes it different from a PG-13 or an R-rated movie. (Although he does a hilarious Flash-like animation that describes the obvious differences between the ratings, but to the MPAA, there is no formal, published criteria.) The only judges who determine what rating a movie gets are people hired by the MPAA to sit in a room and judge for themselves, without any rules or guidelines to follow whatsoever. What bugs the movie industry so much is that this "process" is kept a complete secret to everyone, including movie producers, outside the MPAA, and no one is "supposed" to know who is on this panel of raters (though Kirby Dick uses a private investigator to discover who is on the panel, and reveals that to the audience).
The documentary does a fantastic job as well exposing the double-standard between rating sex and rating violence. Here's an interesting fact taken from the movie: if the producers of a movie ask for the aid and equipment of the US armed forces, military commanders require their personal screening of the movie before it is allowed to be distributed. If they find any objectionable content which they determine sheds the military in a bad light, they'll demand the content be pulled or edited, less the movie never sees the light of day.
I guess there are reasons for why we encourage our kids to watch violence.
Yeah, before MTV came along teenagers were completely uninterested in fucking, dancing like they're fucking, or dressing like they want to fuck.
When the FCC started, it's job was to regulate frequencies.
But that probably only takes a small staff. A few tech guys and some administrative people. Probably a staff of under 100 people could run the FCC if they didn't try to do things like censor TV/Radio, try to worry about encrypting content, and a bunch of other stuff under the guise of protecting us, but mainly seems geared towards protecting the incumbent carriers.
But enough of that talk, let's be real... if you want to make a big organization, you've got to expand...
Senator! Howard Stern is horrible! The FCC needs to regulate! Send all the dirty tapes to us to listen to!
Mr. President! Sex! On the Television! Someone might fall off! The FCC needs to regulate!
Cable TV has like, people copulating! My god. We need a new law!
Violence! Mr. Representative, On the tube! Our children will see! The FCC needs to regulate!
It's pretty transparent.
Of course as the citizens, we're pretty stupid about it too. We're too stupid to say "uh...what does the FCC have to do with regulating violence...". Instead we hear "...children are endangered..." and we're ready to junk the constitution just so we're "safer".
People may be smart individually, but in a group, we're pretty dumb.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Any "damage" done by television can be attributed to stupid kids or irresponsible parents. If parents would monitor their children's tv viewing and kids would realize that tv is fantasy world we could stop this. Theres no hope, abandon ship
Good luck!
I'm a grown-up man who has watched action movies all my life, and I am getting pretty sick of the violence.
So let me understand... you're sick of all the violence, but you keep going to violent movies anyway... just so you can see how sick of it you really are?
You say you're an adult, but you sure want to be infantilized. Seriously.
Just. Don't. Watch. The. Stuff.
I don't care for violent movies either (I like action), but it never occurred to me to ask for the government help in stopping me from watching it. Why are you so eager to have mommy and daddy keep you safe?
I really think you have issues that have nothing to do with violent movies.
Violent as in old black and white Gene Autry and Roy Rogers shows? Or violent as in lots of blood and guts?
Urbanites seem very afraid of violence and firearms on TV or the movies, but not bothered by sex.
Rural people (and small town which brings it closer to 50%) are bothreed by sex on TV, but not by violence or firearms.
My theory is that rural people are tempted by sex, but still see it as wrong outside of marriage, and certainly don't want their children doing it in junior high, but aren't afraid of violence because they aren't tempted to it, or firearms, because they own them and see them as powerful tools, but not as supernaturally dangerous.
Urbanites tend to be tempted to violence (studies of rat over-population may have some clues in explaining this) and see firearms as some sort of supernatural evil which act on their own, so they fear them. But have no problem with sex in family hour TV, because they don't share with the rest of humanity over time, the prohibition on sex outside of marriage.
That is my hypothesis, always include "tends" in that, and ymmv.
What has always struck me as interesting in this ongoing debate is the cognitive dissonance of some when it comes to the effect of media on forming opinion/public mores.
For example, if a film/television show depicts sympathetic characters who belong to a particular group (racial, religious, national, etc.) or practice/do a particular thing (let's use abortion, inter-racial marriage, etc.), the programming is "socially conscious" for exposing people to things they must be exposed to so they will learn to accept them as part of normal life.
But, when the same media depicts other acts - extreme violence, rape, etc. - as having no or little negative effect on the characters these same people generally say that what we see on television does not affect our values at all.
Which is it, then? Is media (particularly television) a powerful vehicle for molding the mores of a people or simply entertainment? Ask, and you'll frequently get different answers from the same people depending on what the subject is. Obviously, media does not exist in a bubble - it reflects what we do, but it's hard to deny that what is done in media is reflected in the actions of many members of society - all you have to do is go to YouTube and see that.
Of course, media can also be a provider of useless fluff that does neither...
The FCC needs to just stick to regulating and enforcing designated frequency bandwidths to their proper uses by U.S. law. They should NOT be enforcing restrictions on content over "the people's" frequencies. Let the people choose if they want to watch said content or not. If parents want to shelter children from nudity and profanity then it should be up to the parents, not big brother. The problem is that once the FCC is done regulating designated frequency bandwidths, they don't have anything else to do, so they decide censoring on their frequencies will keep them busy.
That even a single American has any support at all for this proposed raping of freedom and liberty.
*CHANGE THE CHANNEL YOU LAZY INEPT BRAINDEAD SIMPLETON MORONIC SHIT FOR BRAINS TWIT!*
The FCC should be disbanded and outlawed, it is useless and moot. The FCC was created to rape freedom and liberty as there was not many broadcast choices back in the day of the start of radio and tv entertainment. Now, you not only have _numerous_ choices of channels but _numerous_ choices on where to surf through channels: AM, FM, Sattelite radio, cable, satellite tv, CDs, MP3s, etc. If you are not mature enough for the 1st Amendment, then you do not deserve any part of it or any other freedoms and liberties you seek to selectively destroy; move to Saudia Arabia for a facist experience with minimal freedoms.
*CHANGE THE CHANNEL YOU LAZY INEPT BRAINDEAD SIMPLETON MORONIC SHIT FOR BRAINS TWIT!*
Pretending there is no such thing as sex and violence by trying to make it fade away through censorship does not in fact make it go away at all, no more than pretending the gaping security holes in Windows are not there makes them go away. This is a cry for laziness by fat worthless lazy Americans who do not deserve any of the freedoms left in the Constitution they ritually destroy much less to be in America. Read a book full of facts rather than bullshit, so put down that damn worthless bible (debunked in the first two chapters of Genesis, TWO creation stories but totally different...your diety is either totally flawed and drunk or this is the work of humans you selectively pick from to match your selfish and greedy goals, after all any man that has gone near a menstrating woman should have been stoned to death along with disobedient children.) and read a book full of facts like say history. Real heroes and patriots fought hard and died for these freedoms after having decades of experience to draw from about letting other people tell you how to live your life; those lessons were wrote down in our Constitution and the Bill of Rights...who the fuck do you think you are to call bullshit on those lessons you fat lazy non-parenting un-american freedom raping moron?
*CHANGE THE CHANNEL YOU LAZY INEPT BRAINDEAD SIMPLETON MORONIC SHIT FOR BRAINS TWIT!*
Here is nice and easy for even the most brain dead lazy idiot that supports _*ANY*_ destruction of freedom and liberty:
1.) For every law you make restricting freedom, liberty and choice, you open a black market to meet the demands that will never go away; See the 18th and 21st Amendments and their history.
2.) For every black market you create, black market justice will also surface in the brand seen fit by that moments police, judge, jury and sometimes executioner.
3.) You will never destroy that black market much less harm it no matter how much money and guns you throw at it, unless you open those freedoms and choices up again with minimal regulation needed for quality and safety standards and only as needed; See again 18th and 21st Amendments.
4.) Given all of this, for any action the FCC makes there will be an equal and opposite reaction by a black market to meet demands that will not go away for things that will not go away by pretending they do not exist to support lazy worthless parents.
"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience."
-George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905
US (Spanish-born) philosopher (1863 - 1952)
We have the FCC because people are offended by all the sex and violence on their VCR.
First off for adults. If you don't like it, change the channel or turn it off. It sure ain't mandatory.
Second for people with kids. Lock the TV up when you are gone. That's right buy a cabinet, install a lock(sold at all hardware stores). Get help if you need it. Or, lock the TV in your bedroom. Don't let the kids watch bad stuff. Buy some books, and get a library card. D'uh.
IT'S CALL PARENTING!!!!!
I do it, so can you.
FCC is a sure sign of punishing all for the failure of some parents. Or, I'm being really hard on people who should be allow to restrict free speech and use our money to do so. I just don't feel great about being taxed by the same government that should be protecting my rights, to restrict my rights. It's all so Today American, but also very unAmerican.
Well, don't listen to me. I not with the popular vote. I trust folks to manage their own lives, and often demand it. Yup, crazy that way.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
There'd be nothing left.
you had me at #!
Cut the FCC's budget. They apparently have too much free time. Give the money to NASA and downsize the FCC to a dozen or so people approving spectrum allocation...
What this shows is that by "staying the course" while the situation and world changes you set yourself up for failure.
Sounds like Bhutan has learned from America to make excuses to shirk off responsibilities; like opening a new avenue of information would not require new avenues of parenting and education of reality vs fantasy entertainment. If you cannot step up to these responsibilities, don't even buy a TV no matter what country you are in.
Asshat.
Until there is content worth watching it doesn't matter.
NB: I didn't think we were THAT close to an election.
Blame my parents if you want but when I was a in my early teens I stayed up all night during the summer. So how are they going to decide "when children might be awake"???
How the hell can this be marked informative and how the hell can you even try to *associate* yourself with the Libertarian party.
http://www.lp.org/
You are so Libertarian by caving into an empowered central federal government that you really just need to go grovel at the feet of W and polish his shoes with your tongue.
Parents, be parents.
Crybabies, change the channel.
Fantasy entertainment != reality (In the old words of 7up, never has and never will.)
Let freedom ring, not stagnate and die under a mere excuse for laziness. I am a true Libertarian and just like any other destuctions of freedoms and meddling, I find this appalling completely. Damn we sure could use Thomas Jefferson again.
If someone subscribes to a satellite/cable service they should be responsible for regulating what children watch. Most satellites I've seen (I don't have much experience with cable) allows you to lock channels. Sure it's a hassle, but if you have kids in the house and you still want those channels you need to take responsibility... instead of letting someone else lock them for you.
It's bad enough there's not much worth watching on TV anymore as it is. In the event I actually want to sit down and watch something, I don't want an extra hurdle such as "You can only watch this show between the hours of 10 PM and 6 AM".
No wonder everyone is moving away from TV and to the Internet... less regulation and more choices.
Also, what about time shifting on satellite? Does this mean all the violent shows played in another timezone become blackedout during times when children can access the channel?
The more they regulate and threaten the broadcast networks, the more of us tune out and just watch cable.
it sounds fair enough if you're already regulating nudity and profanity, thought i think thats stupid as well. thank god i dont live in such a retarded country
So please stop comparing the two. Leave a bunch of two-year-olds unsupervised and a fight will break out. It is also guaranteed that none of them will have sex.
Violence is a survivial instinct that every animal has from birth. Taking it off of the television will not change that. The only thing it would change is the amount of "monkey see, monkey do" instances that are being presented as evidence to back this bill. But by that logic we should also not broadcast depictions of people doing ________ (say, driving cars) as it encourages children to emulate the behavior with disastrous results.
Admittedly passing this law would prevent some incidences of violence. It would also take away the lessons these shows teach, primarily that violence for self/family/community defense is okay while violence for personal gain is not.
It's not only trying to regulate Jack Bauer, but conservatives love 24. If one listens to conservative talk radio, Rush, Doctor Laura, etc. they praise 24 as an example of what would happen if we decided to ignore all of the threats over seas and just concentrated on 'domestic' issues. Nuclear bombs, virus's, terrorists making nuclear reactors melt down, are just a few examples of what could happen if the USA does not take the fight to the enemy.
The republicans have a vested interest in keeping 24 edgy, so they can continue to promote their fear campaign against the American public. The more fear they can install in us the more liberty the can take away. So the government can protect them. Which, ironically, 24 shows that the goverment as a whole is completely inept, and if it wasn't for one man, Jack Bauer, who operates outside the law, nothing would get done in the fight agianst terrorism.
Of course just yesterday, Rush Limbaugh was comparing himself to Jack Bauer saying that he has been warning people about RINO's for a decade and a half (he was specifically talking about the Govanator), If you have top Republican's promoting the show, there is no way in hell it is going to get toned down. Hell, who broadcasts 24? That would be Fox, which we all know is owned by News Corp, which is in turn run by none other than Rupert Murdoch, a staunch conservative, who has a helluva lot of influence with the current administration.
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
I, for one, welcome our Gilmore Girls marathon masters.
If you cut out both sex and violence from tv, you are left with Gilmore Girls, selected Friends episodes and the Teletubbies. Most childrens' cartoons would have to go, as well, since they are mostly about clobbering people in imaginative ways. Although I really can't imagine what an angel I would be, if I had been spared Wile E. Coyote and Tom & Jerry in my childhood. I would probably be walking on water while turning it into wine.
They should ban religious shows from being aired during those hours as well. If anything requires parental supervision, it's religion. And that stuff currently comes up with a 'G' rating on tv. Huh???
The problem with violence is that it isn't really the core problem. Violence comes from aggression, which comes from frustration. Violent images show a method of venting this frustration, but reducing the imagery isn't the solution. You have to either somehow reduce aggression or show people different ways to vent it out. Reducing aggression is again a matter of reducing frustration, but that's quite difficult to do.
Frustration tends to stem from having a goal and not being able to reach it, so the only obvious solution is indifference or changing the goal. Out of these, the latter is more reasonable, because goals in modern society can be strictly defined. All the deadlines, performance requirements and so on, living in an environment of constantly increasing expectations will make anyone lose confidence in themselves and believe they can't reach such unreasonably high goals. This causes frustration, which causes aggression.
One big problem with aggression is that it's always seen as a bad thing. In TV, you might see scenes with someone getting stuck with a problem and then gets workaholic over it and works really hard to figure out the problem. That's aggression, even though many won't recognize it as such. Aggression isn't a bad thing, it's a force that gives people energy to reach their goals.
So, if you want to ban violence, ban images of aggressive violence that aid in problem solving. Ban movies and shows in which getting frustrated and killing others is seen as a positive thing. However, don't ban violence if it's done without anger, don't ban it if it shows the consequences (police involvement, overall failures, etc) in reasonably realistic fashion. Violence isn't bad, violence as the only and a good way to vent out aggression is bad. Give us movies with the bad guys going for a walk or doing strenght excercises when they get pissed off!
On the one hand if they're going to regulate language and other morality, they ought to balance it out by regulating violence as well. On the other hand, a far better solution would be for the FCC to get the fuck off of the babysitting career path altogether and find real jobs.
...
I do like the idea of perhaps dynamic self censorship.
pick what offends you and have a database of the schedules flagging what you want or don't want to see.
Its called a V chip here in the US. It picks up the rating flags the broadcasters send out with shows and can trigger a child-safety lock if it exceeds a level you set in the TVs configuration. To unlock it, you just use a PIN you set there too. Almost all cable boxes around here have the feature as well, and it was required by the FCC for all TVs over 13" made after Jan 1, 2000 to include them.
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
Oh man the nasty mutants they show on TV are just fine, but a nipple is no good? To be fair, TLC is not broadcast TV but it is obvious the double-standard traveled from broadcast to non-premium cable.
Land of the free...what the fuck ever.
Blar.
been there ...
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
My issue is that we've always had unchecked violence, but nudity and profanity were closely kept under wraps. To me it was logically inconsistent. If you want to protect the children, protect them from violence as well as nudity and language. Dont half ass it.
If nothing else, the FCC is just being consistent here. Which is an improvement.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
This is an example of what a Nanny Government is in basic form. Violence should be 'regulated'? How about regulating the influence of useless bureaucrats?
In my opinion, they aren't showing enough - News programs should be showing what REALLY happens, and not censoring out the truth of what goes on. Like on whats going on in the Middle EAST, stop giving us watered down accounts of what happened, just show us what really happened.
It's different for TV programs, because they are not reporting real-life events. However, just because something is graphical or violent doesn't mean it should be regulated. If it become regulated, program guidelinnes will be set and approved by a panel of people, and that is where you get runaway regulation and truly stupid rules.
Even so, if you don't want to see violence on your TV, change the channel. If you can't find a channel that you like, then go do something else besides watch TV.
I should be able to choose what I want to watch and what I don't want to watch - NOT Big Brother.
If anything should be regulated on TV, it should be commercials. Nothing worse than having a commercial for a laxative or acne product when I'm trying to eat dinner.
Sooner or later, the Care Bears and Dora The Explorer will be the only programs the government will have not deemed "Inappropriate".
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
...is that it took this long to be brought up. ...nor is the rank hypocrisy in the proposal surprising.
Just remember: One man's violence is another man's sport. Does this mean the NFL will have to be broadcast at midnight now? What about boxing or professional wrestling? Or Ultimate Fighting, for that matter? Who will decide where the line is? What about the news: Kids can easily be watching the news--so we probably can't show anymore Iraq stories, or Afghanistan stories. That would be pretty convenient for some folks in our current political climate.
And if NFL, Ultimate Fighting, and TV News aren't covered, why not? Surely, if your moral purview insists that we must all be "protected" from violent imagery on television, surely realistic violence on television must be immoral and dangerous too. How could it not be? You're exposing a child to severe, real violence without showing the months (or years, or a lifetime) of agony that result from it. Consequence-free violence, same as fictional television--where is the difference? How could it be OK to show ACTUAL violence but not fictional violence? I'd suggest it isn't, and this proposed regulation leads us down an ugly road.
For the record, I don't approve of the amount of violence on TV these days... I think shows like "Walker, Texas Ranger" being labelled "family programming" is a great example of what is wrong with television in this country. Walker doesn't have sex, so its "Family friendly." Walker DOES have severe violence, that would often result in death in real-life. Totally not appropriate for kids--in my opinion. However, I am far more afraid of the endgame of government getting one more "check" on our private lives. In my house, my parents monitored my television watching. They said "yes" or "no" to shows I wanted to watch when I was too young to process certain things. I didn't get to watch violence, but people who were old enough to enjoy that type of programming were still able to do so. Under this proposal, EVERYBODY has their opportunity to enjoy violent "adult" programming severely curtailed.
Who did what now?
That's a really great idea! Good thing nobody's thought of it before, maybe you should get a patent... ;)
[insert witty comment here]
There should be none at all for our tv's any more because we have stuff like vchip and time shift technologys that allow you to decide your own level of censorship. I personally dont like violence so i block it bu sex on the other hand. But no one on this earth has the right to decide for me. Thats why i paid to switch to closed cable television now they want to do the same thing as the air waves to all waves. I can guarantee if this contenues to happen some real violence will befall this naton and it will be well earned they never learn.
I've been watching "The Simpsons" on DVD this chilly Saturday morning, and I think Bart Simpson said it best:
"Lisa, if you don't watch the violence, you'll never get desensitized to it."
As an American, my biggest beef with the way sex is handled on TV is the BLATANT hypocricy. A legal-aged (and IMO beautiful) woman like Janet Jackson has a nipple slip out, and we scream bloody murder. Then, we dress our best-looking 15 year olds like whores, and parade them around endlessly during prime time. Finally, we arrest and scorne any of those among us who dare to reach for the forbidden fruit.
Don't get me wrong- sex with kids is bad. But sex isn't. In fact, sex is how we got all these 15 year old in the first place. I'm not about to suggest that TV or video game violence is "rsponsible" for anything- unlike you, and your kids, it lacks free will. However, simply looking at the variety of violent acts among children, it is clear that something very bad is going on here.
If I had a daughter, I would prefer she stay at home, dressed in sweat pants and 40 pounds overweight. However, given the choice between buying her a box of condoms, and driving her to the emergency room, I'd rather bite the bullet and suffer a few minutes of embarrasment explaining how a "winky" works.
barack to the future?
How about regulating the violence perpetrated by the US government, by secret organizations funded by the US government and by the companies that build bombs, weapons and ammunition, then sell these things to governments and organizations all across the world. How about regulating that? How about putting an END to that?
If you can bring yourself to ignore the 80's music track, the original film adaptation of the "Red Dragon" novel was quite good (probably *because* it wasn't trying to be Hannibal-centric).
The fact that the government is taking control of yet another part of life bugs me, but I think I just may have to support this one. I recently went on a trip to Thailand. I was amazed by there television. There was absolutely no risque semi-porn commercials or shows. There was also not a hint of realistic violence. If there was any violence, it was never with guns, only martial arts or other weapons, and even this was given a cartoony feel. The only times I saw real violence (which definitely stood out) was for commercials for western movies.
Now while this is all great and dandy, the really interesting part is how their is almost no violence among their people. I saw plenty of people sleeping outside, without worry of attack on their person or even someone stealing their stuff. Now I know correlation isn't causation, but it still is a very intriquing correlation. While I'm sure there are plenty of societal factors that make Thailand a safe place, I do feel that this lack of violence on TV has an affect. Maybe it could help us, too.
Only dead fish swim with the stream...
Wasn't this the whole point of the v-chip back in the 90s? Instead of regulating the content, just rate the content, and let the viewers decide what's appropriate for them.
Maybe I'm forgetting something. But I thought that was supposed to clear up this whole situation, so why are we still having this debate.
It really doesn't make sense to me. Cable/Satelite TV is a private service I purchase from a private company. It's an agreement between myself and them. So unless there is some illegal act going on, how does the government have the power to control what content I receive from them? In my mind it's just like the internet. But soon the "moral police" will be regulating that too I'm sure.
I'm not so worried about the kids. You teach them right from wrong and let them make their own choices. It can't be any other way...there is not time enough in the day to try to shield them from the constant bombardment of porn, violence and profanity that saturate a city with wall to wall LCD's and hyper-networked gizmos in every pocket. You'd have to lock them in a box and bury them in a Quaker village to shield them from it all.
I am, however, worried about the adults that seem more interested in cranking out this crap for the amusement of an increasingly obese populace than trying to do something creative and worthwhile. I'm worried about the adults that are so filled with avarice that "content" has become an annoying afterthought to be shoehorned in between commericals and plastered with animated pop-up ads. I'm worried about a medium that attracts billions of dollars every year from advertisers and politicians because they believe it can shape public opinion, but is resolutely defended by producers who claim it has no influence on human behavior at all whenever a rash of copycat acts of violence threatens to negatively impact its ratings. I'm worried that the source of news people most depend is owned by a handful of people who don't really want you to get the facts, just the products being sold between the facts. I'm worried that almost any entry-level marketer thinks of the press release as free advertising. I'm worried that documentaries on channels billed as educational have titles like "When Naked Animals Attack" and "The Science of the Bible". I'm worried that people are STILL watching too much TV, even with all this crap on the air.
The kids at least have enough sense to play video games instead.
Rather than requiring content filtering at the broadcaster or on the cable box, I support filtering on a per-child level. Parents should be able to purchase individually-tailored shock collars for their children which automatically activate whenever the child is exposed to non-parental-approved content or situations. By harnessing the power of the shock-averse 'natural intelligence' already guiding children, parents can sleep soundly knowing that their children are making every possible effort to avoid corrupting and immoral influences.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
of what possible use is rescheduling it as well?
My kids are young and they have no idea that TV shows are 'on' at any certain time, other than that they only get two hours a day from Bob. DVR's are only going to have that much more market penetration before any such legislation is enacted.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I mean, if you're going to teach the Bible, at least teach what was actually in it, but I can't help but wonder...
The original sin was eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So, actually learning -- particularly learning about ethics -- is what damned us all. Curiosity is a bad thing.
I realize they were specifically ordered by God not to do that. But is that really different than, say, being ordered by the Chinese Government not to search Google.com for Tiananmen Square? What makes God so special compared to an oppressive government or human dictator?
I actually don't mean this as a direct attack on the idea of God, and I can save that for another debate. I'm just pointing out that the result of both of these is about the same -- either puritanical fear of sex or Luddite-like fear of knowledge. Think about it -- if God said "Don't kill anything" and Adam kills Eve, I could understand that as Original Sin. If he said "You belong together forever", and Adam had a fight with Eve and went off to screw sheep, I could understand. I mean, if they raped, killed, tortured, maimed, stole, or any number of things, I could understand... But I cannot accept curiosity and independent thought as Original Sin.
But that IS what the Bible tends to teach, so it's not surprising to me that we see people ignorant of Original Sin, when wanting to not be ignorant was the Original Sin anyway.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I think US network TV has merely replaced sex with violence. I occasionally update the computer of an older lady and she is a devotee of shows such as CSI (insert name-place here). I never watch these shows, but overhearing them while updating, I am struck how the level of violence and gore (always has a corpse, preferably decomposing) is near-voyeuristic. They've merely replaced one animalistic urge (copulation) with another (hunt-kill).
All these people who are complaining about violence being worse than sex, yikes.
First of all, you are all a bunch of facists! The government shouldn't regulate violence OR sex in media, and if you support that then you are a totalitarian scumbag, plain and simple. I don't care if Europe censors differently than the U.S... Europe still censors, and so they are still a bunch of authoritarian bastards, even if they censor with a different estetic than the U.S. Don't give me that "what about the children" crap - Ever heard of the V-chip? It is on every TV and it works, so your kids won't see violence if you take two seconds out of your life to set the parantal settings.
But besides that, any healthy person enjoys violence in TV shows more than sex. Why? Because I can have real sex. Why would I want to watch it on TV when it is perfectly legal and viable activity that I can engage in? I don't need to experience sex vicariously.
Where as violence, I can not engage in a socially acceptable way, nor would I want to. The point of violence in fiction is to create tension and fear, and to take character conflicts to an extreme level. Not only that, but there is very little danger that I am going to emulate what I see. I am not going to be robbing trains in the old west, or leading a CIA paramilitary force against evil terrorists, or shooting my way though zombie hordes, or fighting magical flying kung fu shaolin monks in ancient china. Any person who is incapable of grasping the huge gap between fictional violence and real violence is probably commiting acts of violence due to their mental disorder rather than television.
Australian rock band Skyhooks summed it all up rather well with this hit way back in the 1970's:
Watch a horror movie right there on my TV
Horror movie right there on my TV
Horror movie right there on my TV
Shockin' me right out of my brain
Shockin' me right out of my brain
Watch horror movie right there on my TV
Horror movie right there on my TV
Horror movie right there on my TV
Shockin' me right out of my brain
Shockin' me right out of my brain
It's bound to get ya in, get ya under your skin
Hit you right on the chin, oh yeah
It's bound to be a thriller, it's bound to be a chiller
It's bound to be a killer, oh yeah
Watch a horror movie right there on my TV
Horror movie right there on my TV
Horror movie right there on my TV
Shockin' me right out of my brain
Shockin' me right out of my brain
The planes are a-crashin', the cars are a-smashin'
They cops are a-bashin', oh yeah
The kids are a-fightin', the fires are a-lightin'
The dogs are a-bitin', oh yeah
Watch a horror movie right there on my TV
Horror movie right there on my TV
Horror movie right there on my TV
Shockin' me right out of my brain
Shockin' me right out of my brain
You think it's just a movie on a silver screen
And they're all actors and fake each scene
Maybe you dont care whose gonna lose or win
Listen to this and I'll tell you somethin'
It's a horror movie right there on my TV
Horror movie right there on my TV
Horror movie and there's known abuse
Horror movie, it's the six-thirty news
Horror movie, it's the six-thirty news...
I'm in favour of complete, unfettered, no holds barred, scream fire in a theatre, free speech - for adults. When it comes to kids I think there should be some controls on what people can say *to* kids. That may include controlling the level of violence, sex etc. during day and early evening broadcasts. It should definitely include a ban on advertising where the intended target is a child. Yeah, I know that would be tricky to implement, especially with kids programs that are essentially one long commercial for a product. Just call me utopian.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
Or go to canada and you'll have stations that show sex AND violence. During "primetime" they show all the popular american shows unedited where as at night the lineup includes softcore porn and unedited movies.
Ever try to 'hang out' at the local military base?
T
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
Bosoms have rarely destroyed crowded market places, generally can not destroy military vehicles, do no harm to malls, schools, or endangered species.
The average person would be more happy to see more breasts, and fewer killings.
Chuck Norris Kicks, Action Adventure Figure Explosions, and Multiple Gun Battle Scenarios
only can go so far compared to delightful images of healthy people enjoying healthy activities.
Less Killing - More Kissing! Make the world a more lovely place.
Does this mean that old Tom & Jerry could be banned? If something is violent, this is it!
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
I think the sensorship of violence should be the parents job not the FCC. I belive if you can not monitor what your kids are watching and when they watch it that you should not have kids. How lazy of a parent can you be if you can't even say to your child that they can not watch a show because it is to violent. Here is an idea for all of you that get offended by violence on television if you don't like what is on change the channel. It's about time that the supposed parents grew up and did some parenting instead of leaving it to the FCC and other government agencies.
News allowing some violent content -- yeah, and Discovery or National Geographic occasionally show bare-breasted natives.
But news doesn't give you a "pass" for sex. Certainly a nipple falling out of a costume in the middle of a super bowl is at least "amusing" news, but it certainly wouldn't have given any TV-news outlets "permission" to show footage.
"News" seems reserved for showing violence -- but sex is still out.
"America" is just bass-ackwards on controls and attitudes for "simulations", "portrayals" and reporting on the areas of sex and violence.
How can it be justified to censor scenes of consensual sex in any context which is usually legal, but permitted to show, in detail, the many types and ways one can engage in illegal acts of violence.
Sadly it seems reflective of a society bent on training for violence & war vs. expressions of love, sex and peace.
The two subjects, "sex" and "violence" seem nearly opposites in societies.
The more negative the attitudes towards sex, the more violent and warlike the society seems to be. Societies with healthy attitudes towards sexuality seem to be less violent and less focused on war.
I see absolutely no reason why violence or violent media that portray illegal or undesired acts should not be considered "obscene" and subject to obscenity laws.
Conversely, I don't see why loving or erotic media that portray consensual, acts should be considered "obscene" or subject to obscenity laws.
They already did this better than anyone else. Poor Butters gets a throwing star to the eye, then you cringe for a half hour. It is so fricking heartbreaking. I will never watch that one again, even though the anime drawings of the boys are delightful.
I've seen a lot of "everyone is stupid but us" episodes of South Park, but Matt and Trey put a mighty skewer through the sexual/violent content double standard with that one.
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
I've posted this several times but few bother to listen.
. htm
_ can_do.htm
The problem of violence associated with TV and video games is caused by a problem with human physiology that was discovered because it caused mental breaks for office workers in the 1960's.
Today designers believe the problem causes a harmless episode of confusion and psychotic-like behavior.
But if you know what to look for you can find violence as far back as the 1830's that would have been caused by this problem. Mountain men, fur trappers, chose to over-winter alone rather than risk that their cabin mate would have a berserk attack and try to kill them. It was called Cabin Fever.
Too-small and single-room living arrangements allow the "special circumstances" for exposure from Subliminal Distraction. A grad student in Australia assured me that that is the correct name for the problem.
The Redlake school shooter left a journal entry that tells something he did to cause exposure. School shooters in prison often have mental problems, hearing voices. This means that a mental event played a part in the shooting.
What will it take, an Astronaut going bananas? Wait that has already happened on Soyuz-21 and to NASA Astronaut Lisa Nowak.
These mental events have happened on scientific expeditions for over a hundred years.
http://visionandpsychosis.net/Astronauts_Insanity
A simple psychology experiment allows you to experience the onset of the problem, habituation.
http://visionandpsychosis.net/a_demonstration_you
I'm a grown-up man who has watched action movies all my life, and I am getting pretty sick of the violence. I
See above. I think chick flicks suck, but you wont see me trying to ban the Lifetime channel. I deal with my dislike of chick flicks by.....drumroll.....not watching them. So why don't YOU try it sometime, and keep YOUR jerking knee in check.
I support turning the TV off every once in a while and doing something else instead. ...like surfing the internet for porn or all those other things that are "banned" but anybody with two braincells can get easy access to if they want.
The main problem with censorship is the attitude of the censors, not the content they're trying to ban.
No sig today...
I study the neuroscience of aggression (if you're interested in that sort of thing: see my blog), and there are no studies to date showing a causative link between watching violence as a child and being violent as an adult. There seems to be strong correlative evidence to that end, but those studies are all so confounded and convoluted, they're hard (or impossible) to interpret and fit in with what we know about the underlying neurobiology.
I would be interested to see who did the 'unpublished study' since it has not yet reached the publication stage. If this is a real causative finding, it would fly in the face of a fair number of prominent and well-skilled researchers. Needless to say, I am very skeptical of this study (and the subsequent FCC action).
Just one more reason they should have been let go during the civil war ... then Americans could be happy. Southerners with their theocratic, micromanaging, fascist state where women and black people are property. Northerners with their happiness, free speech, alcohol, sharing, education, non-mandatory church attendance, and no tax-payer-crippling farm-subsidies and corporate-welfare.
That violence is ok because it's not on TV.
First choice, stop censoring content.
Second choice, censor violence as harshly as we currently do language and sex.
But it probably won't matter much. You can already get away with some amazingly violent scenes in a PG-13 movie. But say the f-word twice and you've got an 'R'.
The FCC isn't a group that just randomly censors this and that. They have a "constituency" (of sorts) that tells them what to do. People that complain about things that they don't want to see on television. And nearly all of those people all fall within exactly one group: parents. There's a reason that censorship and the police state are generally referred to be the euphemism of "family values".
One of the principal offenders.
Here's another. Oops! That was accidentally a link to a compilation of the corruption, greed, and support for fascist dictatorships that the Bush family has been engaging in for the last six decades. Still, it makes for an interesting diversion on the subject of Republican "family values" (ie: they're completely fictitious).
Incidentally, people do have an inherent drive to hurt each other. Otherwise, why would every single society in all of Human history have needed laws regarding murder, assault, rape, and all the various other violent crimes that we've been struggling with since before the time of Hammurabi? Even the Otzi Ice-Man -- from 3300 BCE, was murdered. And this was long before there were any violent television programs to convince his fellows that shooting each other with chalcolithic arrows was the cool thing to do.
The FCC does not need to control what people watch on TV or listen to on the radio. That is why TVs and radios had dials, and now have buttons and remote controls. People can change the channel or turn it off if they don't like the content.
Nobody is forcing you to watch or listen to anything.
Amen brother. I tried to watch one episode of 24 recently. Jack ripped some guy's throat out with his teeth. Sickened, I turned the channel. That is by far the most violent thing I've ever seen in primetime. And yet, you don't hear conservatives get in a stink. No, it's Janet Jackson and Timberlake. Maybe that incident had more to do with miscegenation rather than sex.
Censorship is about inventing an enemy or censoring political speech you don't like. The US religious right hates fornication so no "sex" on TV.
Back in the 20s 30s 40s 50s, film producers got away with showing pornos by couching them as "educational" films for married people. Same crap, different ideology.
Playboy magazine promoted casual sex. Heffner even wrote a "Playboy Philosophy". No wonder the right hated them.
Has the FCC heard of TiVO?
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Philosophically, I'd rather kids learn about sex at home where they can ask questions that they might be embarrassed to ask in front of their friends (and not-so-friends who would tease them).
On the flip side, I have a friend whose wife is pregnant with their second child. He described the pregnancy as an accident. They had been using the "rhythm" method of birth control and she had gotten pregnant "accidentally". As though "rhythm" was some type of effective way to prevent pregnancy.
I'm sorry, but those two parents are not equipped to teach their children about sex; so I think it's absolutely essential that children be taught about sex in school. At least then their kids have a prayer of getting some accurate information.
Rhythm, indeed.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock