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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?
I think I'd prefer the gratuitous sexuality. That's way more fun than violence.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I also think that it's funny that if you do anything under the guise of "news", you've got a free pass. Dateline, 20/20, etc, show the most graphic shit on TV but it's OK because they're "news" programs. Ick.
You'll have that sometimes...
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.
you would do well to read about Bhutan:
5 769,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,97
This is the last country on earth to have no TV, until 2002. When foreign TV was introduced, complete with violent porgrams, the crime rate in the country went ballistic. The country now has all kinds of social problems that were previously unheard of.
People often claim you cant tell the effects TV has because there is no test case. they are wrong Bhutan was a perfect test case, and a damning one for showing TVs potential negative effects.
"Since the April 2002 crime wave, the national newspaper, Kuensel, has called for the censoring of television (some have even suggested that foreign broadcasters, such as Star TV, be banned altogether). An editorial warns: "We are seeing for the first time broken families, school dropouts and other negative youth crimes. We are beginning to see crime associated with drug users all over the world - shoplifting, burglary and violence..."
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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
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
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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Sexual content and violence should be regulated by the government exactly the same, which is no regulation at all. I'll admit there are a couple of extremes which obviously need to be regulated, but in general this isn't something the government should concern itself with.
This however is an excellent idea, let the users regulate themselves by adding an age flag in the transmission. Regulation such as that suggested by the report only adds another annoyance factor to a medium which is already plagued by them.
Perfect is the enemy of done.
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.
However, causality between the violent content in the programs that were broadcast and real life perpetrated violence is not established. For instance, what if the real destructive factor of TV is a) the social isolation and passive (non interactive) aspects it introduced into their culture that started keeping people at home watching crap instead of going out with their friends and families. b) the blatant materialism worship on tv that makes the viewers feel crappy about being a "have not." c) various other false imagery and notions about what is beautiful, what is desireable, how you should live your life, etc that eroded away in a few short years, hundreds of years of culture. So rather than single out violence in TV, i would simply say TV in general is a source of social and personal rot.
Good luck!
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?
You would do well to follow your own advice, and to take this additional advice: read up some basic theology. It was not curiosity that was the reason for the Fall. Knowledge of Good and Evil implies the capability to act on either of them. Adam and Eve were expelled from Paradise because they had gained the capability to do Evil, which is something that does not belong in Paradise, which is a realm of absolute Good.
God forbade the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge because it would disturb the balance of Paradise by introducing the knowledge of Evil. The reason for the prohibition was promptly validated by the fact that Adam and Eve started by lying about their act, denying that they had taken from the Tree and trying to place blame on others.
Apart from whether or not you believe this, only a deliberate misreading of the text and the exegesis done on it over the centuries could lead someone to state that mere curiosity led to the Fall. It didn't. Neither did mere disobience.
As for the resolution of this, this is why Christians believe Jesus' death leads to forgiveness for Original Sin: Jesus shows the ultimate Good, sacrificing yourself for others. The core tenet of Christianity is that by following his teachings and if need be his sacrifice, we renounce Evil and commit to Good. I see no refutation of the validity of independent thought in this. In fact, the demand that we consciously choose to do Good over Evil is in fact a validation of the worth of independent thought. One does not get saved by rote regurgitation of dogma; Jesus' attacks on the Farisees and the Judeans make this abundantly clear.
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?