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The Coming Fight Over TV Violence
gollum123 writes "Time reports the guardians of decency are warning about new trouble, with a capital T, which rhymes with V, which stands for violence. The Parents Television Council (PTC), the group at the vanguard of the TV-sex wars, has lately focused on prime-time blood: power-tool torture on 24, serial killing on Criminal Minds, vivisection on Heroes. And the FCC has prepared a draft report suggesting that Congress authorize it to regulate broadcast violence, as it now does obscenity, and possibly force cable companies to let subscribers opt out of paying for channels that run brutal content. In short, torture is the new sex. Jack Bauer is the new Janet Jackson."
The PTC has been going after violence for years. Usually it's against pro-wrestling (specifically Smackdown on UPN) and they've been rather unsuccessful. They even lost a lawsuit to the WWF a few years ago for lying to advertisers.
"But if politicians simply respected the audience's choices, stopped posturing against theoretical violence and fictional bad guys, they would have to focus on, say, the thornier problems of stopping actual bloodshed in the real world."
'nuff said
"When in doubt, use brute force."
I have always been amazed that swearing, nudity and sex is heavily regulated on TV and violence is not. Surely showing someone killing or whatever is much worse than a bit a boob being shown.
It's actually quite nice that they've finally realised that sex isn't he only thing that's unsuitable for the children.
Not that I really find myself agreeing with these people. But the fact that they've become more consistent makes me respect them a little more.
What has condemning the use of torture have to do with regulating TV? Are you saying that allowing the showing of torture on TV means that you're in favour of torture in real life?
American politics always makes me chuckle.
Hey - I'm European...
I remember back in the 70s the Three Stooges were banned from TV in a lot of areas due to violent content. The original Baretta show died when it was on top because the standard was one violent act per half hour and Robert Blake refused to limit the shows based on the standard, definate hindsight irony. Europe tends to be far more sensitive to violence and far less sensitive to sex. The US has been the opposite traditionally but of late both tend to be red flags.
Just turn it on and let me enjoy my shows plz kthnxbai
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
Just let Jack Bauer torture some legislators into voting no.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
What the fuck? Are you on some strange drug or something?
...).
I'm curious. On the one hand they claim to be defenders of freedom (freedom of speech too, one would suppose). On the other hand they keep condemning the use of torture. Let's see if they put their money where their mouth is and allow unregulated violence, torture, unregulated *everything* on TV. That's freedom. Anything else is hypocracy.
(Oh and please, right wing, the deregulation bit applies to you too)
One, I assume you are a yank (if not, then this doesn't necessarily apply), in which case your definition of left and right is fucked in the first place (if you want capitalism, you are to the right, no matter how big a government you want).
Two, being for freedom automatically means being against torture. Talking as if the two are somehow opposed is stupid. It is more likely the conservative and puritans who are going to be opposed to freedom and support torture.
Third, I support no censorship, I think that any thing should be allowed on TV, radio etc. With however, a few restrictions (oh noes, he's being hypocritical 'cause he just said he supported no censorship, but now he is talking about censoring shit). The first is, no platform for fascists and other scum. Any media *I* control will not allow intolerance. The second has to do with how the violence or whatever is filmed. If it is actual real killing or violence (intended to be fiction), or real child molestation (rather then computer graphics or similar) then I also oppose that.
What it comes down to really though is this, I'm not about to tell you what to do with your bit of media (well, unless you are a capitalist scum, in which case I would say, "Hand it over fucker. This is now the people's media", but ignoring such cases
I wank in the shower.
I propose a novel way to end the exposure of minors to television sex/violence:
The adult(s) in the household should slink their obese rear end off the couch, reach for the remote on the end table, and press the power/channel change button, thus eliminating objectionable programming being displayed on the TV monitor.
This will negate the need for more government censorship over the airwaves.
It's not that different in your country. In fact I'm not from the USA either, but please, tell me what country does not censor anything on TV, the press or anywhere else.
Global warming is a cube.
I'm not a proponent of censorship but if you really want to censor something, censor excessive graphical violence and not sex and nudity.
If the the coming fight over TV violence is violent, will we be allowed to see it?
Next up: The coming orgy over TV sex, and the coming euphoria over TV drug use!
eleven plus two / twelve plus one
....Lynndie England?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Not a huge fan of censorship to begin with, at least not on cable tv.
But that said I'd prefer everyone got a little more de-sensitized to sex and boobies and a little more sensitive towards torture.
So they might get forced to let people opt out of certain channels?
Oh, the horror! -sarcasm
I've got ~5 channels right now, because I refuse to pay for 20 crap channels in a "subscription package" when I want 3 or 4 of them!
Especially since I've got o subscribe to several packages to get the ones I want, leading me to pay for 30-40 channels to get the 3 or 4 channels I want.
We've got digital tv now. The technology to let subscribers pick and chose individual channels are there.
Screw the companies that won't let you choose which channels to subscribe to. Give them a big finger and choose *not* to subscribe to their crap!
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
Nine-year-olds have a right to turn on the teevee and watch people's eyeballs getting removed with power tools. Any attempt to restrict this important media content is a grave assault on our freedoms.
Information wants to be free!
If you're a bad parent, and you have an idiot kid, they're invariably going to grow up to be idiots.
If you're a bad parent, and you have a good kid, they'll know better than to kill someone because they saw it on TV.
If you're a good parent, and you have an idiot kid, you'll be able to regulate their exposure to violence. If you're concerned about TV violence, just don't let them have one in their room.
If you're a good parent, and you have a good kid, you'll be just fine.
The one thing those four have in common is that if the parent cares, the parent can act on their own. These parents need to stop regulating the world to make up for their lack of parenting. If anything, they need to regulate themselves. People shouldn't be allowed to have children if they're too stupid to handle them.
The Parents Television Council (PTC), the group at the vanguard of the TV-sex wars,
Whether it's sex education, abortion rights or teaching evolution in schools, the religious right won't ever quit. If they win in one area, they'll just start pushing their religious agenda in a different arena, and they'll keep it up until the government is enforcing religious principles. The American Taliban.
Pick your side because there's no compromise position they'll respect.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Reminds me of when the pool hall was being built, we good River City folk had to band together and get that stopped.
How many people have died because of violence on TV?
How many people have died because of violence in Iraq?
And lastly... How many children's lives have been ruined by the former and then the latter?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Perhaps the PTC should just adopt a new name and fully admit where they stand.
I suggest they call themselves Fundamentalist Victorian Americans. They seem to share the same extremist views that other fundamentalist groups share, but posture for a "value" set that seems to have only been held by the upper class of Victorian England.
Oh no! A child has been spanked somewhere!!! Quick, to the Lawmobile! We have to save them before they're scarred for life.
...that in the US, people don't seem to have a problem with a guy's brain blown out with a shotgun on TV, but when a nipple is shown, a big part of the US population is disgusted. It seems to me that some people in the US should check their moral and ethical priorities really.
Get back under your bridge Troll! You have no powers here!
(Except the power of torture, but you only have 24 hours!)
Instead of regulating violence as well as obscenity and sex, how about they regulate violence instead of obscenity and sex? Still not the preferred option of "Let the V-Chip do its job," but it seems far more palletable than the current state of affairs.
If by "country" you mean "government", Denmark is one example. We prefer to do our censorship using rabid Muslims instead. They are cheaper and more entertaining. Especially their vengeance. "We will draw your queen as a pig". Cute, are we supposed to be shocked by *that*? Not that I ever understood what Muslims have against pigs, they are quite charming creatures in their way :)
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
It's not that different in your country. In fact I'm not from the USA either, but please, tell me what country does not censor anything on TV, the press or anywhere else.
Why, in the country of Slashdotia, of course!
Slashdotia, where the email is encrypted and spam is censored, but the TV is broadcast in the free and clear, with violence and boobies for all!
Slashdotia, where the minimum salary for perl haxors is eighty thou., and hiring Indian programmers is strictly prohibited!
Slashdotia, legendary home of untainted, uncorrupted, open-sourced elections, in which Democrats are elected every time!
Slashdotia, how I miss thee!
After six years of Dubya, it's either chuckle or sob...
All I got was:
The ****** ***** over ** ********
I tried to post the entire article censored, but slashdot's "lameness filter" wouldn't let me. Honestly! I think that says it all.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Your average police officer on tv will use lethal force more often then regular cops ever use their gun on the firing range.
In some a single hero will kill more people then are killed by violence in a whole year in a small country. Hell, games are even worse in that aspect, I shot down more germans in Battle of Britain then the real germans even had aircraft during the entire war.
Does this have an effect on people? Well recently there has been a shooting in holland involving a lot of confusing details and a riot and a cityblock being sealed off for several days BUT most importantly a police officer shooting a man holding a knife.
What you get is a lot of people saying that this is wrong followed by a debate as to when you would shoot your gun against someone attacking you.
What becomes quickly apparent is that most people seem to take their notions of how a fight goes from entertainment and sadly not that part of entertainment that includes police reality shows.
The most often heard comment that shows how out of touch people are is that using a pistol against someone holding a knife is unfair.
Hello? It ain't a friendly round of golf. You don't give the lesser player a change by giving yourselve a handicap. A guy is coming at you with a knife. What do you do:
Option 1 is a movie thing. Only in movies does the good guy choose to fight the bad guy one on one because he knows the writer will make sure he still wins.
In real life a cop does NOT want to get hurt, he has no interest in playing it fair, and most sane people don't expect this. We don't say "Hey, you got one serial rapist out there and the police put 30 men on the case, that ain't fair, it should be one detective against one criminal!"
I don't think violence itself has a bad effect on people but that it can cause them think that real life reflects what they see on tv. Ask a lawyer handling criminal cases how often they have to tell their clinets that no, this isn't Perry Mason and if I pulled his kinda stunts I would be disbarred in a second.
Same as only beautifull people exist in tv land so a person who is a bit simple might come to believe that the US is filled to overflowing with gorgeous thin women.
Is there something that can be done against this? No not really except to raise people to realize that TV is not real. No, just because Norm on Cheers drinks beer every waking hour does NOT mean you can do the same thing without turning into a stinking drunk, and no just because Sam kicks his alcoholism in one episode does NOT mean you can do the same thing.
It doesn't sound complex to me, but perhaps there are some people out there who are fooled by this old show into believing this.
Then again, how many of us when we imagine ourselves in the age of Star Trek put ourselves in a red shirt?
Perhaps what we need is more diversity in shows, in a way reality shows have already shown us that the police is NOT miami vice. Or maybe we all just need to have a sign above our tv, "this is NOT real".
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I was driving down my suburban street the other day when the car in front of me veered off the road. A gun battle ensued, and three cars caught fire (undoubtedly due to all the bullets flying). Then a gasoline truck happened to be driving by, and Kaboom!
Happily, my totally hot girlfriend and I made it out of there and to the orphanage, where we help feed very cute poor kids who are "trapped by the system". Disappointingly, the criminals were released due to a technicality.
The funny part: the same thing happened last month.
Just about all television programing sucks, with sparse few exceptions here and there. The easiest way to attract viewers to such a lousy program is to show a powerdrill going into a guy's brain, or a lady with revealing outfits, or the old car blowing up after a fender-bender.
If you can't attract viewers with quality, attract them with something that they'll remember: boobs, blood, and bombs.
If network TV continues to fail, it certainly won't be due to censorship - it will be due to the networks' inability to address their piss-poor programming.
I have to admit, I'm not a big fan of blaming any medium for the ills of society, but it's hard not to draw the conclusion that the message that some of our media sends us is less than unhealthy.
Commercial interests invariably mean that content creaters and broadcasters are almost always tunnel-visioned into producing content that is ever more graphic, explicit and/or biased. The result is a medium that too easily can either desensitise its audience or misrepresent facts. You'd have to be blind to miss that that's a serious problem.
Take just two examples: the fictional drama 24 and actual television news.
Firstly, 24. There's no doubt that 24 is one of the most popular US shows of the decade, and that Jack Bauer is a generational role model - a tough guy who'll do anything and everything in his power to do his job and protect his country - but it's almost impossible to imagine what 24 would have looked like even 10 or 20 years ago.
Compare the violence in 24 to that of, say, 1990s episodes of NYPD Blue or 1980s episodes of Miami Vice. It's like comparing chalk and cheese.
Then look at some of the dangerous messages that 24 sends us: torture is quick, torture is effective, and torture is fine when it's carried out for patriotic reasons. Whether you believe the last of these statements is down to your own moral compass (I can tell you that I certainly do not), but any expert will tell you that the first two are wishful thinking.
In fact, the show's messages on torture are so dangerous that "the US military has appealed to the producers of 24 to tone down the torture scenes because of the impact they are having both on troops in the field and America's reputation abroad." If even the US military can join the dots between Bauer's fictional planting a powerdrill into bad guys to get his info and the reality of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, illegal killings, etc, then you know it's time to be worried.
But, hey, if you're a TV executive and it keeps the viewers glued to your channel and your ads, then it's all OK, right?
Secondly, television news. We live in a world of instant global news, and it's a good thing. Or it would be, if the news that we got wasn't so watered down and/or distorted. Wars are bloody and brutal things, but you wouldn't know it from the actual footage that you see on your evening news reports, which (on the few occasions that they do show footage from war zones) invariably show clean, precise military operations, which paint a picture that's rosier than a flower show.
The realities of war - the death, the destruction, the senseless waste of it all - are kept hidden away, because if you showed that stuff people would soon get turned off... and change the channel. And if you're a TV executive putting out news that's so real that it makes people so uncomfortable that they'll watch whatever the competition has to offer then you've lost your ratings war, which is the only war that counts when it comes to selling those ads.
So, clean-cut, folksy, sham news is good, and hard-hitting, real, tell-it-how-it-really-is news is bad. The ridiculous subliminal message that war is no big deal that this sends is so messed up: if you showed the naked truth then more people would really start to take an interest, rather than burying their heads in the sand about the issues that will possibly shape their children's lifetimes.
Of course, you'll always have people who'll deny everything. President Nixon believed that Nick Út's Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of the Napalm attack on Trang Bang was staged, despite there also being overwhelming supporting evidence, including television footage, that it was the simple truth. (A US President so out of touch with reality: who would have thought it possible?)
But without being shown the truth, how can
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
If you walked by a window and accidentally you saw a man or woman hitting and abusing a (woman, child, man, dog, etc..) what would you think or do?. Now if u saw that as a consequence of this violence the person or animal died or was mutilated or maimed etc.. what then?. Now consider the same window but this time you saw a couple (no matter what gender) having really hot sex or just sex in general, what would you do?. Now think a TV is like a window in your living room. If anything we have become a voyeuristic society.
When I want my fix of violence, I just turn on the news.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Freedom comes with responsibility. Anarchy and nihilism do not. The difference is relative freedom from fear of each other.
I don't have a TV set, and I haven't had one for over a year. I am not any less informed or current than the next man - the internet is a better source for news. I am a a lot less "disinformed" though. For instance, at the moment in the UK most are going through a spell of carefully engineered confusion, where they consider whether "people traffickers" are as "bad" as slave drivers once were. Naturally, I'm not going to consider any such useless questions without the benefit of independent expert and documentary evidence. It's all just propaganda and you're better off without it. Why give the government (and it is just the government and its agencies) a seat in your living room to lecture at you? Chuck it away. Give it a good kicking so it can't harm anyone else.
Same Old Shit is always Politics (AKA: Politically Correct [PC]).
... Well, I could continue ....
... ... ... ...
... politicians kill US.
The PC magic-trick spin,
convert lies to votes.
Sex=Sin=Morality=Damnation=Votes
Crime=Reality=Theater=Violence=Votes
Diseases=Dogma=Punishment=dirty=Votes
Addiction=Drugs=Corruption=Evil=Votes
Slang=Music=Destruction=Lies=Votes
Poor=Laziness=Uneducated=Flaw=Votes
A spun-truth is a story told that
will never recognize the truth;
therefore, never solve a problem;
however, will provide PC votes.
Who voted for George Bush?
Why vote for George Bush?
Who told the spun-truth?
Why are PC stories told?
Politics is Politics
Democrats are Republicans
Republicans are Democrats
Citizens are People
Government for People is DEMOCRACY
Corporatist Government is Tyranny by Tyrants
ALWAYS, VOTE-OUT any incumbent and then
brand them with a tattoo to make sure they
are never again elected anywhere in this world.
Taxing MegaChurches and Televangelist corporations
is completely reasonable or make religious spun-truth
and hate-speech fraud illegal and shut the ficking
Pseudo-prophets down. God Saves by killing is their
truth of all religious spun-stories.
REMEMBER:
Gods do not kill people,
Guns do not kill people,
Only People kill people,
Religious-truths kill folks,
Politics as spun-truths kill folks,
Democrats, Republicans
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
All 24 is doing is preparing the masses for their eventual fate. I would say that is obscene in the extreme.
Your suggestion is absurd. For any substantial interrogation, there are "professionals" who do the interrogating. I don't know who they are or who they are with but I am certain the US Military/DOD has the foresight to look into the subject a train-up a few people to be experts in extracting useful information. I highly doubt they are influenced by 24. If anything, its the other way around.
Some private who finds a guy on the field and starts torturing him because his CO saw something cool on 24 and told him to -- is a crime. Nothing more, nothing less.
Interesting. I believe personal responsibility is in fact what enables the nice aspects of anarchy to be experienced without too much fear of the ugly ones. "Personal responsibility" as in, self-imposed and freely chosen.
This is however beside the point of the discussion at hand.
Global warming is a cube.
I could easily add nine or ten other items to the list, and it's been heading that way from the beginning of the century. So, I doubt there really is anything to be pessimistic about. We just have to sit back and watch them implode.
For instance, I -love- home shopping networks: HSN, QVC, The Jewelry channel - they're the TOPS. And I know that many other people in my community love those channels too, because about 25% of basic cable is home shopping!!!!!!!
Given that, cable TV providers never imagined that they'd have to filter out certain channels. They'll have to go to every house, and modify every TV so it won't be able to tune to certain channels. The cost will be TREMENDOUS, and it'd only be fair to pass that cost on to everyone. It would certainly triple the cost of Cable TV every month until 2084.
Cable is so good because it continues to greatly increase values. Costs per programming minute per cable TV customer has dropped significantly over the past 20 years!!!!
So just say no to "blocking", unless there are financial awards to the cable industry (and therefore, the taxpayers)
If there is too much risk in your child watching television, then I suggest, you utilize the two buttons on the television. One of them turns it off. And the other one changes the channel. You should just assume that EVERYTHING shown on TV is "bad", and therefore, too risky.
TV is not like walking down the street in your neighborhood. Television is a 100% voluntary action you and your kids engage in. You do not need it to survive and in fact, many people don't even own a television. Guess what? They still raise kids and they still survive quite nicely.
The idea that you should impart restrictions on what society can show on TV so your kid can "safely" watch TV, is ludicrous. You should not expect society to accommodate you so the TV can be your babysitter. If you think TV - as is, as well as whatever it becomes - is too risky for your child to view, then you should not participate. Just turn it off and assume that if you turn it back on, your child will burst into flames.
See how that works? You are happy because you have avoided risk. And we are happy because we get to see stuff blow up. If you do it the other way around, nobody is happy but you.
Then turn your TV off if you find the programming so offensive. That will lower the ratings if enough people turn the boob-tube off, then that(those) program(s) will die of low ratings. Beside how much free adverts are these programs getting right here and now???
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
As a parent, frankly I don't care what is shown during prime-time hours...hell I would like some boobies on Scrubs or something myself once in a while....
BUT, the fact that they show CLIPS OF PRIMETIME stuff in their commercials during the DAY is driving me freaking nuts...I can't even sit down to watch a basketball game with my young son without the network putting clips full of sex, violence, guns etc in their commericals during the program.
ITS A JOKE.... The fact that a program can be rated as TV-G but hey can cut to a commercial rated TV-MA because they are totally unregulated is the single biggest thing that makes the rating system a waste. My TIVO still displays TV-G and on the screen is people shooting each other and naked people rolling around on a couch.
They need to make the COMMERCIALS have to also comply with the rating for that time period. If you can make THAT HAPPEN, then I say we can have a free-for-all after 9pm as far as I care.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
If it isn't important enough for anyone to go to jail for, it isn't really all that necessary.
This would also work really well against police brutality. If any cop who injured a civilian went to jail, regardless of necessity, there wouldn't be very much unnecessary brutality.
I realize that this is Slashdot, so I'll get modded down, but graphic violence is getting worse on US prime time television.
It's gotten to the point that I don't even want to watch TV most days. I find that when I do, it is upsetting. The commercial networks are all busy chasing each other down the gory path. I don't see them finding anything better on thier own.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
People who feel powerless cling to icons like Jack Bauer. They can't affect changes in their own life, but they like to watch Jack break laws in his role as a US civil servant. They can't get ahead in life, but if they could become a 'secret agent' they would have authority for once, and would be able to abuse that authority to their own ends...just like Jack. Just like corrupt police forces. Hmm.
Blar.
It always cracks me up how many people will rant all day about the USA being "a Christian nation." It's also a nation with a murder rate vastly higher than places like Sweden or Japan, still loves capital punishment, isn't that great when it comes to infant mortality, and oh yeah, we are actually having conversations about whether or not torture is okay. That last bit really sticks. How can we actually be discussing the moral points of torture? Should we discuss the ethical nuances of lynching next?
Hello, has anyone watched TV lately? It is full of sex. Sex in the bedroom, sex on the couches, naked models painted like oversexed fruit (Honestly, I can't make this stuff up!), and so forth.
What you don't see is nipples and genitalia, because regardless of the context, you know, that'd be BAD!
So you can watch couples faking orgasm between the sheets, but it's apparently not SEX, because any thing so naughty as an ass crack is blurred out. Even better is when they do that for a completely non-sexual context, because:
nipples = sex
genitals = sex
buttocks = sex
sex != sex
Screwed up country.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I bristle at the thought of censorship as much as the next person, but being the father of a 2-year old, I'm starting to give a lot of thought to what I allow into the little guy's head. There is a strong body of research on social learning that suggests exposing young children to violence is not a good idea. The seminal study was Albert Bandura's Bobo doll experiment (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobo_doll_experiment) ; it clearly demonstrated (IMHO) that children imitate the violence they see on T.V.
When my boy is old enough to have a mature discussion about violence, we'll watch the shows I love together. Until then I'm using the V-chip and keeping my FPS games locked in the gun safe.
Ask me about my sig!
I can understand them losing track of their remote, but not being able to find the off switch on the TV has
got to be some sort of record. I would be embarassed to admit I couldn't turn off my TV.
...religious programming? That's more obscene than all the rest combined.
Since we can not yet turn off the TV networks, it is a good idea to regulate them.
In my opinion, they are absolutely psychologically predatory. What about 9/11? Everything must
now be seen through the lense that several commercial and public media entities officially
broadcast huge and absurd lies to the believing public including the NOVA show showing
the "panckae collapse" of buildings with software that had removed the central core of the buildings.
Wake up people. The USA will not be whole until 9/11 is recognized - plain as day - a bunch of buildings
blown up and a missile sent into the Pentagon. Literally the whole world is now of this view and it is
the USA that is way 133t backwards in recognizing the criminality at home. Slashdot may not be able (?)
to take a position on this but everything media must be viewed in context. The commercial corporate-based
medias floated complete lies are "science." Someone has to correct this. Meanwhile, YES, throttling down
their ability to de-stabilize the minds of the illiterate public is a good idea. That is, if you want any quality of life at home, if you do not want the public to be a bunch of mind controlled zombies. And NOTE. This is
not flamebait, oh no. I myself, before I got the TV menace out of my house, noted on evening "action" movies
that those jerks in Hollywood/LA had characters shooting each other in the head point-blank range in their
entertainment shows. I am glad to see someone is doing housecleaning on this insult and depersonalization.
TV not only sucks now, it is openly predatory. If we had digital broadcast with 200 public channels, it might
take some of the hegemoney out of the big 3 networks and their shenanigans.
US censorship currently has the weird view that extreme violence and torture are good family fun, but that an exposed breast is a terrible thing. Related to the religous right, presumably.
I don't see why a single organization should be allowed to dictate what TV stations can and cannot broadcast. By doing that those organizations enforce upon everyone their morale and beliefs. You already see it with censoring sex and nudity, for everyone, as well as swearwords.
;)
I find it OK that parents should be able to protect their children against violence, sex, nudity or whatever else they wish to protect their children against, but enforcing it upon everyone is wrong.
I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to integrate technology that along with a show/film also broadcasts a signal that tells the receiver (TV, TiVo etc.) what type of content is being showed, then the receivers will be able to filter content based on that signal, which would be possible to define exactly what types to filter/block for each individuals receiver, instead of forcing it on everyone.
So someone have argued to me that people don't want to pay the money to buy equipment/receivers that can handle this type of blocking/filtering. To that I can only come up with one reply: Then it's not important enough for those people to block/filter content.
Another argument was that TV stations doesn't have the equipment to send such extra signals, or that the technology doesn't exist to do it. OK, I must admit that I don't know if the technology exists or not, but I couldn't imagine why it shouldn't exist. As for TV stations not having the equipment for it, this is where the PTC should work to make TV stations get the necessary equipment and mark their broadcasts with content codes (or whatever it should be called).
Okay, rant over
"subscribers opt out of paying for channels that run brutal content "
Give people the choice.
As the father of four children under 10 years old, I don't mind the fact that there's sex and violence on TV. I love the rating system and I love the fact that I can restrict content based on that. But what bothers me (more than the content) are the commercials! My kids like sports. But I can't let them watch sports without supervising and watching with them. The commercials are insane! They contain every bit of sex and violence of the programs they advertise for right smack dab in the middle of a program that's supposed to be suitable for children!
I really don't have a problem with TV-MA/LSV rated shows being broadcast. I can filter them out easily enough. I have a problem with the commercials for those shows being broadcast during shows that are supposed to be more kid friendly. So, to combat this, I have a TiVo and I fast forward through commercials (or pause if I've caught up with live TV). The networks don't seem to like that, but they're part and parcel of having created it.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Let the anti-violence activists do their job! I'll open the door for them, lay down the red carpet, and hold their jackets. I'm sick of cable packages designed to force you into channels I don't want to get channels I do. The days of this being a technical limitation due to the need to use bandpass filters on analog signals are long gone, but their hands picking my pocket aren't.
So let the activitsts have their hay-day and let congress mandate the ability to opt out of cable channels. Anything that gives me more choice in what I have to pay for is good. I am not crying for Comcast, believe me.
So nothing will change until the society heals itself. This campaign may be a sign of the entire society slowly waking up and getting better, or it may be a freak show by a group of religious fundamentalists. Unfortunately the latter is much more likely.
Perhaps we'll have some hope when there will be a group fighting violence BUT NOT sex. Sex without violence is a perfectly healthy thing. Suppressed sexual desires are a major source of violent outbreaks. Blinded by religious dogma, groups like this are totally unable to see the connection.
If violence or sex or profanity are part of the story and make he story more engaging more relatable, ie more real => then they belong there and should not be censored for adults.
I don't think kids should be peddled adult topics and parents should not allow their children to be exposed to them. When should kids be allowed to see and hear these things? When their parents think they are ready and understand that the shows are fiction but based on real possible situations.
Companies should not be mixing their demographics though... don't make 24 action figures and branded school supplies and then claim that the show is for adults. Same goes for a show like Heroes. Sure it's got a teenage girl as a main character... doesn't mean pre-teen girls should be watching it and idolizing her. Teen age 15-16 yr old girls I'm sure are 95% capable of seeing what's real and what's exaggerated but a 12 yr old may not.
OTOH why do we adults have to wait for R rated movies to see some real adult topics being portrayed in our entertainment/social commentary dramas? sure 9 times out of 10 open sex isn't a major part of a story, but nudity sure is (how more exposed emotionally can an argument between two adults be when one of them is half nude in the morning... vulnerability is half the story there). Violence is the same.
What's needed is not a V or a T rating system but a Star system that means something. When a show has too many explosions it should start getting 2 stars in it's violence/storyline rating. When a show has gratuitous nudity that has no bearing on the story or is simply filler... rate it down so people know that the show is starting to suck and the writers are losing their muse.
Good shows that care about their quality rating will not stoop to using these hack-techniques to fill space anymore when they see their actual ratings go down and ad revenue drop.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I wish I could opt out and not pay for any channels that I'll never be watching. I don't watch 95% of the channels I get ranging from home shopping to UPN/CW/AZN/CartoonNetwork... I could probably get by with 10channels if I could get them al la carte. Though the cable companies would probably make it still cheaper for me to get 500 channels than the 10 I do want.
I strongly agree with what you said. I hope you are not one of my
... ...)
..., I remain a staunch defender of the USA
schizophrenic alternate-personalities writing to me (note my
signature quote). IOW, you sound much like what I am thinking.
There is now less Government in business, religion, politics
(AKA: Institutions), more freedom to exploit citizens, and far
less freedoms and far more Government/Institution (RIAA, MS, DMCA
intrusion and exploitation of Citizens life and workfare.
As long as the USA Constitution remains intact, our Citizens
remain free to vote, and take back government in reasonably
free, public, and open elections from the corporatist and
plutocrats
Constitution, our Citizens, and elected politicians.
We must ALWAYS, VOTE-OUT any incumbent and then
brand them with a real/electronic data tattoo
to make sure they are never again elected
anywhere in this world.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
How did you know you had a super power? Well I jumped off a building learned I was able to fly!
How did you get your super power? Well I killed someone that had one and I gained it!
How did you test your super power? Well I stuck my hand in the garbage disposal and it regenerated!
God spoke to me.
And how would passing a law allowing the FCC to "regulate" violence not be in violation?
What part of "Congress shall make no law" do they not understand?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Shouldn't it be the "Bad Parents Television Council"? I mean, if there's a show I don't want my kid to watch - believe me, he won't watch it. I have full control of TVs in my house, and its enough for me. No parent needs to control national television. PTC is nothing but a bunch of losers, who couldn't care less about their children. For PTC it's a game where they pretend to be concerned and caring parents.
Let me get this straight...
They are annoyed that they depict serial killers... in a show following FBI profilers. Isn't one of the core purposes for profiles to deal with serial killers? I know they have other roles, but come on.
I'm not a big fan of violence, I tend to stay away from gorey thrillers and horror movies, but "Criminal Minds" isn't bad. Most of the violent scenes are implicit: victim turns around to see man with knife, knife starts to swing through the air, end scene... protagonists find the body.
I will admit though that 24 has been a bit much, the whole power-drill thing was maybe taking things a little far.
But if this is a "think of the children" thing, then get a V-Chip or (God-forbid) keep an eye on your child and what he/she watches on TV.
Would they also offer to sacrifice themselves (flying the atomic bomb to the desert), just like Jack?
Jack doesn't abuse anything. Abuse of power would be doing something for personal gain or to benefit his friends / family. He does what he has to in order to get the job done. It's good to know that you value laws over justice. Oh, before you complain about me being some "fascist christian republican", I despise both the DNC and RNC equally.
And the FCC has prepared a draft report suggesting that Congress authorize it to regulate broadcast violence, as it now does obscenity,
When a gov't agency requests, "let us regulate you", you know you are in trouble. It is self-lobbying.
Table-ized A.I.
War crimes, applied properly are a good thing. What's a war crime now, wasn't in WWII. One of the better thought of US generals (Bradley) in the European theater left standing orders that German snipers were not to be brought back alive. Occasionally there were orders to capture German's with specific knowledge like snipers, but that was accompanied by a bounty, and when that period of interest in them had passed, they didn't survive contact with the allies. By modern standards they were murdered. Same thing in Japan. Someone would fuck with a soldier, and they got smoked. Period.
But why is this generally a good thing that should happen more? Well, ulitmately it results in less death. I know, what a bizaar assertion. But there are facts to back this up, such as Sherman's march in the civil war. He remains one of the most hated generals of the union in the south, but he actually killed disproportionately fewer people. And yet he's *still* the most hated. But it's not like that's the only example. The Mongol empire was essentially run with submition or extermination as the policy. Often life improved in cities that surrendered. And in fact Russia and China were largely solidified and given identity under the Mongol conquest, avoiding who knows how many internal wars. Indeed, that is why it would have been so desirable in Iraq. A larger more readily violent force would likely have prevented the coming civil war. But the Americans aren't really dangerous because they have rules about who and when they can shoot. In the end, wholey innocent good people do die, but those that live don't have to try to scrape out an existance in perpetual war. There was a reason the American Indian wars ended peacefully, in the end, the losers just didn't have any other choice beyond peace in the grave or out. And to this day, I've not heard one person cry for poor Carthage.
Really? I watch several hours of TV a week, and rarely see any violence. Maybe it is just the legislators TV that get violence. My TV comes with a handy remote control that can be used to regulate my violence intake, and I keep it pretty low.
This is not to counter the argument that seeing violence breeds violence, because I think it definitely influences behavior, but there is no reason to have to watch the voilent drek on TV if you don't want to.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
[...]
a concerned group of citizens doing this PR work for the army. I considered 24 to be part of the pop-culture pro-torture propaganda. So I find it odd, not scary, that the pentagon is now telling them to cut it back...
I don't watch 24, but I did see a member of congress on tv (ok, the Daily Show) say that since so many people loved Jack Bauer, and that Jack Bauer uses torture, therefore the American people have spoken and declared torture to be fine. I'm thinking it's stuff like that that prompted the Pentagon's distancing. Getting people desensitized to the idea of torture in the name of national security is one thing, but that elected representative was taking it too far.
As for the pop-culture propaganda, I recently caught a bit of Enterprise (which I also never really watched) on rerun, from the season where the Enterprise is going deep in enemy territory to disarm a weapon of mass destruction that someone from the future told 'em about (ripped from 2003's headlines!) where captain Archer had an uncooperative POW, and he took him to an airlock to scare and hurt him into talking (an airlock with a convenient slow air drain).
Of course, Enterprise being a badly written show, his effort were transparent and you just know the guy will give in and Archer won't go through with it, but it struck me because it reminded me of Malcom Reynolds putting Jayne in the airlock on Firefly. The difference being, in Firefly you believed he would actually do it, but mostly that in Enterprise the airlock torture was glamourized as an effective way to get reliable information. Firefly never gave me the impression that torture was okay (in fact, it was shown in another ep as futile and sadistic). One show got shitcanned despite being the best sci-fi on TV at the time, the other dragged on long past the point where it was evident that it was a turd with a Federation isignia tacked on. I see the work of the media branch of the military-industry-congress complex here, funding a message and not another.
P.S. Galactica's version of that scenario was the most ambiguous, and arguably the better one: the torture wasn't working, the airlock was used to put a stop to it through summary execution, but the prisoner doesn't really die, being a downloadable conciousness... Galactica being Firefly's evolutionary descendant (hey, same SFX team, ship-cameo in the pilot episode), I'm not surprised they also take the non-apologetic stance on torture, but a more tv-friendly attitude towards summary execution (where would a how be without bad guys being killed off?)
You can't take the sky from me...
Since sex and violence are staples of most prime time broadcasting, doesn't that mean I wont have to pay for any of my cable channels?
You may want to look into the politics of anarchism to see that a functioning anarchy can only come about through the highest form of personal responsibility.
I tried to ask a nihilist for his view on the matter, but he told me that to give me an answer, would be a futile gesture.
Mark all prime-time content as "Viewer discretion is advised" and "Parenting is required"
I've been reading a lot of comments about how the govt shouldn't be regulating content on TV, that parents should be more involved in their kids lives and use available technology to control their access to sexual and violent content. I certainly have no objection to parents being involved, but I do have an objection to the idea that govt shouldn't be regulating content on public airwaves. The airwaves belong to the people, and the content allowed on them should be determined by our democratic institutions. Every broadcaster has received a public subsidy in being allowed exclusive access to certain bandwidths in certain markets, and they are bound to follow whatever rules issue from the govt.
I also disagree with the "If you don't like it, turn if off" crowd. As an American, I have the right to speak out against those things in the culture I find offensive, and I also have the right to petition the govt. for redress. Since the govt is the owner of the airwaves (as custodian of the people) then it is a violation of my rights to say I cannot petition them. While I think the media reflects culture, not creates it, I still reserve the right to democratic change of our public institutions.
For those who think I'm a prude or a busy-body, I actually favor more sex to be allowed on TV, I think the current rules are dreadfully restrictive. However, the current rules have been arrived at in a democratic fashion (albeit imperfect), and I respect that.
Consider for a moment what liberals might think if one of the major networks went to "all white supremacist" content. How long would it take for them to try to get it shutdown? They are already trying to re-instate the fairness doctrine on radio due to the success of conservative talk radio (and the subsequent failure of liberal talk radio).
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
According a recent article on salon at http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/D8N7KT707.html, it is already happening.
...when it comes to TV showing a carpenter-turned-preacher getting whipped, scourged, and crucified, the PTC will mute their objections and look the other way.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
sadly, HDTV is wasted on gore and violence. I don't need to see the eaten corpse to get the murder mystery rolling. Some bodacious ta-ta's ? nope, can't see that. we can see a head ripped off, but we can't see anything sexy ? It's almost like they are trying to de-sensitize us toward gore. why ?
Contrast that with the real world. Authorities had been trying to get their hands on Osama Bin Laden since the 90's only to be stonewalled by the Justice Department. Political gestures held back military forces resulted in thousands of Al Qaeda fighters escaping into the mountains in Afghanistan. Political pride and decisions have resulted Iraq's current status of near civil war. Dragnets to catch "terrorists" domestic and foreign have resulted in courts being overloaded and military interrogators being out stretched. Etc, etc, etc.
Americans want someone to cut through the bullshit, get the job done and get it done FAST cause the sooner its done, the sooner we can get the hell out of the mess we're in. Trying to get the public to not believe in a character like Jack Bauer in the modern age of terrorism is like trying to get the public to not believe in God during the Black Plague/Black Death.
The French brought their brutal war home in this and several other ways - you really have to be careful about how you let people behave because they will bring it home.
I can't remember now whether this was in the Senate or House, but I clearly remember one of the panel members saying how everyone agreed that seeing violence was dangerous for children, and no one objected. And then going on to say how he had seven tvs in his house and when his grandchildren came over he couldn't possibly be expected to know what was appearing on all of them at once.
With the one hand they talk about it as if it's a loaded gun pointed at their kids, and yet you wouldn't catch them saying I have seven guns in my house, you can't expect me to know where they all are. There is a disconnect between what they say and what they do. If you really believed it was bad for your children you'd run right home and find a way to control what they were watching right away. But they don't, because they know it's BS.
But it's not like Congress would ever approve anything they know is BS, right? So we have nothing to worry about.
Police cannot be personally sued over their conduct on the job, only the force can.
I didn't say they couldn't make any physical contact. It's perfectly possible to restrain someone without injuring them. Under my plan, they would still be able to use force, but there would be a price attached to any force that caused injury. This is acceptable in my view; officers are expendable, civilians are not.
Officers can be sued individually when their misconduct steps outside the Department's policies. I'm currently suing a couple for macing me when I was collecting signatures to get on the ballot last June.
If it's Federal cops, it's called a Bivens Action from Bivens v. 6 unknown named federal agents 403US388, 91SCT1999, 29LE2d 619(1971)
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
FOX airs 24 at 9 PM. Aren't children in bed anyways? Or at least doing their homework? When I was growing up, I had school, then after-school sports, then dinner, then I could finally start my homework around 6:30 or 7:00 PM for a couple of hours. That took me to 9 PM and I went to bed. There was no TV time for me during the week. (And we didn't have computers back then, either.) If there was a show I really wanted to watch like the Star Wars Ewok Adventures, my parents would tape it for me, and if I had good grades that week, I could watch it on the weekend on our only TV in the house.
The PTC is nothing more than LAZY parents. And what are they so worried about anyways? If they raise their kids the right way, they will turn out fine. Watching Jack Bauer 'bust a cap in a terrorist's azz' isn't going to screw up the kids. I bet these same parents also allow their children to have TVs, computers, video games, etc. in their bedrooms. When my parents finally got me Nintendo, I could only play it in our family room and only for a couple of hours at most each time. My parents took an active role in my life until I left for college - no "helicopter parents" once I left.
Frack! All we'll have left is Gilmore Girls. Ungh. Have you ever tried watching that POS show? The women in my family love it. It's nothing but yack, yack, yack, yack about the most boring things. What ever happened to turning off the damn TV or changing the fucking channel? I think George Carlin did a comedy routine on that topic.
Of course they can be held responsible if they act contrary to their orders. There should be some consequences when they injure people while following them, too.
Unfortunately, they usually aren't punished even in the former case.
Seriously, we need to expunge this religious cancer from the land. Fuck these people. Fuck them in the ass. How's that for violence, PTC? FUCK YOU! DIE!
And report my superior through appropriate channels.
In Western civilized countries that is not suppossed to be happening (Abu Mussa, may he rest in peace).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Not only that but:
"Hi, we've caught you trying to plant a roadside bomb. You were brought to our attention because you didn't quite fit our profile of a typical road worker. Now, you say you know nothing and that's great. We believe you and we'd love to offer you your choice as job as a real road worker, or if you'd rather work indoors how about this cushy little number in the water treatment plant ? Yes ! You'd love to accept ? Well that's just fantastic, we're so glad to have been of assistance."
I didn't read the article but I just wanted to comment on my experience in Thailand towards TV violence, blood, gore, etc and where America "might" be heading towards.
In Thailand they have real dead people on the TV with blood everywhere and the corpse in full view but they censor knives, guns, beer, etc in Movies and TV Shows so that it is all pixelated.
If you are watching a football (soccer) match and there is a beer advert behind the goal then the whole goal gets pixelated so you don't even know if your team scored or not!
So for news its OK but for entertainment NO!
Of course I think this is going to differ to America in the future where everything will be censored/pixelated.
I don't know about many of countries but in the UK they're not allowed to show dead bodies on the TV. I wish they would so they could show everyone all those dead people in wars, etc instead of it just being a statistic.
Sometimes I just think some people need the fact hammered home that these are real people on TV.
For many years, sex wasn't actually shown in movies and on TV. It was sometimes implied, such as when people are later seen smoking cigarettes. Just because special effects people can shoot or create anything today doesn't mean that its a good an idea to show all this stuff. There are channels for seeing more sex, and there could be channels for seeing more violence. I for one would be a happier person if Hollywood would tone down both. A lot of clever producers have made movies that were powerful without explicit visuals. It was OK for the public to use some imagination in the process of receiving the entertainment. With todays special effects, the imagination is hardly required because CGI can create any scene imaginable. I really was impressed with "Starship Troopers", the book. I waited most of my life for the movie to be made. When it finally hit, there were no powered battle suits, and way too many pictures of people being cut up. For the sake of gratuitous violence, they ruined the movie. From a practical standpoint, when we watch too much of this stuff, it begins to seem more normal. I guess if you see graphic violence every night on TV, the concept of being at war and lots of people dying just kind of goes along with the other input, and you don't think so much about whether there might be something wrong going on.
Filling the TV with violence makes it easier for a government to sell violent politics.
When violence is seen as the norm then the government is only doing "normal" things when it goes around killing bad guys from helicopters.
Sex, OTOH, doesn't play a role. Let the conservatives get their undies in a twist over sex if it keeps them from going after the real issuse.
No sig today...
The documentary on the Zimbardo prison experiment (http://www.prisonexp.org/) is a must watch for anyone looking for insight into the Abu ghraib prison incident. Abu ghraib wave predictable and preventable, and it's a horrid shame that the enlisted men and women are being punished when the officers in charge and management should have known what to watch for and how to maintain discipline in their own troops.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
If they're going to be fining for inappropriate material on television, they damn well should be fining for violence.
It's already hard to see a nipple for at least 2 seconds on TV and movies, now they want violence out of it too?
Why don't they spend that time educating their kids instead of screwing other people's entertainment.
Have you seen TV lately? It's all about pasteurized "family" entertainment mostly. Long ago are the days of Cobra and Terminator. You don't get to see the tiniest drop of blood now. Yes I read a lot, but I also like "violent" movies/series.
Hell, if I don't get my violence fix everyday I will have to go out to get it myself damn it.
Please, please mod parent up. Great reference to an obscure play/movie!
Much Madness is divinest Sense --
To a discerning Eye --
Much Sense -- the starkest Madness
One of the interesting things about Galactica, besides the made-up all-purpose swear word (I thought that was frelling cool in Farscape as well), is another bit of swearing they can get away with.
Because that society is polytheistic, they swear "godsdamn". This is fine with the TV censors. The singular "goddamn" would get them bleeped, or a higher rating, though. Brilliant!
1) You don't have to watch TV.
2) Its not real, yes even the news!
So stop your whinging, and let others enjoy it if they wish.
For the land of the free, some American's have strange ideas on what's allowed/right/wrong.
----- I refuse to have an argument with an unarmed person
You said that better than I could.
Blar.
or will there be a fight of telvising the fight over violence on television?
I think it's all part of adding to the shock reaction. It's like mutilating a painting. The more breathtaking or valuable the original piece, the greater the reaction/outrage to the damage done. By using young innocent women/children/etc as victims, you are showing the senseless mutilation of something priceless. The perceived value of the young and beautiful, particularly females, seems to be greater in western society.
Oh, and sometimes the victim is an older person, say a banker or gangster, whatever, but young, beautiful, and tragic seems to be the more common one.
Sure looks like they made MTV clean house and broadcast only the purest of music videos that your grandmother would endorse. I'm sure this will work wonders for violence.
I don't see how they're going to have an easy time with taking on violence on shows that are aired at 9 pm. That's the time reserved for most "adult" shows. If these were airing opposite Blue's Clues or The Wiggles, I'd be more worried.
Regardless, this only proves how worthless the V-Chip was. They should spend more time and effort trying to edumacate parents about the tools at their disposal than asking for a government agency to step in.
Insert Sig Here
If you're willing to injure yourself to spite a cop, so be it. You can only break your arm so many times before it won't heal properly.
The fact of the matter is that many cops *do not* take every reasonable precaution to protect the people the come in contact with, and there are currently no serious consequences for that.