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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."
"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 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.
I think the issue why sex is more regulated then violence is the fact that sexual instinct is in most of us. While the extreme violence is only in people who have problems. It is easy to explain to kids why violence is bad, you see a guy doing violence then he is the bad guy. For Sex it is something natural so the person committing sex is not really a bad guy but it is something they don't want their children to emulate. Telling a kid to Never do something vs. Do it when you are ready or after some goal. Then there is living in a culture where parents told other kids on different goals, some are lax and say it is OK to have Sex when you are ready. Other say when you are an adult, others say when you truly love some one... So we have a cultural problem with Sex to many divergent views and it is confusing to try to teach kids. With less Sex in the media helps reduce the level of confusion on the topic (one less place to show contradicting views). Having a child being taught to be too open minded is a dangerous thing.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
...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.
Of course, it's silly to imply that 24 has a place in the chain of command (as if Jack Bauer gives orders for real-life military torture). It's also scary that they could possibly think 24 has more sway than direct orders. Thus, I believe they want it off the show not to discourage torture, but because 24 puts current military practices in a bad light. Bush etc. have already ordered torture (although they refuse to call it such - and to think Clinton's "is" definition was once considered significant).
Now we have a concerned group of citizens doing this PR work for the army. If the people don't see it, they're safer/happier/etc.
Its not a 'direct line' as you put it, but if you get an entire generation used to 'fake' violence in this manner, they will be more accepting of it later on when it becomes real.
And if you dont belive me, just do some research on the subject in psychological journals.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Let me explain to you how the system really works. Having been one of said easily influenced soldiers I have intimate knowledge of this. You're out on a patrol, you come upon a guy who is setting up a roadside bomb. Now more than likely this isn't really the guy you want as he's just some poor sod that a real bad guy paid to have do this. The bad guy that paid him isn't really even the really bad dude, he's just some farmer that got mixed up with the wrong crowd. You know this, so you catch the guy setting up the bomb, cuff him and take him back to your patrol base. When you reach the patrol base you have to fill out a very extensive form detailing everything that was said and done to the guy. When I say detail I mean it too. After that the guy you captured is taken to a holding area where he's given food and water and basically anything he needs even though what he was doing could have killed you or your best friend. Next time a convoy comes around which is usually a few hours they take this guy to the main base where all the interrogators hang out. These guys spend up to two years in school learing how to interrogate without using torture. They know how to mind fsck you, and they're really good at it. These guys never have to do anything that harms you because they're better than lawyer at playing word games and will generally know within the first few minutes whether you're worth keeping or not. The problems like Abu Ghraib arise because you have people that guard these guys and take it upon themselves to try and find out information. Which I don't have to say is illegal and the real interrogators will have your ass if they find out about it. That's the main point of failure. Now after the interrogator has talked with the guy for a while, if he's worth keeping they will, if not they'll give him a job working on public works projects in the city. That's how the system really works, and maybe people should actually do their research before spouting off with something that you have no clue about and put good people in a bad light.
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
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.
[...]
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...
please see http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/D8N7KT707.html