AMERICA'S SCAPEGOAT - Essay

     For over forty years television has been a major part of American culture.  Throughout its history it has been plagued by people who want to control it and what the American public can watch on it.  It has come under attach several times in its history for the content of its programs.  In recent years this attack has been aimed at the violence depicted in television programs.  This attack has made it all the way up to Congress,where there are currently six bills on regulating television violence under consideration.

     Three main bills being looked at in the Congress, they are the telecom bill, Sen. Fritz Holling's bill, and Byron Drogan's T.V. Violence report card act.  The telecom bill holds the acclaimed V chip (or violence chip) in it.  The V chip is a computer chip that reads encoded signals sent by broadcasters.  The signals are messages that tell the V chip the violence ratings of television programs.  The idea is that you set the violence rating you desire through the V chip.  The chip then blocks out all those programs with either the same rating or a higher one than you have set.

     On the surface this sounds like a good idea but many people have spoken out against the chip.  Sen. Robert Dole is one of those people saying the V chip brings us “one step closer to government control of what we see on television”.  One of the chief arguments of the V chip is that it cannot distinguish between the acts of violence being shown.  By this I mean that the V chip could not tell the deference between the violence shown in Terminator 2, and that shown in Schindler's List.  It can only block both programs from being viewed, thus not allowing people access to programs with important messages to tell.  CBS Vice President Martin Franks has pointed out some other problems with the V chip.  The first is that it will be expensive and people will not want to replace every television they own with a V chip equipped television.  The other thing Franks fears is that special interest groups will bombard broadcasters with their own definitions of objectionable content.  Franks say this has already happened to CBS where one right to life group has suggested CBS encode programs dealing with abortion.  Matthew Blank, the President of Showtime Networks says: “We have serious societal issues here.  The V chip seems like an overly simple solution to a very complicated problem.

     Sen. Fritz Holling's bill would require the FCC to define violence and regulate the hours which “Violent” content can be broadcast.  Sen. John McCain an opponent of the bills says he believes the bill is unconstitutional and, in light of the V chip unnecessary.  Other opponents to the bill claim that it will be impossible to come up with a definition for violence that everyone will agree with.  An example of this can be seen in a U.S. News-UCLA survey where respondents claimed they would object to everything from shootings and stabbings to car accidents depending on the circumstances.

     The T.V. Violence Report Card Act would require the Secretary of Commerce to set up an independent board to rate T.V. Programs for violence.  The violence reports would then be made public four times a year.  The idea behind this bill is that since the Commerce Secretary picks the board members there will not be any one group controlling the violence ratings.  That is of course no one group except for the Commerce Secretary and any special interest groups he might be influenced by.  The bill is also unfair to the networks and sponsors who would be graded by these report cards.

     It would seem that there are several problems with all of these proposals.  Not the least of which is that they have all been declared unconstitutional by their opponents.  It is clear to me that the supporters of these bills are grasping at straws.  To quote one supporter Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson” “We should pass them all in the hopes that something works”.

     In our ongoing search to find a solution to violence in America, it appears we have hit a brick wall.  Our Congress Men and Women have no solutions to offer us.  Instead they are trying to turn our heads away from the real causes of the problem by offering us the same solutions the courts deemed a violation of the first Amendment twenty years ago.  By making television the scapegoat they have tried to hide from our real problems.

     “Despite all the of the fights about content—the struggle to get All in the Family on the air, the proposals for a family viewing policy on TV, the conflicts over advertiser boycotts and public pressure--the 70's have been a remarkable period of growth for the treatment of provocative themes on the entertainment television”.  This quote opens the last chapter of a book called See No Evil written by Geoffrey Cowan.  Geoffrey Cowan is the director of the UCLA Communications Law Program and President Clinton's new appointee to head the U.S. Information Agency.  The book discusses the political turmoil after the ten top three networks instituted “the family hour”.  The three networks agreed to keep programs containing sex and violence off the air during a certain time period when families are supposedly watching.  The family hour was challenged in a lawsuit filed by a group of writers led by Norman Lear (the creator of All in the Family).  The lawsuit was won by the writers as the courts ruled the networks had been coerced into self-censorship, a violation of the first amendment.  I have two reasons for describing this story to you.  The first is to show you the events around the court case that legal experts on both sides agree would be up held if tested in the courts today.  This certainly would happen if Congress was to pass any of the bills that were out before them now.  The second reason is to show the parallels between what happened twenty years ago and what's happening now with programs like NYPD Blue instead of All in the Family.  Like All in the Family, NYPD Blue is a controversial program, and like All in the Family, NYPD Blue has been praised by the critics.  Winning an award at the Humanitas Prize luncheon.  The luncheon is where writers, producers and network executives gather to celebrate the most life affirming television programs.  Unlike All in the Family however, NYPD Blue has buckled to pressure groups and ABC has promised that NYPD Blue will undergo changes.  The network says the show will not be the same show they put on the air last fall.  The same show that has been critically acclaimed as having an important message to tell.

     There are justified concerns about the amount of violence on television.  As John Wright, Co-Director of the University of Kansas Center for Research on the influences of T.V. On Children notes: “It is a cause, but its not even a main cause”.  The main causes like poverty, a poor educational system, drugs, lax gun control, and the break down of the American family are still out there.  We must not get side tracked by making television our scapegoat and work to save ourselves from the real problems we face.

     As far as television is concerned it is a business like any other and works upon demand.  The more violent shows on television also tend to be the shows with the highest viewer ratings.  One case in point that comes to mind, happened in Canada recently.  Viewers complained about the violence in the children's program Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.  With little protest the Canadian broadcasters dropped the show, only to bring it back when a larger number of viewers complained that the program was taken off the air.

     What I feel we must take away from this example is that as television viewers we must make our own choices.  If you feel a program is to violent don't watch it.  If enough people feet the same way you do the show will not be aired long.  In this way we can safely police our television networks.  What we must not do is take such excessive license as to censor other peoples freedom to choose.  That simply is wrong.