WASHINGTON, DC (June 26, 2007) –
Parents Television Council™ President Tim Winter
testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on
Commerce, Science and Transportation on the issue of
television violence and the “Impact of Media Violence
on Children” hearing today. He provided graphic
examples of how brutal and gruesome television
violence has become and took the industry to task
for not dealing with the problem responsibly.
Excerpts from his testimony follow:
“Many in the Congress know of the PTC
mostly as a vocal advocacy group, but the lion’s
share of our effort goes into research and
education. And when it comes to violence on
television, the trend of what we are seeing today is
not only concerning, it is frightening. In fact
none of us would even be here today but for a level
of media violence that approaches epidemic
proportions.
“This past January, the PTC released
Dying to
Entertain – our latest research project
analyzing the volume and degree of violence on
primetime television. The television season which
concluded last year was the most violent that the
PTC has ever recorded – averaging 4.41 instances of
violence per hour, every hour, during prime time, or
one instance every 13½ minutes – an increase of 75%
since the 1998 television season. Over the course
of a year, that means many thousands of violent
depictions are broadcast over the public airwaves at
times when millions of children are in the audience.
“In addition to the marked increase
in the quantity of violence, we are seeing several
other disturbing trends. First, the depictions of
violence have become far more graphic and more
realistic than ever before, thanks in part to
enhanced computer graphics employed in television
production today. Second, there is an alarming
trend for violent scenes to include a sexual
element. Rapists, sexual predators and fetishists
appear with increasing frequency on prime time
programs. Third, we are now seeing the main
character – the protagonist the audience is supposed
to identify with – as the perpetrator of the most
violent acts. And lastly we are seeing more
children being depicted as the victims of violence.
“As you know, we prepared a DVD with
a sampling of scenes containing violence from recent
television programs. Let me describe a few of those
scenes:
“During the May 22nd
episode of NCIS
that aired during the so-called ‘family hour’ of 8
p.m. Eastern time (7 p.m. CT/MT), a dead drug
smuggler was shown having his midsection sliced open
and his blood-soaked organs pulled out of his body.
The man’s digestive tract is sliced open and white
powder spills over his bloodied torso. When a fight
ensues, one character stabs the drug dealer with a
scalpel and another character shoots the drug
dealer. Then the junkie-sister is shown with her
face buried in her brother's bloody intestines as
she snorts heroin off his dead body.
“On an episode of
C.S.I. –
which normally airs at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time but is
often repeated earlier – a woman had been having sex
with her son for many years. When her son became a
psychotic serial rapist and was institutionalized,
the mother took a job as a nurse at the institution
so that she could continue to have sex with him.
When she learned that her son was having sex with
one of the male inmates, she killed her rival by
smothering him with a pillow, then had her son cover
up her crime by bashing the dead man’s head into the
ground until it became a bloody, unrecognizable
mess. Another inmate comes along, rubs his hands in
the blood, and hungrily smears it all over his face
as if he wants to devour it.
“A program called
The Shield
began on the expanded-basic cable network FX, and
now the program also airs in syndication on
broadcast stations nationwide. The
Shield regularly features some of the
most graphic violence and – in particular – graphic
sexual violence ever seen on television. In one
episode, the main character – a corrupt cop – drags
a gang member into the kitchen and turns on an
electric stove burner, then pushes the gang member’s
face into the red-hot coils of the burner where the
TV audience can see the melting and charred flesh.
“In another episode of
The Shield,
a Police Captain is forced at gunpoint to perform
oral sex on a gang member. While holding the barrel
of a gun to the policeman’s mouth, the gang member
asks him, ‘You ever suck a dick like a cell bitch,
cop man?’ He threatens to kill the officer if he
doesn’t perform fellatio, and the officer is seen
and heard gagging and whimpering in humiliation
until the gang member reaches orgasm.
“Ryan Murphy, the creator of another
series on FX called
Nip/Tuck
publicly stated that it might be his legacy to make
possible a rear-entry sex scene on broadcast
television. And Senators, if you subscribe to a
cable or satellite service, you are forced to pay
almost $9.00 every year to the FX network so they
can produce and air this kind of material. And with
tens of millions of Americans forced into the
industry’s bundling scheme, FX reaps hundreds of
millions of dollars each year to produce this
material, and that is before they sell even one TV
commercial.
“As troubling as those content
examples are, Mr. Chairman, I am equally dismayed by
the seeming contempt the industry has for anyone who
would suggest reasonable self-restraint. Recently
the CEO of Time-Warner decried this hearing,
likening your concerns to Nazi Germany.
“Every time the public – and our
public servants – call for more responsible
behavior, the industry refuses to have a meaningful
dialog or offer real solutions. Rather than coming
before you to address the negative impact their
products have on children, they turn the
conversation into a lecture on broadcast standards
and the Constitution. Rather than acknowledging the
scientific evidence manifested in over a thousand
medical and clinical studies, they underwrite their
own research and point to its differing conclusion.
And rather than focusing on their statutory public
interest requirements for using the public airwaves,
they shift the conversation to entertainment in
general and invoke the always-sobering term,
‘chilling effect.’ But I wonder how ‘chilling’
things really are if, as we’ve read in the press,
the Fox broadcast network airs a program this fall
where an amorous monkey joins a man and woman in a
sexual encounter.
“After the Janet Jackson incident,
television executives were quick to come before the
Congress to pledge zero-tolerance for indecency.
Subsequently they filed a federal lawsuit which
would allow them to use the F-word at any time of
the day, even in front of millions of children.
Sadly they managed to find two judges in New York
City who agreed with them. And now the networks are
in Court again, this time saying that the Janet
Jackson incident was not indecent.
“Through efforts like the ‘TV Boss’
campaign, the industry promised you hundreds of
millions of dollars to educate parents on
content-blocking technologies, yet all objective
data shows that parents still have no constructive
grasp over the TV ratings system or the technologies
that are reliant upon them.
“And speaking of technology, recall
that when the V-Chip was introduced the television
industry denounced it as censorial heresy. That is,
they denounced it until they found a way to
manipulate what was supposed to be a simple solution
for parents. Instead the industry turned the V-Chip
into a means for even more graphic content while
using it as an excuse to violate the broadcast
decency law.
“Mr. Chairman, please understand that
this is an industry that I love with every fiber of
my being. I spent most of my career – more than 20
years of it – working in the media industry, the
majority of which was in broadcasting and cable
television. It is a wonderful business, capable of
producing not only enlightening, educating and
entertaining programming, but it is also a lucrative
business with profit margins that most industries
can only dream of. But with the ability to deliver
a product directly into every home in America comes
a duty to serve the public interest. As
Commissioner Copps stated in this very room, the
term ‘public interest’ appears no less than 112
times in the original Communications Act. I ask
you, Mr. Chairman, when does hurting children serve
the public interest?
“Representing more than a million
concerned families, we stand ready to work with you
to forge real solutions to these problems. I hope
the industry will step up and join us.”
► To review the PTC’s latest research
on violence during primetime broadcast television,
visit:
http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/publications/reports/violencestudy/exsummary.asp.
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