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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Required Brain Is Not In Your TV

Sue Hutchison Knight-Ridder

Perhaps you’ve already heard about the earth-shattering study on television violence released last month in our nation’s capital.

Researchers from four major universities got together to study the cornucopia of fist fights, head-bashings, maimings, stabbings and gunshot deaths we are treated to every day on TV. Here’s the main finding: Despite politicians’ breast-beating about getting violence off TV so we can be bombarded with the kind of wholesome family entertainment we deserve, researchers found “no meaningful change in the presentation of violence on television during the last two years.” Are you shocked?

Not only that but researchers discovered “age-based” ratings systems have the opposite effect of what is intended. Researchers asked kids about their interest in various programs and - surprise, surprise - kids ages 10-15 were much more interested in seeing a program rated “R” than those rated “G.” The researchers called it the “forbidden fruit effect.” That’s why they recommended “content-based” ratings, like those on cable TV, which don’t seem to attract as many kids to naughty shows.

The study was conducted before the current TV-rating system went into effect, so the research questions were based on the move-rating system. But I think it’s safe to say the results would be the same.

I could’ve saved these researchers a lot of time and money if they’d just asked me about the “Billy Jack” effect. You may remember “Billy Jack” as a violent and dunderheaded series of films from the ‘70s, starring Tom Laughlin as a guy in Levi’s who kicks the ever-living tar out of people who insult his friends.

When I was in junior high, “Billy Jack” was all anyone could talk about on the bus. It was rated R and none of us were old enough to see it but, eventually, every single one of us did. (It’s really easy to get into “Billy Jack.” Just go with your brother and give him money for cigarettes so he’ll say he’s your dad.)

And nothing has changed in 20 years. In fact, I believe if Jane Seymour changed the name of her family frontier show to “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Ninja” the ratings would double overnight.

Everyone is yammering at the television industry for not policing itself, but consider the options. Either the TV execs try to tone it down and lose money and Nielsen ratings - which they won’t do. Or the government imposes a lot of onerous standards on them, which is censorship.

That leaves the “V-chip,” the electronic program blocker that allows parents to control the TV. And that’s the answer: parents.

But why can’t parents figure out what they don’t want their kids watching? It reminds me of the days when Tipper Gore was screaming at heavy metal bands to “rate” themselves. I kept thinking: Tipper, if you don’t get a clue from the guy with the bleeding pigeon head in his mouth on the album cover that you might not want your 8-year-old listening to this stuff, I don’t think a rating system is going to help you.

Do parents really need to see a review of Chuck Norris as “Walker: Texas Ranger” to surmise that maybe some guy gets his lungs ripped out in this show? Even family values queen Jessica Fletcher watched as half the citizenry in her quaint Maine fishing village got bumped off in “Murder, She Wrote.” Why is a lobster fisherman with an ice pick in his back any more wholesome than a drug dealer riddled with bullet holes, lying in a pool of blood?

A lot of parents already know the answer to the TV violence debate is incredibly simple: Turn off the tube and take your kid to the library.

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