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There are some fundamental premises that must be understood before one can examine whether an act of violence within the context of a story causes problems. Understanding these basic premises helps the reader to understand the monitoring process and the ultimate decisions that were made. Our operating premises have been as follows:
In the course of the monitoring, questions would frequently arise about accidental violence. Examples of this would include a tree falling on someone during a hurricane or someone losing their footing and falling down the stairs. Clearly this violence is non-intentional and unprovoked. Nevertheless, in the world of fictional programming everything is created by a screenwriter (with input by, and perhaps at the instigation of, the network, producer or director). There are no real "accidents" in these cases. A screenwriter had to decide that there would be a hurricane and that a tree would fall on the character in a particular way. Then the screenwriter would have to decide on the extent of the resulting injuries. In fiction, a screenwriter has a whole range of choices and the decision to have something violent happen is only one of a variety of options.
The obvious exception is non-fiction programming. In those cases, the screenwriter is following a set of facts established by what really happened. Although decisions are still made about how to interpret the actual event and how much dramatic license to take, there does not exist the wide variety of choices available in creating fictional programming. In fiction, all violence is the result of writers' and producers' decisions that violence should occur.
Establishing the villain as a key character in many stories is important. Even stories that virtually no one would find objectionable feature a villain. Disney's Beauty and the Beast needs to establish why Belle could not possibly be interested in Gaston, the handsome muscle man who is determined to make her his wife. Viewers know that Belle is interested in ideas and books and not just an attractive partner. We learn Gaston's villainous nature when, to the tune of his song, he punches innocent townspeople in a bar and acts as an all-around brute. These scenes are necessary to establish what kind of person he is and why Belle will turn her attentions later to a far less attractive but more caring and sensitive beast. Likewise in Schindler's List, the commandant of the camp is shown exploding in rage and shooting prisoners without purpose or warning. We also see him shoot random human targets with his rifle from his balcony. All this is necessary to demonstrate his character and how evil and vicious the Nazis were.
While we respect creators' needs to demonstrate why and how certain characters are bad or evil, this, of course, has its limits. In Beauty and the Beast, a family entertainment, establishing Gaston's brutishness allows him to engage in violence but does not include entitling him to break townspeople's necks or sever their heads. On the other hand, at least two programs that aired this season graphically depicted decapitated Jamaican drug lords, clearly exceeding the limitations of character development.
After watching a series for an hour, a film for two hours or a mini-series for as long as eight hours, there is a natural tendency for the audience to want to see the conflict resolved and the villain punished or killed. The worse the villain, the more the audience wants some kind of catharsis or final resolution. Sometimes viewers even want to see the bad guy die a gruesome, brutal death. Everyone has been to a movie theater and witnessed the audience cheer as the bad guy is shot, knifed or impaled. Two recent period-piece films, Rob Roy and First Knight, end in such a celebration of violence to the delight of moviegoers. In both films, the villains are dispatched by the hero in dramatic sword fights.
While we recognize this need for audiences to get a final "pay off," this too has its limits. Earlier this season, CBS televised the theatrical film Ghost. In that film, the villain arranges for the murder of Patrick Swayze's character and then, later in the film, threatens Swayze's character's widow, played by Demi Moore. There is a dramatic need for the villain to "get it good in the end." And he does. At the end of a fight with the ghost of Swayze's character, he falls onto a window sill where a large shard of glass falls, protruding through his torso. It is an extraordinarily graphic scene of violence, well deserved in the eyes of the audience. Although there is some editing of the scene for television airing, the camera lingers on this bloody, gory scene for a full eight seconds. The same impact could have been achieved in less time. There is a need to see the evil villain punished, but there are limits as to how this should be depicted on television.
The earlier a program is shown, the more likely children are to be a significant part of the audience. For the networks, prime time television consists of the three hours from 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. On Sunday, network prime time begins at 7:00 p.m. On Fox, prime time ends at 10:00 p.m. (This is being written as the FCC has just announced that at the end of a year, the Prime Time Access Rule {PTAR} will be eliminated. There may be more hours in prime time in the future.) A network can demonstrate its responsibility by scheduling its more violent programs later in the evening. Such responsibility has been exhibited when prime time has been extended to 11:30 p.m., in order to accommodate a theatrical film with violent themes. (Television movies are produced to run with commercials in a two-hour block. Theatrical films, however, are made for the movie theater with no such constraints and, when commercials are added, they may end up at odd lengths for the purposes of television.) Extending prime time usually incurs the wrath of affiliates which have turned their 11:00 hour into a lucrative franchise with advertising revenues that are not shared with the networks. If prime time were not extended, films with violent themes would have to start at 8:00 or 8:30. This has been a particular problem for Fox Broadcasting. Since it does not have a 10:00 block of prime time, it must start its theatricals and television movies at 8:00.
Under the soon-to-expire FCC rules, television networks can have an extra hour of prime time (Sunday at 7:00) if they use that time for news, public affairs or children's programming. For this purpose, Fox is not currently considered a television network. (To legally qualify as a network an entity must program more than 15 hours of prime time programming. Fox programs 15.) While Fox is not subject to the FCC mandate, we believe 7:00 p.m. is a time when many very young children are in the audience and, therefore, Fox should be held to the same standards as the other networks. Only one television network, CBS, adheres to the spirit of the FCC requirement. 60 Minutes is a news program and thus meets that requirement. During the 1994-95 season, NBC aired Earth2, ABC ran America's Funniest Home Videos and Fox scheduled either Fortune Hunter or reruns of The X-Files. Since none of these are news or public affairs shows, they all must be made suitable for children. As the next section will indicate, all of these shows have raised concerns with respect to violence and may be a questionable use of a 7:00-8:00 p.m. time period.
Time is an important consideration on Saturday morning children's programming as well. Networks schedule the tamest programming at 7:00-8:30 a.m. when the youngest children dominate the audience. When their older brothers and sisters start watching at 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning, they begin to see more action and violence. Viewers would not expect to see the most intense programming in the earliest hours and, in most cases, they do not.
Back in 1975, Chairman Richard Wiley of the FCC and the broadcast networks tried to establish the earliest hour of prime time as a "Family Viewing Hour." While many in the nation applauded this goal, it had the effect of censoring situation comedies like All in the Family and M*A*S*H. The creative community filed suit, charging that the rule violated the first amendment. After the courts struck down the hour, the networks announced a voluntary effort to be sensitive to family viewing concerns during the earliest hours in prime time. The 8:00 period was seen as a time when families could sit down together and watch programming free of most violence and sexuality. But the voluntary effort never really worked. Fox runs Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210 at 8:00. Audiences responded favorably to these shows at 8:00 and NBC responded by scheduling its popular adult situation comedy Mad About You at 8:00. CBS ran Due South and ABC switched Roseanne to 8:00. Most of the issues raised by these shows involve matters of sexuality which are beyond the scope of this report. In terms of violence, we think that the networks should be sensitive to the fact that there are a large number of children in the 8:00 audience. There are other time slots, especially 10:00 (except at Fox), that can be used for more adult programs. Often programs with some themes of violence are appropriately scheduled at the 10:00 time period. Many of these programs are of high quality and reached new levels of popularity in the 1994-95 television season.
In some shows, the consequences or punishment might not come until several or many episodes later. But the nature of television does not ensure that the viewer who watched a violent act will definitely be watching to see it punished or resolved several episodes or months later. The consequences or punishment have to occur within a particular episode of the program or movie. While there is no guarantee that the viewer who watched a violent act will be there 15 minutes later when it is resolved, without this assumption there would be no way to allow for normal plot and character development. The only exception to this is the mini-series in which there is a reasonable expectation that the person who watches the beginning installment will also watch the final episode.
There are issues regarding the way advisories are used and whether they are used at all. We would like to see advisories used more often than they are, especially in the case of theatrical films aired on television. Many critics, with a tinge of cynicism, argue that advisories promising scenes of sex and/or violence actually do the opposite of what is intended: They encourage people who might not otherwise watch to do so. Advisories are designed to provide warnings to concerned viewers, especially parents. There is no reliable evidence to indicate that advisories encourage viewing. But even if they do encourage some such viewing, we accept them as primarily providing beneficial warnings to prospective viewers, although they might be more effective if they were made more available ahead of time in printed materials describing upcoming programming, such as TV Guide. (We know that there is some reluctance to use advisories because of advertiser concern about what might be perceived as problematic or controversial content.)
Music adds texture to the story and a nonvocal cue to warn or reassure the viewer. Sound tracks can exaggerate, intensify or glorify the violence on screen. Scary movies are not nearly as frightening without the music and some viewers turn off the sound during some scenes to lessen their fright. On the other hand, music can trivialize the seriousness of violence or make it seem acceptable.
It is impossible to separate the violent shower scene in Psycho from the musical score that accompanies it. The music sends a message about the evil and appalling nature of the crime. Similarly, the James Bond theme frequently accompanies shootings, chases or other scenes of violence and tends to glamorize or glorify the acts on screen.
Television music is equally important in telling the viewer about what he or she is watching. Light or funny music implies that what the viewer is seeing is not so serious or profound. The same scene of a shooting or stabbing can leave vastly different impressions based on the music in the background. In our monitoring meetings, there were frequent discussions about music. We often looked to the music to discern the producer's intent or goals. Music helps viewers understand the context of a scene or program.
Some shows use music as an important, if not essential, part of the show. New York Undercover uses hip-hop and rap music to establish an urban grittiness. The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers uses fast, upbeat music to energize the scenes of combat and involve the audience while America's Most Wanted uses music to create a sense of foreboding or impending danger. The music on Murder, She Wrote serves to minimize the fact that the show is about murder. Some of the violence in Due South is emphasized and underscored by the heavily orchestrated music.
Many cinematic techniques are used in an attempt to lessen the impact of the violence or to make it seem more artistic. On Melrose Place and other dramas, slow motion is used to emphasize or draw attention to an act of violence. Police dramas like Homicide uses a stroboscopic effect to break up the horror of a murder scene. The strobe simulates a police photographer rapidly snapping pictures to create a record of the scene. Sound effects also are used in a variety of shows, especially comedies, to attempt to mitigate the impact of "funny" violence. These sound effects are a staple of America's Funniest Home Videos where they are used to accompany people getting hit in the head or crashing into objects. Walker, Texas Ranger also uses sound effects to add emphasis to punches during fist fights. Enhanced sound encourages the audience to cringe at the stabbing of a leg in Due South. Sound can be used to trivialize serious violence or to enhance the impact of a violent scene.
We found that the use of sound in America's Funniest Home Videos and Walker, Texas Ranger tends to aggravate the violence and increase concerns, while the use of the flash technique in Homicide tends to lessen concerns about the scene. Therefore, it is not possible to draw hard and fast rules about whether the use of these different cinematic techniques tends to raise or to reduce concerns. Their use is examined on an individual basis. In many cases they constitute a crucial contextual factor heavily influencing our overall judgment of the violence of the scene.
This was an issue that we did not fully resolve until we had monitored many different shows over the course of the year. In some television movies and science-fiction series, such as Mantis or Earth2, characters shoot ray guns or freeze guns. In Mantis, the victim is frozen in his tracks and is usually never seen again. It is unclear exactly how much damage is done to the people shot by these "guns." Some networks and producers argue that using these kinds of guns is an improvement over regular guns with bullets or that the futuristic context fictionalizes the gunplay, in either event, making it less realistic and, therefore, less likely to be imitated. After all, a child cannot use his or her parents' ray gun. This raises a potential problem since a child cannot grab his or her parents' ray gun, they may grab their real gun. The scene still involves a gun and shooting and, therefore, we treat these kinds of weapons the same as real guns. At most, in our judgment use of non-realistic weapons represents only a slight improvement and, in most cases, not even that.
After reaching a high point in popularity several seasons ago, the reality genre on television seems to be diminishing in appeal. Next season promises to see even fewer reality shows. Within the reality genre, there are shows such as Cops or America's Funniest Home Videos, that use actual footage of a crime or some other situation, and there are shows that re-create situations, such as Rescue 911, America's Most Wanted, Unsolved Mysteries or True Stories of the Highway Patrol. Shows using real footage need to responsibly edit and cannot use the fact that "it really happened" to justify anything being shown on television. Nevertheless, we did hold shows using re-creations or re-enactments to a higher standard in determining whether their use of violence raised concerns for the following reasons.
In many instances, real film comes from situations in which there is no pre-planned intent to use the tape on television. There is a compelling human interest in seeing the real tape of the real situation with real people. Programs such as Cops provide a more genuine view of what police are like and how they handle the pressures of the job than shows with actors as police. Since Cops is real and uses actual film, we gave it more latitude to make its case. Still, producers must exercise care in their editing.
Re-creations, however, have all the choices in the world. Unlike "real" tape shows, they hire actors to portray characters. This allows them to influence how viewers process the scene. Producers can choose between sympathetic actors who will elicit support or unattractive "thugs" who incur anger. Producers of re-enactments can decide how close the camera will get during a crime and whether there should be a gallon of blood or a thimble full. Producers of "real" tape shows cannot make these decisions; they are bound by the tape. Re-enactment shows have a wide range of options and alternatives not available to the other shows and we, therefore, hold them more accountable for what ends up on the screen.
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