FTC accuses Hollywood of corrupting young audiences

Trisha Kirk   Kirk is a fourth-year
political science student who can form an opinion about anything,
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In appropriately dramatic Hollywood style, the Federal Trade
Commission recently accused the entertainment industry of rape. It
rapes our nation’s children by willfully gearing
adult-oriented entertainment and similar advertisements toward
their impressionable minds.

According to the FTC’s ludicrous 104-page report, movie
studios, record companies and video game makers are placing
advertisements for violent and sexual material in magazines and
broadcasts that consumers under 17 are likely to see. The FTC
argues that such companies are deceptive in their advertising,
using cartoons and childlike images to rein children in, and claim
that their graphic media is responsible for youth violence and
sexual irresponsibility.

A sinister, sinful Hollywood has moved into the American family
room, and the FTC wants to stop it. It’s funny how the
entertainment industry, self-regulating to its heart’s
content, hasn’t been lambasted like this since Jerry
Falwell’s Teletubbie tirade ““ and then this report.
What is even funnier is that legislators think they can and must
use the findings to censor entertainment marketing ““ and of
course, entertainment itself ““ in America. America, the
bastion of freedom, home of the First Amendment, Eminem and
“Hustler.”

What provoked this call for reform? Why does Congress feel it
has to put its foot down in Hollywood?

  Illustration by JARRET QUON/Daily Bruin If it’s not
just a blur in your memory by now, you might remember the tragedy
of Columbine High School. Fifteen lives were lost at the Littleton,
Colo., school last June when two students in black trenchcoats
opened fire on students and teachers. Violent media supposedly
influenced the killers, so about a month after the massacre,
President Clinton ordered that the entertainment industry be placed
under government scrutiny and requested a review by the FTC.

Over a year later, the FTC responded with a phone-book sized
sermon declaring that Hollywood is in tragic disrepair and must be
fixed before it corrupts any more kiddies. Explicit-lyric warnings
on CDs, NC-17 film ratings and the video game rating system
apparently aren’t doing enough to stop Hollywood from
“targeting” kids with adult material. In fact, the FTC
claims that the entertainment industry manipulates these ratings so
it can more easily reach a younger audience.

The Columbine shootings were not the only time that Hollywood
was blamed for youth violence. Several school shootings and violent
gang-related acts have been blamed on violent movies and video
games. The game Mortal Kombat was the center of attention when it
was considered too graphic to be released without a rating. The
first night “Interview With a Vampire” opened in
theaters, there were incidents across America of people being
bitten on the neck. And many blame rapper Tupac Shakur’s
drive-by murder on his music’s violent lyrics.

While these incidents appear to have a connection with
entertainment violence, they could have occurred for many reasons.
The blame for countless shootings, robberies and carjackings will
always be slapped on entertainment, but will censoring the industry
really curb youth violence? Not a chance in Hollywood.

While she agreed that entertainment marketing strategies must
change, California Senator Barbara Boxer acknowledged that other
factors causing youth violence must be considered as well. At the
congressional FTC report hearings, she cited the availability of
firearms as a potential reason that youth crime is rising (L.A.
Times, Sept. 13, 2000).

Drugs and violence in the home have also been cited as causes of
youth violence. In these cases, censorship will not work.

The FTC and Congress think entertainment and its advertisements
are causing youth violence, but censoring ads for adult material
because children may see them would only exacerbate the problem.
Like the “War on Drugs,” a crackdown on entertainment
marketing will only cause an underground realm of film, music and
gaming to run rampant. If entertainment conglomerates cannot market
their product the way they want to, they will sell it any way they
can. It will still reach an audience and the same people seeing
those ads and that media now will find a way to do the same even
after censorship is imposed.

Crossing the fine line that separates regulation and censorship
takes away artists’ right to express themselves. Whether it
be Eminem rapping about killing his wife, the hate violence in
“American History X,” or lifelike pools of blood in
countless Sega games, these graphic depictions are how some artists
perform. And much of what they perform is based on the realities of
life in America, however “adult” those realities might
be.

The Bible is not censored, and it contains enough murder and
adultery to rival “Days of Our Lives.” Shakespeare is
also widely read and the Bard had a penchant for bloodshed unlike
any director in Hollywood. Documentaries about the Holocaust or
warring tribes in Africa are not censored and they are the truest
pictures of violence. Censoring such portions of our media and
their preceding advertisements is not in question, so why should
the marketing of other reality-based entertainment face
censorship?

It is true that Hollywood produces material with violence and
sex appeal and for a good reason ““ it’s guaranteed to
sell. It is also true that entertainment executives try to market
their products to as many consumers as possible. For example,
executives responsible for the recent movie “Coyote
Ugly” had a scene removed from the film to avoid an
“˜R’ rating. This meant that a wider, possibly younger
audience could see the film, which surely didn’t change much
after the deletion of just one scene.

Some have argued that in such cases, Hollywood is sidestepping
its own, outdated rating methods (a 32-year-old system), and that
merits reform. But that doesn’t mean they are targeting
youths by marketing the movie with billboards and commercials, and
it doesn’t mean their advertising is deceptive, as the FTC
claims. Billboards covered with busty women are hardly advertising
a film that promises to teach moral lessons to a 10-year-old. It is
up to parents to prevent their children from seeing films they feel
are too adult. That is what the ratings system is for.

Hollywood is not disputing the FTC’s accusations and seems
willing to find common ground. The Director’s Guild of
America recently announced that it welcomes government scrutiny of
movie marketing as long as its measures don’t “cross
the line into censorship” (Associated Press, Sept. 14, 2000).
Some directors have called for a new, more detailed ratings system
that would include all entertainment media. But the choice and
implementation of a new system should not be Washington’s.
There is no congressional action to be taken here. If any reforms
are indeed needed in the entertainment industry’s ratings and
marketing systems, those reforms belong in the hands of Hollywood
and its executives and not in the gray area of government
censorship.