Basic HTML Version
March,
1970
"What is a man ?" - and here is the
answer you get. "A man is young and
single, handsome, masculine, quick–
thinking, hard-drinking, fast with his
fists, and a devastating lover. Now
that's a
1·eal
man !"
But, what if he is middle aged with a
wife and family? Then the answer is
very different. In that case forget the
"roan" bit because he's just poor old
dad. He's just an unromantic, weak–
willed, easily befuddled, henpecked buf–
foon whose wife and family humor
and tolerate him.
And what does television teach us
about womanhood? Well, a
real
woman
is young and single, unbelievably beau–
tiful, glamorous, sexy, and irresistibly
attractive to every handsome swinger
she meets. Even if she is married, push–
ing forty, with a smidgin of grey hair,
and a batch of kids, she is still pictured
as
quite a chick.
Though the kids drive
her crazy, and her husband is an aging
boob, wifey runs the family with a firm
hand. She is clearly more efficient, cal–
roer in emergencies, and instinctively
wiser than her husband. Conseguently
she is forever bailing her inept spouse
out of one dumb, self-inflicted fiasco
after another. LESSON:
lfs great to be
young, single, and sexy
-
women are
superior
-
fathel'
is
a dolt
-
marriage
is a drag.
With this kind of distorted indoc–
trination hammering away incessantly,
is it any wonder that hornes are
breaking up at an ever-increasing rate?
Values are confused and warped like
images in a carnivaJ mirror and we
are confronted by a generation of young
people who literally reject reality.
One is reminded of Plato's analogy
of the cave in which he pictured a gen–
eration of people whose lives had been
spent watching shadows on a wall.
Later, they rejected the real world out–
side because it didn't correspond to
their shadows! Television is contrib–
uting to just such a distortion of reality.
Violence Only Solution
to Problems
Another stereotype consistently pro–
jected by the television curriculwn tells
us that raw power gets results and it's
results that count.
It
tells us that life's
problems are most efficiently solved by
The
PLAIN TRUTH
violent means, not by intelligence and
reason. And it's not just the bad guys
who play the violence game either. As
often as not, it is the good guy who uses
brutali ty as a
Jegitimate
means for
achieving
noble
ends. Indeed, as the
National Comm.ission on the Causes and
Prevention of Violence stated in their
September,
1969
report, "Violence [on
TV] is rarely presented as illegal or
socially unacceptable."
In h is book,
The NeUJ Mass Media,
Chalienge to a Society,
Gilbert Seldes
observed that "... violence is so staple a
commodity that it can almost be called a
'way of life.' " Getting at the crux of
the issue, he cont inued, "The fact that
violence
is
a recurrent phenomenon
. .. implies
the solution of basic prob–
lerm
occurs, and perhaps can
onty
occur, by the use of brute strengtb.
Courage is equated with the willingness
to use violence . . .'' (p. 28).
In
1963,
Dr. Ralph J. Garry, profes–
sor of educationaJ psychology at Boston
University and consultant to the Senate
Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency
commented regarding this stereotyped
rnodel of life being presented on tele–
vision. In his testimony he said, "Good–
ness of character is not sufficient, one
has to be
to~tgh
to succeed . ..
Gentle–
ness and conside,-ation
scarcely exist.''
In strikingly similar words, the edi–
tors of
McCaLl's
magazine indicted. TV
violence because,
"lt
weakens those pre–
cious arts of
gentlmess,
of
compassion,
of
moderation,
of
/ove .
. . .' '
(July,
1968.)
T hen, more recently, as if echoing
these earlier remarks, Richard
L.
Tobin,
Communications Editor for
Saturday
Review
wrote, ''We have felt for a long
time now ... that the pervasiveness of
violence on TV ... could not help hav–
ing a deleterious emotional effect upon
a whole generation of youngsters being
moved further and further away from
the
gentle and the 1·easonabie"
(Novem–
ber
9,
1968,
p. 79).
Don't
hurry
past those words. Reflect
on them for a moment.
Gmtleness
and
consideration
-
compassion
and
love
-
moderation
and
1·eason.
These are
the very foundation stones of peace,
happiness, aod fulfillment in life. Are
they being driven from our vocabulary
31
- scratched from our list of virtues?
You need to face that question sguarely
and answer it for yourself.
Sadly, murder and mayhem have
become an integral part of "wbole–
some" living, like having picnics on
Sunday. But make no mistake, it is tak–
ing a tragic toll. The very nonchalance
witb which we accept this hour-by-hour
brutality is symptomatic of the sickness
which is already upon us.
Theater of Cruelty Blunting
the Conscience
You may argue that no single pro–
gram ever ruined anybody. You wot1ld
probably be right. But remember, fatal
doses of DDT and Strontiwn-90 are
depos ited imperceptibly in your tissues
and bones over long periods of time.
Just so, this familiar ity with, indeed this
curious embracing of TV violence,
especially from early, impressionable
years is producing a new breed. lt's a
strange, calloused breed whose emotions
of pity and compassion are shriveled -
whose social conscience is blunted. And
it is this impoverishing of the human
spirit which is most disturbing.
Listen to the concerns of these promi–
nent observers of our society. Newton
Minnow, former head of the Federal
Communications Commission said, "l'm
not as worried about [TVJ inciting vio–
lence as I am making people
immrme
to
violence"
(Los AngeleJ Ti1rtes,
January
28,
1969).
In almost identical words, Rep. John
M. Murphy of New York warned that
even more alarming than the increase in
actual violence in the land, "... is the
corresponding increase in the
acceptance
of violence by the American people -
not in the sense of approval, but in the
sense of being
bltmted
oc
irnrmme
to its
often tragic consequences.''
Speaking of children escaping into a
substitute fantasy wodd of "electronic
violence," Ben Merson, associate editor
of
Famiiy Health
magazine pointed out
that it "...
desemitizes
youngsters to
violence in real life. Beatings, assaults,
even murders are commonplace in their
TV world, so violence doesn't shock or
outrage them in real life" (November
1969,
p.
24) .
University of Utah clínica! psy–
chologist, Dr. Vi.ctor B. Cline, has been