Children and TV Violence

* Jack Valenti (“Whose Children Are They, Anyway?” Commentary, Oct. 4) uses some hot-button phrases in his argument that TV and movies are not responsible for the violence of American society: “Big Brother in Washington,” “the nation-state becomes the surrogate parent,” “the heavy hand of government.” But he is being as irresponsible as the neglectful parents he accuses. By exciting our fears of an ever-encroaching totalitarian state, Valenti passes the buck himself, and obscures the issue.

Families, however conscientious the parents, do not live in a social vacuum. He is right that parents must accept responsibility for their children, and parents who object to the implicit acceptance and approval of violent solutions to conflict that we regularly see depicted on television are doing just that. They are asking for help from the society they are rearing their children in to encourage saner and more peaceable values. Is this unfair? Is it wrong to ask Valenti to use his considerable influence to lend a hand in shaping his culture’s values?

CATHERINE SCHLEGEL

Los Angeles

* Valenti’s call for parental responsibility misses the point about television violence. Television is a powerful norm setter and validator. The whole premise of commercial television, and the advertising that supports it, is that visual images are powerful persuaders. Clearly by all measures of research and common sense television violence is a corrosive influence on children’s values and behavior.

Violence is a public health issue. A marketplace television response which only offers to “reduce whatever gratuitous violence inhabits TV” is woefully inadequate. The issue is not censorship vs. “honor, duty and love.” The issue is the demonstrated irresponsibility of the commercial television programmers. As a society we have a duty to protect our children from the unremitting flood of violent imagery offered as “entertainment.”

MARK FREEMAN, Assistant Professor

Film/Video Studies

Pitzer College, Claremont

* It is human nature to want to simplify things. It is human nature to deny our responsibility for the problems that we see.

Valenti does both in his article about children, parents and TV violence. He makes a strong accusation against parents as the cause of the violence committed by children and teen-agers. He makes a great defense of the television industry as being innocent of any blame.

One doesn’t need to do a major study to know that TV must share the blame for the violence in our society. TV influences people. Advertisers spend billions of dollars for TV time because they know this fact. TV glorifies various products--and violence. Those products sell. So does violence.

Valenti then trots out the Bill of Rights as a further defense of TV violence. I agree with the Bill of Rights. I don’t want the government deciding what I can see on TV. But I also don’t want the current situation where mass marketing selects the lowest common denominator.

RICHARD FOY

Redondo Beach