TV: Cause or Cure for Social Ills? : Producers Can Choose to Teach Nonviolent Lesson

President Clinton’s remarks linking violence on the screen to violence on the streets (“Filmland Ponders a Message,” Calendar, Dec. 6) have joined those of Janet Reno, a plethora of congressional hearings and scholarly studies to occasion a crisis of conscience in Hollywood. Segments of the entertainment industry admit there is a problem. Others deny any responsibility and say they are simply giving the viewing public what it wants.

After working in this industry for 33 years as both priest and producer, I have the feeling they protest too much. The problem is going to have to be faced and dealt with, and eventually I think the industry will responsibly rise to the challenge.

For years, American television reinforced racial and gender stereotypes. But then the industry was made aware of what it was doing and responded responsibly, with the result that television is now a major force in demolishing stereotypes and promoting racial and sexual equality.

*

For decades, American television promoted cigarette smoking. But then came the Surgeon General’s Report and the industry again responded responsibly. As a result, anyone who now smokes in public feels like a pariah. If, as the studies contend and a subsequent Surgeon General’s Report states, American TV is at present a significant cause of violence in our society, I think, in the future, TV could become just the opposite--a significant contributor to a decline of violence in our homes and on our streets.

I am convinced entertainment TV can do this in three ways:

First, it can take us into the morally bankrupt, spiritually empty psyches of the initiators of violence and help us experience the fear, isolation, self-hatred,despair and cowardice that most often characterize these people. There is nothing heroic, healthy or happy about the perpetrators of violence. They are sick.

Second, what the news clips do for the carnage in Bosnia, television drama can do for the carnage here--show us the horrendous effects of real-life violence on its victims, their families and on its perpetrators. We seldom see the revulsion felt by even the best-intentioned agents of violence.

Third, television drama can illumine the necessity--and the rigors--of nonviolent conflict resolution. Confronting our adversaries. Being honest about our complaints. Listening. Trying to see the problem through their eyes. Affirming them--their intelligence and good will--despite the pain they may have caused. Appealing to the best in them. Seeking the truth through honest dialogue, even if that should demand we change our position. Seeking justice for them as well as for ourselves, even if that should require we cut back on our demands. Resisting the temptation to manipulate, deceive or punish them.

Does nonviolence work? Of course. Again and again in our own lives we have seen the kind word, the thoughtful gesture, the humorous or self-deprecating story change the emotional tone of an exchange and begin the transformation of an enemy into a friend.

Is nonviolence easy? No way. It requires trust in the truth and in the basic goodness of even the most debased human being. It requires great moral stamina to forgive, to let go of the hatred that clogs the arteries of the soul. And it requires a rare kind of courage to love one’s enemy, endure suffering rather that inflict it and meet physical force with soul force.

Does nonviolence give the writers and producers of the entertainment community the raw materials they need to create entertaining stories? Absolutely. All the elements of compelling drama are present: intense emotional conflict, sympathetic characters with whom the audience can identify and for whom they can root, high stakes jeopardy and suspense.

*

If nonviolence is so theatrical, why have we in the creative community been so loathe to present it? I think it is because, rightly or wrongly, we have convinced ourselves that nonviolent conflict resolution demands too much of our viewers, that it contains more truth than they are able or willing to handle.

That is the perennial temptation for Hollywood’s creative community--to give the audience the partial truth it wants to hear rather than the whole truth it needs to hear. We in the creative community do not need the government to tell us what we can or cannot put into our stories. But we do need to be responsible--and honest--in the way we exercise our freedom. If we will do that, instead of contributing to the problem, we can contribute to its solution.

This can happen if we begin to trust our viewers and tell them the whole truth about violence and if our viewers, in huge numbers, support us in this effort.