‘V’ Chip Solution a Cop-Out

Howard Rosenberg’s lukewarm support for the “V” chip is a hesitant step in the wrong direction (“A Chip Off the Same Old Block,” Calendar, Feb. 4). I would summarize his argument as, “Gee, if people want it, what the heck, what harm can it do?”

Au contraire, Mr. Rosenberg, the “V” chip can do plenty of harm. Forget that a technically feasible solution is further away than some think, that rating systems depend on network cooperation, that people who can’t program a VCR will probably have some difficulty programming a “V” chip, that the parents who won’t control their kids’ viewing are the problem anyway, and that two-thirds of American television households don’t have kids under 18.

Put out of your mind that there are many alternatives already out there. You can order a set-top box from your cable company that will let you block programming. You don’t have cable? SuperVision, TV Allowance and TimeSlot all offer products that will let you budget TV time and block channels and programs you don’t want your kids to see.

So let’s suppose the “V” chip were actually implemented and working, in every TV set in America. With control handed decisively to the viewer, programmers would be free to schedule anything, no matter how violent or sexual its content. As Rosenberg points out, these programmers are the same ones who are rushing to bring you the Menendez murder case and who featured three TV movies about Amy Fisher. With responsibility firmly saddled onto viewers to block channels and programs, constraints on programmers would diminish to invisibility.

What about feature films? One reason cable has borne the brunt of criticism in this debate is that cablecasters’ reliance on movies make them the chief purveyors of violence. If it were removed from television, we could count on an active videocassette rental business filling viewers’ appetite for blood, guts and gore.

Thus, the “V” chip is a cop-out. It lets politicians, programmers and the public wipe their hands in a pseudo-victory over violence. “That’s it,” they will say. “We’ve solved the problem.” Sadly, we have not yet begun to fight the real battle. The real territory we must conquer is cultural--and the real enemy is the greed, callousness and indifference of today’s cultural life.

We face a paradox. On the one hand, research increasingly supports the idea that TV violence creates a more violent society. An analysis of crime statistics by Brandon S. Centerwall at the University of Washington, as reported in Public Interest, shows that homicide rates in the United States, Canada and South Africa doubled in the 10- to 15-year period after television appeared. On the other hand, regulation is becoming impossible. In the 100-plus channel future, regulation implies a bureaucracy none want to support.

“Smart agent” software, a kind of genius “V” chip that will allow us to program our TV sets to channel-surf for us and bring back only what we want to see, is one, maybe two, decades away. That’s too long to wait to do something about violence.

*

We need to support the letter-writing campaigns to networks and advertisers protesting violent programming. Martha Bayles, former Wall Street Journal TV critic and author of “Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music,” offers other actions we can take to counter violence in programming. She suggests we consider how to limit the export of very violent programming, examine funding for the arts that legitimize violence and attack the glamour of violence, its very stylishness, which is the basis of its seductiveness to our youth.

Putting the “V” chip in our sets allows us to kid ourselves that technology will solve the problem. It tempts us to turn our attention away from the steps we must take to reduce the acceptance of violence as a way of popular culture and as a way of life.