Censorship Fears Raised After GOP Criticism

Reacting to Republican charges that Hollywood vulgarizes American culture with entertainment steeped in violence and sex, the executive producer of NBC’s popular “Law and Order” series said Tuesday that such rhetoric is a prelude to government censorship.

“Politicians would be much more comfortable if there was an infrastructure that allowed them to determine when you can have a ‘Cop Killer’ in record stores, when you can have a . . . ‘True Romance’ in movie theaters,” said Dick Wolf, referring to Hollywood products recently singled out for criticism by GOP politicians.

Wolf made his remarks during a conference of top TV executives at UCLA titled “Violence in Television: Does Television Kill?” The panel was planned before Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and other prominent Republican figures began attacking the entertainment industry this spring, but the conferees devoted much of their time to discussing the Republican sallies.

Wolf said network TV programmers are closely attuned to public taste and, with many viewers expressing revulsion toward televised violence, network chiefs have largely eliminated it from their shows.

Wolf, who was co-executive producer of the violence-laden “Miami Vice” police action series in the late 1980s, said that show would not survive in the current viewer environment.

“It was the ‘80s,” he said. “There was excess. Cops drove around in Ferrari Testarossas. Nobody seemed to care about the dichotomy.”

Joel Federman, research director for Mediascope, a Studio City-based public policy group that has examined media violence, said many studies have shown that TV violence plays a small but significant role in promoting more aggressive behavior and excessive fear in viewers.

But he also noted that broadcasters in recent years have responded to public concern by instituting a ratings system for TV shows. He also praised the cable industry for its efforts to deglamorize violence.

Winston H. (Tony) Cox, senior vice president of cable giant Viacom, said violence “is a real part of our lives” and should not be ignored by TV.

But he and other panelists drew a distinction between violence in a movie such as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and violence in “Schindler’s List,” a powerful film depiction of Nazi atrocities against Jews in a World War II concentration camp.

Cox and others also complained that news programs and “reality” shows, such as “Cops,” broadcast stark but fleeting images of violence and crime without showing the consequences for victims, perpetrators and their families.

Terri Tingle, senior vice president of public affairs for Turner Entertainment Networks, said focus groups that her company has conducted show that viewers are more disturbed by violence in news and reality shows than in movies, which can be explained away to their children as mere fiction.

“Many parents are more concerned with promos for the 6 o’clock news than they are by promos for ‘NYPD Blue,’ ” she said, referring to a popular ABC police series.

Elizabeth Thoman, executive director of the Center for Media Literacy, which studies the effects of media on society, chided broadcasters for allowing toy makers to market their wares to children through violence-packed cartoon shows.

She also urged parents to “learn better management skills” in explaining TV to their children and turning it off if they believe programs are objectionable.

Cox said he would like to see parents make more use of blocking devices that allow them to control what cable programs enter their homes. Such mechanisms are available from many cable companies but are still relatively new and little used by subscribers.

A brief debate erupted between Wolf and Federman over whether the remarks of Dole and other GOP spokesmen are omens of a Republican effort to impose a federal ban on certain types of entertainment. (Dole has said he is not calling for legal prohibitions but is trying to “shame” Hollywood executives into reducing violence and sex in their products.)

Wolf said Dole’s comments indicate that “we’re on the verge of some kind of censorship in this country, if the people shouting the loudest get heard.”

But Federman disagreed that the Republican attacks are a step on the road to censorship.

“I think they could be the road to more responsibility by the industry,” he said.