Hollywood Blamed for Many of the Nation’s Ills

Hollywood took it on the chin Friday. So, too, did television news and rap music.

State attorneys general from across the nation came to the heart of the entertainment industry this week for a two-day summit on the culture of violence in the United States. And their focus was on how they believe Hollywood, television news programming and rap music contribute to it.

Hollywood had no defenders, invited or otherwise. Ditto for rap. And representatives of television news bridled at the charge that their medium is mostly about crime, fluff and commercials.

But that was all right with the attorneys general, who seemed united in the view that the entertainment world is as much a cause of violence as drugs, alcohol and broken homes.

The heat was turned up when Michael Medved, the conservative movie critic for the New York Post, launched into a speech about Hollywood’s moguls, calling them bad business people and nerds to boot.

His theme--one drawn from his controversial 1992 book “Hollywood vs. America”--was how the movie industry continues to turn out bad, violent, gory movies when the likes of Disney’s “The Lion King” is what sells in the heartland.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is stupid,” Medved said. “Did no one go to business school? Did no one take math? ‘Angels in the Outfield’ made more money than ‘Natural Born Killers.’ ”

Part of the problem “is that all the people who run the entertainment industry have something in common: They were all nerds in high school,” Medved said, drawing laughter from the crowd. “Guys who were nerds in high school never get over it. They’re always worried about their masculinity.”

The conference, in which California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren was host, attracted 26 attorneys general from across the nation to the Long Beach Hilton Hotel.

A major portion of Friday’s program was devoted to the entertainment industry and the cause and effect relationship between what children see and hear and how they act.

“American children for four decades have been subjected to media violence--more than any other country”--and it clearly has desensitized the nation’s youths, said Ed Donnerstein, a professor of communications and psychology at UC Santa Barbara, citing statistics on the prevalence of crime in TV programming.

C. Dolores Tucker, founder of the National Political Congress of Black Women and a leader in the fight against “gangsta” rap music, told the audience that there is an “urgent crisis that threatens the very survival of all of us--youth violence . . . violence that has no boundaries and no limitations.”

She said one way to shut down rap--with sexually explicit wording and themes--is to hit record companies in the pocketbook.

Dan Gordon, a scriptwriter whose long list of credits includes “Murder in the First” and the ill-fated “Wyatt Earp,” agreed with Medved, saying the powers of Hollywood need to be persuaded that family viewing could be enormously popular. He cited “Highway to Heaven”--a TV series on which he worked--and “The Cosby Show” as examples.

“We have to be able to say to them that it’s good business to make good product,” he said.

In the session on television news media, the stage was set by Paul Klite, founder of Rocky Mountain Media Watch, which monitors news coverage. Klite said his studies have shown that only 40% of local news programs is devoted to news. And of that, 30% is devoted to crime.

“The portrayal of crime night after night takes a toll on people,” Klite said.

But Phil Alvidrez, a news director at a Phoenix television station, attacked Klite’s comments, calling his findings “propaganda.”

“That’s all it is,” he said. “Simple sensationalism and distortion.”