Gore Urges Less TV Violence

In a stern lecture to entertainment industry leaders in Los Angeles, Vice President Al Gore said Sunday that they have not done enough to reduce violence in children’s programs.

“Too much violent programming continues to reach our children. And I believe we should speak out against it,” Gore said during a 37-minute address to the Variety ShowBiz Expo, the annual trade show and conference for the entertainment industry.

Gore singled out the “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers”, which he said is “just not good for children.”

“Anybody who’s seen young children after watching the show go around hacking each other . . . understands why,” Gore told nearly 500 entertainment industry leaders at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

He spoke shortly after arriving in Los Angeles for a three-day Southland visit that will filled mostly with private meetings and fund-raisers.

On Tuesday, Gore and NASA administrator Daniel J. Goldin are scheduled to announce the awarding of a contract to build the X-33 reusable launch vehicle, an experimental rocket intended as a step toward eventually replacing the space shuttle.

Gore’s remarks on violence drew widespread applause and scattered hissing, and mark an escalation in the Clinton administration’s efforts to influence Hollywood’s entertainment offerings, an issue that both political parties are addressing in this presidential election year.

Bob Dole, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, also criticized Hollywood in a hard-hitting address earlier this year, and the Clinton administration has persuaded the industry to come up with a so-called V-chip that would be installed in television sets to allow parents to block programs electronically.

The bulk of Gore’s remarks Sunday amounted to a campaign stump speech, dwelling on the achievements of the Clinton administration while focusing to a great extent on the economic recovery in California--led in no small part, Gore said, by the entertainment industry.

But Gore also took several swipes at Dole, particularly for his recent statements suggesting that tobacco may not be addictive for all people. And he sought to compare the deleterious effects of smoking to violence in entertainment.

“Like those tobacco ads,” Gore said, “these programs teach our sons and our daughters precisely the opposite lesson that we as parents want them to learn.”

He added: “Shows like the ‘Power Rangers’ tell children that the best way to solve a problem or win an argument is to get violent--to kick, to karate chop, sometimes to launch a missile.”

Such shows, he said, “expose children to hundreds upon hundreds of acts of violence and project an image of violence that is simultaneously sugary and sociopathic: The heroes suffer almost no pain from bites or bullets, and they experience no remorse for obliterating living beings and causing pain.”