House Blasts Hollywood but Fails to Act on Violence

A frustrated House publicly slapped the entertainment industry Thursday, branding it “irresponsible” and calling on Hollywood to do “everything in its power” to eliminate gratuitous violence in products that appeal to children.

But lawmakers turned back a more concrete proposal designed to put cigarette-style warning labels on violent music, movies and video games, as Hollywood dodged a congressional bullet for the second straight day.

Stymied in its efforts to legislate an end to excessive entertainment violence, the House was reduced to officially fuming about Hollywood’s impact on America’s youth with nothing more concrete than rhetorical bite.

“No industry does more to glorify gun violence than some elements of the motion picture industry,” read the amendment by Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.), which passed, 355 to 68, Thursday as part of the juvenile justice crime bill. The overall bill later passed by a 287-139 vote.

“Children who listen to explicit music lyrics, play video ‘killing’ games or go to violent action movies get further brainwashed into thinking that violence is socially acceptable and without consequence,” she said.

Thursday’s action culminated two days of contentious debate over the effect of entertainment violence on children. It saw the House dive headlong into a culture war blaming school violence, such as the Colorado school massacre in April, on all manner of popular influence, from movies to the Internet to the theories of Charles Darwin.

But it focused most on the role of Hollywood. In a meandering emotional debate, lawmakers waved copies of assault-style video games, railed at movie posters and pined for the days when, as Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) recalled with nostalgia, Roy Rogers “was the biggest star in the world.”

Although many of the anti-Hollywood proposals amounted to little more than grandstanding, the House’s action was a rare admonishment of a powerful industry and a likely reflection of public opinion that could be hard for the industry to ignore.

“These folks don’t pass a resolution just because of something they ate for breakfast. It reflects something deeper, and Hollywood should take note,” said Stephen Hess, a public policy expert at the centrist Brookings Institution.

The House approved, on a vote of 248 to 180, a measure by Rep. Robert B. Aderholt (R-Ala.) that would grant states the power to determine whether the Ten Commandments could be posted on government property and in schools--a measure that, if it were to become law, likely would face a constitutional challenge.

By a voice vote, lawmakers moved to require schools to install computer “filters” to screen out inappropriate Internet material as a condition of accepting certain federal funds.

But Hollywood managed to elude real government regulation, dispatching its lobbyists in a fierce fight to hold on to its creative freedom. On Wednesday, the House soundly rejected a measure that would have made it a crime to expose children to certain graphic images, protested by the industry as an affront to the 1st Amendment.

But industry leaders were hardly declaring victory.

“Nothing has changed to make Hollywood a less attractive target for those seeking easy answers to a complex problem,” a Washington film industry lobbyist said. “We are still a juicy target for anyone looking to spit some venom.”

Still looming is a Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice inquiry into whether the entertainment industry targets young people in marketing violent entertainment, an unprecedented investigation.

In Hollywood, reviews of the House action were mixed. Many industry leaders and artists saw the upbraiding as a way for lawmakers to turn attention from the problem of guns. A few were reluctant to dismiss Congress’ fulminating, believing that the industry has some role in escalating youth violence even if it is not solely to blame.

“We don’t want to say to hell with you because it’s a debate we want to engage in,” said Dan Petrie Jr., president of the Writers Guild of America West, which has about 8,500 members. “Writers are conscious of their personal responsibility in the kind of work they do.”

Screenwriter Dale Launer, who wrote “My Cousin Vinny,” said that the industry needs to acknowledge its part in the youth violence problem. He said that he sees labeling of entertainment content as no different than “listing the ingredients on a can of soup.”

“Hollywood has to take its lumps on this,” he said. “If you have a movie out there that is promoting violence, you know it’s going to trigger violence in someone somewhere.”

But others in the industry said that there are 1st Amendment dangers in allowing government to define what is appropriate for children to see. One version of Wednesday’s failed proposal to ban the sale of certain violent images to youngsters, for example, would have made touching the buttocks off limits.

“They’d have to ban some sporting events,” one industry lobbyist said.

Some declared the victor to be the legislative process itself, which tossed out hastily written bills that bypassed the committee process and went straight to the floor.

“At some point, enough is enough,” one entertainment executive said. “Bills not refined and scrutinized don’t pass.”

At times, the House debate sounded like a magnet for all angles on the culture war, with lawmakers posturing before C-SPAN cameras and passing provisions likely to go nowhere. In 1980, for example, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a Kentucky law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools.

But that fact did not stop some religious groups from celebrating.

At a rally Wednesday outside the Capitol, supporters held high Bibles as House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) delivered a speech that he called “God, Not Guns,” accusing gun control advocates of advancing a cause that “has hollowed out the souls of too many in our society.”

The tenor of the debate suggested that Congress may not soon retreat from the cultural battlefield.

“There is no room for hubris on the part of Hollywood. If we have further tragedies, this issue is going to be revisited,” said Marshall Wittmann, a Republican analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

The House also overwhelmingly voted to commission two studies: one that would add the gun industry to the pending FTC-Justice investigation of marketing by the entertainment industry. The other would review the effect of television, movies and other media on the health of children.

All of the so-called cultural amendments were offered to the juvenile justice legislation, designed to crack down on juvenile crime. The bill would authorize grants to states for youth crime prevention and law enforcement. It also would impose tougher penalties on youth offenders and make it easier for prosecutors to try teenagers as adults.

Eighteen of the 28 Democrats in California’s House delegation voted against Emerson’s amendment criticizing the entertainment industry. Those who voted for it were Lois Capps of Santa Barbara, Gary A. Condit of Ceres, Tom Lantos of San Mateo, Zoe Lofgren of San Jose, Robert T. Matsui of Sacramento, Loretta Sanchez of Garden Grove, Pete Stark of Hayward, Ellen O. Tauscher of Pleasanton and Lynn Woolsey of Petaluma.

Of the 24 Republican representatives from California, 18 voted for Emerson’s amendment. Those who voted against it were Mary Bono of Palm Springs, Jerry Lewis of Redlands, Doug Ose of Sacramento and James E. Rogan of Glendale.

Reps. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), William M. Thomas (R-Bakersfield) and George E. Brown Jr. (D-San Bernardino) did not vote on the measure.

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Times staff writers Eric Harrison, Lorenza Munoz and Robert Welkos in Los Angeles and David G. Savage in Washington contributed to this story.