Clinton Urges Hollywood to Cut Violence

Decrying a “coarsening of the culture,” President Clinton on Monday urged the entertainment industry to stop marketing to children products that glorify violence as key lawmakers renewed warnings that Hollywood faces a federal investigation.

At an unprecedented White House conference prompted by last month’s Columbine High School shootings, the president took pains to avoid laying blame as gun makers, entertainment leaders, students, parents and clergy gathered to examine reasons why some children turn violent. But in a Rose Garden statement after the three-hour closed-door session, Clinton’s most pointed remarks were aimed at Hollywood, whose most influential leaders were conspicuously absent from the day’s event.

“We cannot pretend that there is no impact on our culture and our children . . . if there is too much violence coming out of what they see and experience,” Clinton said. “We have to ask people who produce things to consider the consequences of them--whether it’s a violent movie, a CD, a video game. If they are made, at least they should not be marketed to children.”

Clinton’s allusion to marketing seemed a warning, however subtle, that government action could result if Hollywood does not voluntarily rein in some of the ultra-violent films and games that the industry rates as not appropriate for children under 17, and then markets to precisely that audience.

And waiting in the wings is Congress, where a bipartisan group of lawmakers is poised to demand as early as this week a Federal Trade Commission investigation into the entertainment industry’s marketing strategies toward young consumers, as well as the access that theater owners and video game distributors allow children.

“They’re asking for trouble,” Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) said of Hollywood leaders after the conference. “They’re really whistling by a very serious problem. . . . It’s really agitating the average family.”

He added pointedly, “Cut out some of this violence, or at least stop marketing it.”

The White House meeting, billed as a strategy session, was remarkable for the breadth and diversity of its participants--gun manufacturers and gun-control advocates, network executives and clergy, Mothers Against Violence and students as young as 12, poet Maya Angelou, singer Gloria Estefan, actor Andrew Shue and four members of Congress. Several sources familiar with the meeting said the participants all seemed “on the same page” as they explored the possible causes of the Littleton, Colo., massacre.

The session was pronounced productive, even inspiring, as about 60 minds came together without anger or partisanship, brainstorming in the White House East Room without any lunch.

During the meeting:

* America Online Chairman Steve Case and Interactive Digital Software President Doug Lowenstein agreed to work together to close a loophole that allows children Internet access to violent video games.

* Clinton asked the surgeon general to prepare a report on youth violence, including the effects of new media in the computer age. Some analysts say such a report could lay the foundation for litigation against the purveyors of violent films and games, much as the harmfulness of secondhand smoke proved a legal headache for the tobacco industry.

* Several major gun manufacturers announced their support for stricter firearm laws that Clinton has proposed, including barring violent juveniles from ever buying guns, raising the youth handgun ban from 18 to 21 and holding adult gun owners responsible for weapons that fall into the hands of children and are used in a crime.

The conference ultimately sought to explore the very causes of youth violence, and according to at least one participant, everyone in attendance came away feeling somewhat responsible.

“If we began pointing fingers, we would all be blind,” said Pamela Eakes, founder and president of Mothers Against Violence. “There’s a lot of blame to go around. . . . I don’t think anyone left here feeling off the hook.”

But perhaps most on the defensive was Hollywood; sources said the industry was denounced by some for an unwillingness to take responsibility for the impact of media violence on children.

The tables seemed turned--with the usually adversarial gun lobby winning White House accolades for backing tougher restrictions and studio executives taking jabs for failing to show.

Indeed, National Rifle Assn. leaders were angry they were not included, while in Hollywood this seemed to be one White House invitation no one relished--even from a president the industry has supported politically and financially for years.

“It is unfortunate that the president would call a national summit on youth violence and exclude from that round-table discussion the nation’s foremost authority on firearms safety education, accident prevention and proven policies that curb criminal misuse of guns,” NRA President Charlton Heston wrote.

The only representative of the seven major studios was Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, who asserted no proven link between violent movies and children who kill. According to one of those at the meeting, Valenti was taken to task by the gun lobby.

“You know, we are hearing the same things out of the entertainment industry that we used to hear at NRA meetings,” Robert Ricker, executive director of the American Shooting Sports Council, was quoted as saying. “We can all make progress if we are big enough to step forward.”

Even ABC Chairman Bob Iger acknowledged hypocrisy among some entertainment industry colleagues. “When the finger is pointed at them about violence, they say their media has no influence; but they turn around and say just the opposite to advertisers. We should all admit our medium has an influence,” he was quoted as saying.

Vice President Al Gore, who recently defended the rights of parents to organize boycotts against violent products, urged that the V-chip--which manufacturers must include on new TV sets beginning in July--be used to send television producers a message. He noted that if 3% of parents use the chip to block an objectionable program, “advertisers will go elsewhere.”

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Times political writer Ronald Brownstein contributed to this story.