Hollywood Sells Kids on Violence, FTC Says

Hollywood has systematically marketed violent, adult-oriented films, music and video games to children, using popular cartoon shows, comic books and even young kids themselves to do it, according to a Federal Trade Commission report released today.

Despite the entertainment industry’s participation in warning label programs designed to shield children from violence in such products, the FTC found that advertising and other marketing tools were routinely used to attract young customers. For example, the report says, the industry often places ads on the TV cartoon show “The Simpsons,” which attracts large numbers of young viewers.

From 1995 to 1999, the FTC found that 80% of R-rated films and 70% of electronic games with mature ratings were targeted to children under 17.

The FTC also faulted Hollywood’s audience testing system, saying that kids as young as 10 previewed films that eventually received an R-rating.

A year in the making, the report does not propose legislation or regulations to address the marketing practices, but it calls upon the industry to better police itself and educate parents about its ratings systems.

“Do the industries promote products they themselves acknowledge warrant parental caution, in venues where children make up a substantial percentage of the audience” and “are these advertisements intended to attract children and teenagers?” the FTC asked rhetorically in its report.

“For all three segments of the entertainment industry, the answers are plainly yes,” it concluded.

The report, to be released today, is the first government effort to comprehensively examine how entertainment companies market violence. It comes just days after two of the nation’s biggest retailers--Wal-Mart and Kmart--announced plans to crack down on the purchase of violent and adult-oriented video games by youths under 17.

The 105-page report unearthed documents from film studios, record companies and video game manufacturers in which entertainment executives acknowledged they targeted violent material at kids, according to Capitol Hill aides who were provided copies of the report over the weekend.

The FTC “will have the documents . . . that show [Hollywood is] marketing material inappropriate for kids, to kids,” said David H. Moulton, an aide to Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who got a preview of the report’s findings from FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky on Friday.

“It’s analogous to beer companies putting on ads about how to drink responsibly but then marketing intensively on college campuses,” Markey said.

Industry leaders questioned what conclusions the government could draw from scrutinizing Hollywood.

“If we are causing moral decay in this country, we ought to have an explosion of crime,” Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, said Sunday. “The exact opposite is happening.”

He argued that any evaluation of the marketing practices of movie-makers can only be subjective and praised Hollywood’s three-decades-old voluntary code in informing parents.

“For almost 32 years, this industry has been the only segment of our national marketplace that voluntarily turns away revenues at the box office to redeem the pledge that we have made to parents,” Valenti said.

Video game makers stress that more than 70% of their users are over 18. According to the Interactive Digital Software Assn., the industry trade group, adults buy nine of every 10 video and computer games sold in the United States. Only 7% of video games sold and rated since 1995 fall into the mature category.

A spokeswoman for the trade group declined to comment on the report Sunday, saying she had not seen a copy of it.

The report provides fascinating detail about the ways in which entertainment companies apparently knowingly market violent material to children.

Movies rated “R” for violence were marketed in publications primarily geared to teens, such as DC Comics and Teen magazine, as well as Planet Report and Fast Times, two publications that are distributed to 8,000 high schools nationwide.

What’s more, film executives circumvented what few restrictions exist on advertising R-rated movies to teens by exploiting loopholes.

Two unidentified TV networks, for instance, restrict the advertising of R-rated movies to times when children are less likely to watch. But the FTC said at least one movie studio got around that restriction by buying advertising directly from local TV stations in the so-called “spot market” where the network TV advertising policies aren’t observed.

The FTC quoted one studio’s marketing campaign: “[O]ur goal was to find the elusive teen targeting audience and make sure everyone between the ages of 12-18 was exposed to the film. To do so, we went beyond the media partners by enlisting young, ‘teen street teams’ to distribute items at strategic teen ‘hangouts’ such as malls, teen clothing stores, sporting events, drivers’ ed classes, arcades and numerous other locations.”

While the FTC praised the self-regulation video game manufacturers had imposed on their marketing campaigns “as the most comprehensive of the three industries,” the agency said some game makers also aggressively targeted teens by advertising on such Web sites as https://www.happypuppy.com, which bills itself as the Internet’s “first commercial game site.”

The Web site does not describe itself as a teen site, but the FTC maintains that happypuppy.com’s audience is primarily under age 17.

The FTC report devoted comparatively less attention to the record industry. However, the report noted that when the agency sent a team of teens, ages 13 to 16, into stores to buy records and video games, they were able to buy recordings with explicit lyrics and video games with mature ratings 85% of the time.

The report provides plenty of ammunition for lawmakers from Capitol Hill to the White House to press on with their high-profile campaign to get Hollywood to change its ways.

President Clinton, for instance, is expected to join Hillary Rodham Clinton today in a Westchester, N.Y. news conference where the first lady and New York senatorial candidate plans to call for a uniform voluntary ratings system among all three industries.

A top administration official said Hillary Clinton believes ratings systems need to give parents a better understanding of the rankings.

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and other committee members will hold hearings Wednesday.

The FTC’s report “confirms everything Sen. Brownback has been talking about for the last four years about the anecdotal evidence associated with the marketing of violence to children,” said an aide to Brownback, who introduced an amendment that requested the FTC to conduct the study.

“You go into toy stores around the country and you see characters, action figures and other games . . . from R-rated movies and M-rated video games,” said the aide.

*

Times staff writers Janet Hook and Ronald Brownstein and Associated Press contributed to this story.

*

CRUSADER SMILING

Shawn Hubler finds comedian and crusader Steve Allen is smiling over the FTC’s report. B1