Senator in Bigger Role in TV Fight

When Sen. Ernest F. Hollings stood before television cameras in February to unveil--for the fifth time--his bill to protect children from violent programming during prime time, he hardly fit the part of Hollywood nemesis.

The 79-year-old South Carolina Democrat has pressed his “safe harbor” initiative in every Congress since 1993. It failed every time. Eminently ignorable. Hollywood the victor.

Then, political fortunes turned unexpectedly. The Democrats took over the Senate and Hollings became chairman of the powerful Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, overseer of two federal agencies that regulate the entertainment industry.

Now the plain-spoken lawmaker (he once called an opponent a “skunk”) is positioned to advance a piece of legislation that has become something of a personal crusade--regulating violent television in the hours when children are most likely to be watching.

“Violence begets violence. We all know it. And more specifically, the industry knows it,” Hollings announced recently in the sort of declaration Hollywood hates, an indication that a Democrat in the chairman’s seat may be no friendlier to the liberal-leaning industry than the Republican who preceded him.

Hollings is not likely to repeat the headline-grabbing hearings held last fall when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) summoned studio executives to Washington to explain how and why R-rated entertainment is marketed to children.

He believes attempts to rein in the film industry with congressional scoldings are futile--”You can’t embarrass money”--and movies are not the problem, anyway. “They are not piped into the living room. You’ve got to pay for them and go look for them.”

Instead, Hollings is intent on a narrowly tailored fix in the medium he finds most pervasive: television.

“We are going to have hearings on television violence alone,” possibly before summer’s end, the newly installed chairman said recently.

With a mane of white hair and a gravelly drawl, Hollings is a senator right out of central casting, mixing the courtly mien of a Southern gentleman with the notorious nastiness that long has marked his state’s politics. When asked by an opponent in 1998 to promise civility in the campaign, Hollings replied: “Kiss my fanny.”

Widely known on Capitol Hill by his nickname, Fritz, he is immaculately tailored and devoutly health conscious--his drink of choice is green tea. On the court every morning at 6:45, Hollings is known to be a tenacious tennis player, a ball machine who gets everything back, as long as you hit it to him. He moves so little on the court that buddies call him “the Washington Monument.”

He applies the same methodical approach to his work in the Senate. Known as a masterful legislator and skilled debater, a throwback to his days as a trial lawyer, he prides himself on his ability to find simple solutions to complex problems.

As governor of South Carolina in the early 1960s, Hollings presided over the peaceful integration of the state university system, talking to the business community and newspaper editors when his Southern counterparts were barring schoolhouse doors. Shortly after coming to the Senate in 1966, he staged an anti-hunger tour that led to the creation of the Women, Infants and Children nutritional program.

The matter of media violence is not new to Hollings. He began following the issue when a 1972 surgeon general’s report first concluded that television violence can adversely affect social behavior.

Aides say his interest stems not from political capital but from his concern for children--he raised four and is the grandfather of seven. His second wife, Peatsy, is a former schoolteacher.

“If he really wanted to demagogue the issue, he could,” said Ivan A. Schlager, former Democratic chief counsel and staff director for the Commerce committee. “But he doesn’t run to the floor every five minutes to talk about Hollywood or give the scold lectures. . . . He doesn’t believe in trying to establish his bona fides on the cultural wars. This goes back to his desire to protect children.”

Through the years, Hollings has persisted in his mission to clean up the airwaves, reading aloud at every chance this passage from a 1949 edition of “The History of Broadcasting,” Page 83, internal instructions on how to make a hit television show:

“It has been found that we retain audience interest best when our story is concerned with murder. Therefore, although other crimes may be introduced, somebody must be murdered, preferably early, with the threat of more violence to come.”

Hollings believes that paragraph--albeit more than 50 years old--remains a guide for how the industry operates and provides ample justification for his legislative solution.

The bill would first require the Federal Communications Commission to study the effectiveness of the V-chip in protecting young viewers. If the agency finds that remedy has failed--and Hollings believes it has--the FCC would be authorized to treat programs containing gratuitous violence the way it handles indecent ones, relegating them to the hours between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

“It has to be excessive, gratuitous violence--not something like a series on the Civil War that’s necessary to the plot,” Hollings explained.

But industry leaders oppose the bill as a violation of the 1st Amendment.

“How do you define violence?” asked Dennis Wharton, spokesman for the National Assn. of Broadcasters. “One person’s violence is another person’s art form. Is ‘Schindler’s List’ excessively violent? The answer is probably yes, but one could argue that broadcasters would be providing a public service by airing it in prime time.”

In other areas, Hollings has been an entertainment industry ally, particularly in his defense of copyright laws that are paramount to Hollywood’s interests.

“He believes copyright ought not be loosened or shrunk. He realizes intellectual property is America’s biggest trade export and an extraordinary part of the economy,” said Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America and the senator’s longtime friend.