Media Violence, the Low Road to Riches

This morning, the Federal Trade Commission releases its report on the many ways the entertainment industry markets violence to kids. The locals are bracing for a butt kicking, as the 8-year-olds learned to say somewhere. Say what you will about Eminem, that gangsta bit has paid for many a Porsche 911 Turbo in this town if you know what I mean, and I think you do, neighbor. And by the way, that stabbing last week at the “Battledome” taping? Could’ve happened anywhere.

One member of the industry, however, will be singing a hearty “hi-ho” as the FTC socks it to the movie, music and videogame junkmongers. “High time,” Steve Allen harrumphed in satisfaction the other day. “I think there’s some hope.” The 78-year-old comedian’s optimism was cautious as he weighed in from his San Fernando Valley office. Who could blame him? For a long time, he’s been the loneliest crusader in Los Angeles.

“I’ve been writing and speaking about this for 15 years, and despite everything I’ve said, it’s gotten worse,” the famed funnyman reminded. A letter from him to this paper in the mid-1980s, in fact, decries the “cruelty, insensitivity, vulgarity, obscenity, sleaze and raunch” in the industry. He has written whole books on the topic. (His latest, “Vulgarians at the Gate,” is due out next year.) The industry’s response has been “When Animals Attack” and “Mortal Kombat.”

“Poor old, once-great Steve Allen,” sneered a New York Daily News columnist two years ago, when Allen took up with the conservative Parents Television Council. “Playing the sap for the anti-TV ravings of the hysterical right wing.”

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To be sure, the full-page newspaper ads Allen has done for the PTC aren’t subtle. Allen himself compares them to the two-by-four one might use to wake up a mule.

“Are you as disgusted as I am at the filth, vulgarity, sex and violence TV is sending into our homes?” the ads ask. “Are you fed up with steamy unmarried sex situations, filthy jokes, perversion, vulgarity, foul language, violence, killings, etc.? Are you as outraged as I am at how TV is undermining the morals of children . . . and shaping our country down to the lowest standards of decency?”

If the public’s response has waffled between “I guess so” and “not really,” it may be because most emotions on this subject are mixed. Allen himself did an ad for NBC some years ago in which he told viewers, “If you think television is doing anything wrong or having any kind of negative effect on your child . . . turn the damn set off.” Also, who likes a scold? Fury is exhausting. It’s hard to summon rage against kissin’ Gores and cussin’ Bushes and ads for R-rated movies during the Simpsons when you have kids to bathe and towels to fold and a clock to punch.

On the other hand, arguing that kids aren’t affected by violence is like saying toddlers aren’t affected by Twinkies. Try putting your kids in front of a Jackie Chan movie sometime and see how long it takes for them to start karate-kicking things. So, as Kmart announces it’s going to start carding kids who want to buy violent videogames and Sen. Joe Lieberman gets nominated for vice president and all the king’s car crashes fail to prop up the summer box office and Howard Stern’s ratings go flaccid--it’s hard not to credit the Steve Allens--however grudgingly--for at least making America think.

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“There’s more rotten stuff this year than ever, but I think the tide may be turning,” Allen predicted, adding that he sees today’s FTC report as an extra push. At a minimum, the entertainment industry may be forced to feign an attitude adjustment: “If you’re getting away with some offense, criminal or moral, you’re well-advised to pull in your horns a bit to say maybe our critics have a point or two. Nobody”--including him, he stressed--”likes the idea of censorship.”

There was the temptation to note that censorship may be on its way to being an empty threat in this media era. Every Web site, cell phone, Palm Pilot and pager now has a microphone and a screen. You could watch the Olympics while playing a GameBoy, listening to your wristwatch and downloading Internet cartoons this week on your laptop if your synapses could stand it. The industry’s biggest enemy may be not government, but overexposure. Long before the public gets sick and tired of violence in entertainment, they may just get sick and tired of being entertained.

And what then for the crusaders? “I’m sick and tired of people who write to your paper saying how sick and tired they are of everything. Whatever happened to letter writers who were just Thoroughly Disgusted or those who, even better, simply Viewed With Alarm?” A reader--some guy out in the Valley--once wrote that, to this paper. Steve Allen, he said his name was.

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Shawn Hubler’s column appears Mondays and Thursdays. Her e-mail address is shawn.hubler@latimes.com.