Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 26, 1993 TAG: 9306260253
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG DAWSON ORLANDO SENTINEL
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That is to say, some. Both are guilty of marketing a product that Americans consume in greater quantities than is healthful for them.
But in these United States of Co-Dependency, TV violence and jelly doughnuts are twinkles in a galaxy of influences and causes that have produced the world's highest rates of homicide and obesity.
(One leading cause must be free will. There's no record of anyone ever having been force-fed a French cruller or strapped into a chair and forced to watch an Amy Fisher movie.)
So far, Dunkin' Donuts has been spared the public lash for its part in the larding of America. Television has not been so fortunate in dodging the inquisition.
Last month, a group of TV executives appeared on Capitol Hill to contritely absorb more than their fair share of the blame for the breakdown of domestic tranquility, and to promise kinder and gentler programming.
Imagine the bitter disappointment a couple of years from now when a sanitized TV schedule has not produced a sharp decline in the rate of violent crime. Does anyone really believe we have a crime wave because Angie Dickinson gouges out the eyes of her enemy in "Wild Palms"?
Those who seriously consider TV movies of the week as a fomenter of violence before looking at pov-erty and racism and plain old hooliganism on the streets are dreaming of a white Christmas in South Central Los Angeles.
Is there too much violent entertainment on TV? Absolutely. Is all violent entertainment on TV bad? Absolutely not.
Sadly, that point seems to have been lost in the panicky scapegoating of TV that threatens to throw out the baby with the bath water.
Public opinion, which is fueling the current congressional zeal for oversight, once again is proving to be a blunt instrument, incapable of distinguishing among its targets.
That was evident in network news coverage of the TV executives' testimony. I saw reports on two networks, and both used clips from the ABC miniseries "Murder in the Heartland" to illustrate the scourge of violent TV.
"Murder in the Heartland," which dramatized the story of 1950s mass killer Charles Starkweather, was a serious work of TV art (not always an oxymoron) that captured a slice of Americana. The violence in it was shockingly vivid but never gratuitous.
To lump it with exploitive dross like "Ambush in Waco" and "Kung Fu: The Legend Continues," as Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., did, bespeaks a depressing failure to make distinctions between art and junk.
The National Coalition on Television Violence, headquartered in Champaign, Ill., publishes a periodic newsletter containing "acts of violence per hour" for every program on ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox.
The most recent list was released Feb. 10 and covers the period from Sept. 12 to Nov. 24. Rated as the most violent program on TV, with 60 acts of violence per hour, was ABC's "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles."
Lavishly produced with an eye to historical detail, "Young Indiana" ambitiously sought to educate as it entertained, placing its hero at the center of historic events - some, inevitably, violent. It was exhilarating television.
"The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles," recently canceled, succeeded in all ways except in winning a large audience.
by CNB