ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 3, 1997 TAG: 9701030053
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOANNE CANTOR
NOW THAT the television industry has unveiled its proposed rating system, and the issue moves into the arena of the Federal Communications Commission, the parties to the debate need to be reminded that the purpose of television ratings is to help parents make informed judgments about the images to which their children should be exposed.
The ratings are not meant to indicate which programs are bad, exploitative or otherwise blameworthy. When members of the entertainment industry speak publicly in defense of an age-based rating system and against content labeling, they often give an example of a high-quality television program or movie that would receive a ``V'' for violence under a content-labeling system and would therefore be banished, unfairly in their view, from many households with children.
``Law and Order'' producer Dick Wolf often gives the example of the acclaimed movie ``Forrest Gump,'' bemoaning the fact that if it were accurately labeled as to its level of violence, it would never be shown on network TV.
CBS President Peter Lund uses the award-winning family series ``Touched by an Angel'' as an example of a program that might be unfairly blocked if a content-labeling system were adopted.
These arguments show not only a misunderstanding of the purpose of ratings, but an ignorance of the effects of television on children. As the recent survey supported by the National PTA showed, parents do not want a rating system that evaluates programs as good or bad: They just want to know what its contents are, so they can judge whether their children might be adversely affected.
Lund readily volunteers that ``Touched by an Angel'' has had episodes this year involving a gang member on death row, a man accused of killing a young boy and a couple who may be abusing children among other deeply disturbing topics. However, he seems to feel that since the program has been honored with a Gabriel award for its ``ability to uplift and nourish the human spirit,'' it would be foolish and downright unjust to protect young children from seeing it.
What many members of the entertainment industry fail to understand is that a brilliant, artistic movie or an award-winning, uplifting program still can have profound negative effects on children. ``Schindler's List'' is a wonderful movie, but it is not for young children. And to acknowledge that it is violent and that it is not for children is not the same as branding it as evil or exploitative.
I have spent more than 15 years doing research on how children's fears are affected by what they see on television. There is ample evidence that many so-called family shows cause nightmares and long-term fears in some children. A good example of this is the benign-sounding popular series ``Little House on the Prairie.'' When I conducted a survey in the early '80s asking parents to name any shows that had caused nightmares, sleep disturbances or excessive worries in their children, ``Little House'' made the top 10. Like ``Touched by an Angel,'' it dealt with troubling issues, such as kidnapping, child molestation and accidental death.
If an excellent program like ``Touched by an Angel'' deals with the violent victimization of children, or an outstanding movie like ``Forrest Gump'' shows the graphic violence of the Vietnam War, parents who want to protect their children have the right and the need to know this. Parents could, of course, make the decision that their child was ready for such things - or they could possibly decide that their child could handle it if the whole family watched it together. This is the real purpose of ratings and the V chip - not to brand a program as ``bad'' but to alert parents to sensitive material that they may want to keep their children from seeing.
Judgments of quality are not what ratings are about. Ratings are tools to help parents protect children from what they think might harm them. It's time the TV industry (and especially advertisers) understood this.
Joanne Cantor, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was the lead researcher on the recent survey ``What Parents Want in a Rating System for Television.''
- The Washington Post
LENGTH: Medium: 78 linesby CNB