Blurring the Lines on TV’s Graphic Violence

Rolling Stone once ran ads promoting the magazine’s value to advertisers using the slogan “Perception. Reality.” “Perception,” in terms of who reads Rolling Stone, was a picture of a drugged-out hippie. “Reality” was presented as a well-groomed yuppie with all of that disposable income media buyers love.

Separating perception and reality in prime-time television is an equally daunting task, especially when the hot-button issue of sex and violence arises. And the challenge becomes even murkier in attempts to delineate the excesses of broadcasters, the only channels coming into the home that are licensed by the government.

Granted, charting broadcasting’s transgressions may be a moot point, since the distinction between broadcasters and other channels is increasingly lost on modern TV viewers--especially, according to research, those in younger age brackets. Kids don’t care whether it’s on Channel 2 or 62; they only know they want to watch Nickelodeon, in much the same way some men locate ESPN as soon as they pick up a remote control.

Efforts to characterize TV content also have a way of getting mucked up when politicians get involved. In a famous instance, former Illinois Sen. Paul Simon began crusading against television violence in the 1980s--inspired in part, he said, by seeing “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” on a hotel TV in 1985. As it turns out, the film’s distributor said it had not been shown on broadcast television at that time, meaning Simon was likely seeing a channel carrying uncut movies piped into his room.

Still, the assumption always has been that viewers must actively invite cable and satellite-delivered channels into their homes--paying a fee for the privilege--while broadcast television is free to anyone with an antenna.

Broadcasters also occupy a unique place in society, given that they deliver programming over public airwaves. In exchange for those lucrative broadcast licenses granted by the federal government, the argument has gone since the 1930s, broadcasters owe a debt to society--defined, at various times, as carrying public-affairs programming, providing educational fare for children, or observing standards of decorum to avoid offending the audience and exposing kids to questionable programs, particularly during hours when they are more likely to be watching.

Market forces do play a role in dictating what content is deemed acceptable. Advertising remains the fuel that makes these machines go, and sponsors screen programs and shun those they fear will present their products in a less-than-favorable light.

Yet despite such limitations, there remains a sense in some quarters that television--including broadcast channels--is a cultural cesspool, oozing sex, violence and profanity. One watchdog group, the Parents Television Council, reported in regard to language that words previously considered worthy of notice--including “butt,” “hell” and “damn”--have become so common in prime time they were dropped from its list of objectionable phrases.

While graphic sexual acts are rare, frank talk about sex, jokes and innuendo are virtually unavoidable on any orbit through the broadcast universe, with the possible exception of public television. As one recent example, consider 8 p.m. Fridays on ABC, a slot once occupied by such kid-oriented fare as “Full House” and “Family Matters.” This year, ABC has switched to a more adult direction, and its new Friday leadoff show, “Two Guys and a Girl,” opened the season with two characters awakening from a one-night stand.

Though sexuality has long been a complaint on the part of conservatives, the many liberals who have joined in the fray have principally focused on violence, fueled by events such as the shootings at Columbine High School. The hunt for violence, however, is a somewhat more complicated proposition, one in which the perception and reality columns don’t always appear in alignment.

So, narrowing the examination to violence on broadcast television, where would one find the sort of content that might provoke chagrin on the part of an average parent, whatever that is? Scanning the current schedules, the number of prime-time programs apt to cause alarm are generally few and far between.

Most of the series in question fall under the label of “action,” a pithy euphemism for violence. CBS’ “Walker, Texas Ranger” continues to be the flag bearer for this genre, getting by with as much dialogue is necessary to convey Chuck Norris from one righteous beating to the next. A more infrequent culprit would be the military drama “JAG,” which only periodically lets loose with any real firepower.

The UPN network, meanwhile, takes its lead from the wrestling show “WWF Smackdown!,” which quickly became its highest-rated program. Wrestling “brought our network an identity,” UPN Entertainment President Tom Nunan recently said at an industry gathering, and UPN characterizes that identity as catering to young men--who, as any programmer knows, reliably watch only three things: sports, violence and supermodels.

Granted, with its soap-opera subplots, even “Smackdown!” can go long periods without serving up any physical violence, with plenty of yelling and finger-pointing filling time between the actual body-slamming and hitting with folding chairs.

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Much of the violence currently on display in broadcast circles falls within the science-fiction and fantasy genres, including the UPN time-travel series “7 Days” and its new dramas “Freedom” (with its “The Matrix”-esque concept about freedom fighters after a military coup) and “Level 9.”

Fox’s new James Cameron entry, “Dark Angel,” is about a genetically enhanced human who occasionally flexes a little of her well-toned muscle by throwing around much larger men. The WB network, for its part, mixes teen angst with action, including the bewitched sisters of “Charmed” and one-two combo “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel,” where the protagonists regularly dispatch surprisingly vulnerable creatures of the night.

“Action,” it’s worth noting, is also the prevailing buzzword outside prime time, where local TV stations schedule syndicated shows. Ever since “Xena: Warrior Princess” began rivaling the ratings for “Baywatch,” bikini-worthy heroines who can beat the living daylights out of men have been flooding the airwaves, from the Pamela Anderson vehicle “V.I.P.” to Tia Carrere in “Relic Hunter” to the regally titled new hours “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle” and “Queen of Swords.”

Designed for international appeal and thus emphasizing mayhem more than dialogue, these programs threaten to expose kids to cartoonish action sequences at odd hours (many run at 3 in the afternoon or 2 in the morning), and often seem targeted to men who are either incarcerated or too woozy from beer drinking to change channels.

More prestigious network crime dramas, meanwhile, principally grapple with the aftermath of violence, including “NYPD Blue” and the two “Law & Order” series--where grisly crimes are discussed but seldom depicted on camera. They also air at 10 p.m. in most time zones, which usually mitigates complaints about putting on such material when younger kids are apt to see it, though not so with CBS’ new “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

There are, of course, also violent flare-ups in places you wouldn’t Even when broadcasters are behaving responsibly and ostensibly fulfilling their public-interest obligations, casual viewers who aren’t paying close attention to which channel they’re watching could easily be alarmed by what they see spilling out of the tube.

normally expect, such as last season’s stabbing on “ER” and nun-impersonating psychopath on “The Practice.”

Networks take greater liberties in movies and miniseries, most notably when it comes to running feature films. On the schedule for the rating sweeps that begin later this week, the theatrical releases with prime-time dates include the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie “Eraser,” “Crimson Tide,” “Jurassic Park,” “Lethal Weapon 4” and “Titanic”--and that’s just on NBC.

Networks edit these films, but if you excised all the violence from “Lethal Weapon 4,” you’d be left with about five minutes of footage featuring Mel Gibson acting like one of the Three Stooges.

To be fair, NBC will also televise four hours of Bible stories titled “In the Beginning,” while CBS’ movie roster next month includes two fact-based miniseries--the biographical “Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis” and “American Tragedy,” about the inner workings of O.J. Simpson’s criminal defense team--likely to do violence only to reputations.

The irony is that even when broadcasters are behaving responsibly and ostensibly fulfilling their public-interest obligations, casual viewers who aren’t paying close attention to which channel they’re watching could easily be alarmed by what they see spilling out of the tube.

Consider election night, when the networks will be devoting great swaths of time to their news operations. Cable’s USA network will try to capitalize on that by scheduling an original movie, “Chippendales Murder,” a true-crime tale set in and around the legendary male strip club.

Granted, anyone who would watch “Chippendales Murder” may seem unlikely to be riveted by election results. Yet this underscores that in today’s age there will almost always be something trashy or titillating somewhere on TV--a greasy fast-food dish for those who aren’t craving the television equivalent of broccoli.

To many networks, election night--far from an exercise in civic-mindedness--is simply another grand opportunity to counter-program the major networks. And even as broadcasters have moved away from cop shows and toward more character-driven dramas such as “The West Wing,” “Once and Again” and “Judging Amy,” it’s hard to register that impression to a dish owner with 200 channels who doesn’t always distinguish an uncut showing of “Pulp Fiction” on Showtime from that night’s lineup on CBS or ABC.

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For those concerned about television’s pervasive cultural influence and what they see as an erosion of standards, this environment and new technology make curtailing perceived excesses akin to squeezing the proverbial genie back into a little tiny bottle.

As former Federal Communications Commission appointee Nicholas Johnson writes in the book “Advocacy Groups and the Entertainment Industry,” a compilation of essays on the topic, “Whatever may have been the wisdom, integrity and possibility of government regulation of program content when the three networks’ affiliates were ‘television’ for most viewers, such regulation is no longer possible today.”

It may come as small comfort, then, to hear there is probably less violence on broadcast television than many might think--an observation unlikely to disarm cultural warriors or quiet calls for regulation the next time some teenager perpetrates an inexplicably destructive act in a quiet little town like Paducah, Ky., or Littleton, Colo.

When presented such horrors, perhaps it’s not surprising people see monsters--some real, others merely perceived--coming out of the TV.