[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 94 (Friday, June 9, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8077-S8078]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                      EXERCISING GOOD CITIZENSHIP

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, last week, I ventured out to Hollywood and 
called upon the executives of the entertainment industry to exercise 
some good citizenship and put an end to the steady flow of mindless 
violence and loveless sex they serve up each day to our young people. I 
said that a ``line has been crossed--not just of taste, but of human 
dignity and decency. It is crossed every time sexual violence is given 
a catchy tune. When teen suicide is set to an appealing beat. When 
Hollywood's dream factories turn out nightmares of depravity.''
  Although I made it very clear that government censorship was not the 
answer, the response to my remarks has been predictable and predictably 
ferocious. All the usual suspects--Oliver Stone, Ed Asner, Norman 
Lear--have been out in force, rushing to Hollywood's defense and 
lashing out at anyone who would dare criticize the entertainment 
industry for its excesses.
  I will continue to speak out because people like Bill Bennett, Paul 
Simon, Pete Domenici, Bill Bradley, and C. Delores Tucker all happen to 
be right: cultural messages can and do bore deep into the hearts and 
minds of our impressionable young. And when these messages are negative 
ones--repeated hour after hour, day after day, week after week--they 
can strip our children of that most precious gift of all: Their 
innocence.
  Apparently, the American people share this concern, particularly when 
it comes to television, perhaps the most dominant cultural force in 
America today. A recent survey conducted by USA weekend magazine 
revealed that an astonishing 96 percent of the 65,000 readers surveyed 
are ``very or somewhat concerned about sex on TV,'' 97 percent are 
``very or somewhat concerned'' about the use of vulgar language on 
television shows, and another 97 percent are ``very or somewhat 
concerned'' about television violence. Jim Freese, the principal of 
Homestead High School in Fort Wayne, IN, put it this way: ``I'm seeing 
more instances of inappropriate language around school. It is part of 
the vocabulary, and often they do not think about some of the words 
because they hear them so often on TV. It is a steady diet. Program 
after program has this inappropriate language.''
  According to a study commissioned by USA Weekend, 370 instances of 
``crude language or sexual situations'' were recorded during a five-
night period of prime-time programming, or one every 8.9 minutes. Two 
hundred and eight of these incidents occurred between 8 and 9 p.m., the 
so-called family hour.
  Of course, we have more to lose than to gain by putting Washington in 
charge of our culture. Instead, it is my hope that the decision-makers 
within the entertainment industry will voluntarily accept a calling 
beyond the bottom line and help our Nation maintain the innocence of 
our children.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cover article from 
the USA Weekend magazine be reprinted in the Record immediately after 
my remarks.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   [From USA Weekend, June 2-4, 1995]

                               Turned Off

                    (By Dan Olmsted and Gigi Anders)

       It was, in its crude way, a perfect TV moment for our 
     times: 9 p.m. ET on a Wednesday this spring on Grace Under 
     Fire, the top-5 ABC sitcom. Divorced mom Grace is talking in 
     the kitchen with 10-year-old Quentin, who has been visiting 
     his dad. Let's listen in, along with the 28.3 million people 
     watching the show on a typical night, 5.6 million of them 
     under age:
       Grace: How come your daddy didn't come in and say hey?
       Kid: Aw, he was in a hurry. He had a date with some slut.
       Grace: Quentin? I'm going to wash your mouth out with 
     fabric softener. Where did you hear that word?
       Kid: Dad's house. It was a cable.
       These days, that episode neatly demonstrates, the raw stuff 
     isn't on just cable anymore. Sex, and what your mother called 
     ``vulgar language,'' now play nightly on the four major 
     networks--for laughs, shock value, sizzle and ratings, and 
     because producers say viewers want verisimilitude, and this 
     is how reality looks and sounds in 1990s America.
       But such programming may turn off a sizeable number of 
     viewers--including 97 percent, or 63,000, of the 65,142 
     readers who took part in USA Weekend's survey on TV violence 
     and vulgarity. The key finding: Many viewers want to wash out 
     TV's mouth with something stronger than fabric softeners. 
     They're especially upset that much of the unclean stuff is 
     coming out of the mouths of relative babes like Quentin and 
     into the eyes and ears of kids.
       The written survey, which ran in our March 3-5 issue, 
     follows a similar one two years ago that drew 71,000 
     responses. The earlier survey came amid concern about TV 
     violence and congressional hearings on the subject; is showed 
     violence was readers' top concern, with sexual content a 
     close second.
       This year the figures are reversed (see chart, opposite 
     page): Sexual content tops the list of ``troublesome 
     programming,'' with violence second.
       The results are not scientific, but they're over-whelming--
     make for a comparison with two years ago. Viewers still find 
     TV violence troubling but seem increasingly concerned about 
     rawness, especially on the networks' prime-time shows.
       Concern over violence remains high, to be sure: 88 percent 
     of readers who responded to the write-in are ``very 
     concerned'' about it, compared with 95 percent in 1993.
       ``We limit our kids' TV viewing because of the violence, 
     and because too much TV of any kind turns their minds to 
     jelly,'' says Sue Sherer, 40, of Rochester, N.Y., a mother of 
     three (ages 11, 9 and 7) and PTA president who filled out the 
     survey. ``We rob kids of innocence when we expect them to 
     grow up so fast and mirror kids like those on Roseanne. I 
     don't want them to be naive, either, but I'd like them to be 
     children. And TV is a great vandal of that.''
       Responding to the concern over vulgarity, USA Weekend 
     monitored five evenings of prime-time network TV (8-11 p.m. 
     ET). We enlisted journalism students from The American 
     University School of Communication in Washington, DC., who 
     videotaped each program and noted incidents of crude language 
     or sexual situations (see chart below).
       The result: 370 incidents over five nights--after giving 
     the tube the benefit of the doubt on close calls. ``I was 
     surprised,'' said Alan Tatum, one of the AU students who 
     helped us. Even on ``family'' shows, ``it almost seems the 
     producers feel they need to throw in bodily humor every so 
     often.''
       Every 8.9 minutes, on average. And 208 incidents--well over 
     half--occurred in ``the family hour.''
       A cultural Rubicon of sorts was crossed in the past few 
     weeks, when ABC moved Roseanne to 8 p.m. ET and two family-
     hour staples, Blossom and Full House, went off the air.
       First sanctioned by the National Association of 
     Broadcasters code in the early 1970s, the family hour (8-9 
     p.m. Eastern and Pacific time; 7-8 p.m. elsewhere) was long 
     considered the proper time to appeal to kids. It meant Happy 
     Days and Laverne & Shirley, The Cosby Show and Family Ties. 
     But in more recent years, thanks largely to competition from 
     cable and the emergence of the Fox network in 1986, 
     programmers have been so eager to recapture a dwindling TV 
     audience that the family hour has become inhabited by adult 
     and young-adult hits such as Mad About You, Martin, Melrose 
     Place and Beverly Hills, 90210. In fact, following the 
     stunning success of NBC's Thursday night comedy blitz, ABC 
     has been trying to create a solid block of its own on 
     Wednesday by reshuffling two of its edgier sitcoms, Roseanne 
     and Ellen, into the family hour.
       For all the national discussion about values, even such 
     family-hour shows as Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and The Nanny 
     are laden with sexual innuendo and hot-blooded humor. And 
     Martin has all the subtlety of a Friar's Club roast.
       There's a sense that TV, which in the '50s and early '60s 
     made happily married couples like Ricky and Lucy and Rob and 
     Laura sleep in separate beds, is making up for lost time.
       Programmers say it's not that simple. ``TV is changing,'' 
     says James Anderson, a vice president of Carsey-Werner, which 
     produces Roseanne. ``The show reflects the climate we're in. 
     There's a big discussion going on over what should be shown 
     during the family hour. It's necessary, I guess, but any show 
     that pushes the envelope usually gets penalized in some way. 
     And Roseanne does push it.''
       He cites the show's complex treatment this season of 
     Roseanne's pregnancy--worrying whether there was something 
     wrong with the baby she was carrying--as an example of 
     provocative but responsible programming. ``Parents who say 
     they dislike the show and [[Page S8078]] wouldn't let their 
     kids watch are uncomfortable about having to discuss the 
     issues raised on the show with the children.''
       But, he suggests, the genie isn't going back into the 
     bottle. ``The face of TV is going to be seriously redefined 
     over the next couple of years. I mean, Melrose Place is on at 
     8, and they have way more T&A than Roseanne does.'' Fox and 
     Melrose Place did not respond to requests for comment.
       CBS senior vice-president Martin Franks defended his 
     network's programming, while acknowledging some early-evening 
     broadcast fare is inappropriate for kids. ``I have a 13-year-
     old and an 11-year-old, and I don't let them watch The 
     Simpsons [Fox, 8 p.m. ET Sundays]. I don't want my kids 
     talking that way.''
       He compared the high level of dissatisfaction recorded by 
     the USA Weekend survey to asking viewers if they dislike 
     ``attack ads'' during political campaigns: ``Of course the 
     answer is going to be yes, yet people watch them and are 
     being affected.'' Many people who complain about network 
     programs also would complain ``if we pre-empted them for a 
     presidential press conference,'' Franks argues.
       ``Adults ought to be able to watch something. Someone at 
     this point who is surprised by The Simpsons or Roseanne or 
     Seinfeld is living under a rock.''
       All four networks have offices of standards and practices 
     that monitor shows for taste and content. (The industrywide 
     National Association of Broadcasters code is defunct.) ``You 
     can argue they miss something or their judgment is different 
     from yours,'' Franks says of the censors, but they take the 
     job seriously: ``They make suggestions to change scripts 
     before they're even shot.''
       The bigger question: Is it worth wondering whether course 
     language and risque fare have any social impact? Or is that 
     like Dan Quayle attacking Murphy Brown, easy to dismiss as an 
     overblown attack on a fictional character? Educators, for one 
     group, don't think it's
      far-fetched.
       ``I've been a principal for 20 years, and I've seen 
     significant changes. And one of the factors is TV,'' says Jim 
     Freese of Homestead High School in Fort Wayne, Ind., where 
     students filled out the survey. ``I'm seeing more instances 
     of inappropriate language around school. It's part of the 
     vocabulary, and often they don't think about some of the 
     words because they hear them so often on TV. It's a steady 
     diet: Program after program has this violence and 
     inappropriate language.''
       Last month, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, 
     proposed legislation giving parents access to a ``report 
     card'' rating the violence in TV shows. Funded by the 
     government and compiled quarterly by a neutral organization 
     such as a university, the report would list the most violent 
     shows and their sponsors; viewers could then pressure the 
     sponsors to withdraw their ads.
       The movies' rating system ``has worked very well,'' 
     Hutchison told USA Weekend, adding that the magazine's survey 
     reinforces other studies, as well as comments from her 
     constituents. ``Parents are sitting with their children 
     thinking a show will be all right, and all of a sudden there 
     is something very inappropriate.'' The report card would 
     offer parents a ``comfort level,'' knowing certain programs 
     would not contain violence or vulgar language.
       Not surprisingly, the older our survey respondents, the 
     greater the concern. For instance, 95 percent of those over 
     65 are ``very concerned'' about TV violence, vs. 70 percent 
     of those under 36. Older readers worry that younger viewers 
     aren't concerned. ``Most of my students find the issues under 
     question acceptable,'' says Nancy Movall of Newell, Iowa, 
     whose high school visual communications class took the 
     survey. ``I wonder if it's because they have been raised in a 
     world that sees violence far too often and thus have become 
     more tolerant of it.''
       Also filling out the survey: 14 inmates at the South Dakota 
     State Penitentiary, who marked ``very concerned'' about 
     either sex, violence or vulgarity on TV a total of 20 times.
       Some language in prime time is now so strong, we've chosen 
     not to print it on our cover:
       From The Wright Verdicts, 9 p.m. ET Friday on CBS: ``You 
     lousy bastard!''
       From NYPD Blue, 10 p.m. ET Tuesday on ABC: ``You're lucky I 
     don't kick your ass.''
       From the CBS movie With Hostile Intent, 9-11 p.m. ET: ``. . 
     . kiss my butt a little harder . . . probably getting laid . 
     . . Let's go get naked . . . Aw, hell, I'm stuck with a bitch 
     tonight . . . Roberta's on the rag . . . ''
       From Fox's Melrose Place, 8-9 p.m. ET: ``. . . I want you 
     to go home with me . . . I want you to unbutton my blouse and 
     pull up my skirt . . . I'll be up for hours unless I can find 
     a way to relieve my tension.''
       From NBC's Friends, 9:30 p.m. ET: ``Now we need the semen 
     of a righteous man.''
       Of course, Friends is a smash: Melrose fans aren't likely 
     to picket Aaron Spelling because of too-steamy plots; and 
     Roseanne, in many critics' eyes, is quality TV.
       ``Thinking adults are hardly going to turn into a heaping 
     pile of gelatin because they hear the word ``ass' on the 
     air,'' argues Los Angeles Daily News television critic Ray 
     Richmond. ``I don't see this `vulgarity' as a loosening of 
     standards, but rather as a reflection of the reality around 
     us.''
       Plus, more than two-thirds of U.S. homes now have cable, he 
     notes, and the government's ``set of rules for network TV 
     doesn't apply to cable or pay-per-view programs, and they're 
     all on the same remote control in people's living rooms and 
     bedrooms. People who believe TV's going to hell in a 
     handbasket are overreacting.''
       But is there a middle ground between prudery and prurience? 
     Beneath the comic coarseness of Grace's response to Quentin's 
     use of ``slut'' is advice that's hard to disagree with. ``You 
     shouldn't use that word,'' she tells her son. ``It's 
     demeaning to women, and men who say it. And furthermore, if 
     it weren't for women like them, I wouldn't know how to rat my 
     hair real big and put on blue eyeshadow.
       ``So show a little respect.''
       

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