[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 108 (Thursday, September 14, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8606-S8608]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          MARKETING VIOLENT ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCTS TO CHILDREN

  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Alabama, 
Senator Sessions, for his role in this matter. As a former attorney 
general, he brought up some excellent points about what these do when 
you put a child and a video game in a first person shooter role and you 
reward them for mass killings. You give them points. Particularly at 
the end, some of these games give a reward which is a particularly 
grisly killing scene. He pointed out that when you train children in 
this type of situation, this is harmful to them psychologically, and it 
is something to which we should be limiting their access.
  He also brought a lot of personal insight from his background as an 
attorney general, and that was really helpful. I hope we are going to 
be able to draw more attention to parents in the country about these 
products because it has a harmful effect.
  Some of our military actually buy the same products and train our 
military personnel on the video games. They use it as a simulator. They 
do it as a way of trying to get people to

[[Page S8607]]

react and also to get them up on what is called their ``kill ratio.'' 
In World Wars I and II, we had problems with soldiers who would not 
shoot to kill because it was not a natural reaction. They would tend to 
shoot around. So they had to figure out how to get that ratio up in the 
military. The problem is when you do that with a child in an 
unsupervised game--the same game being used by military personnel as a 
simulator of combat conditions--that can be very harmful.
  We found out yesterday at the hearing that it is not only rated for a 
mature audience, it is not supposed to be used by a child. The industry 
itself rates it ``mature,'' but they market it to the child. They are 
target marketing it to children, according to a Federal Trade 
Commission study.
  I will speak about the Federal Trade Commission report that was aired 
in the Commerce Committee yesterday on marketing of violent 
entertainment products to our children. I want to talk about what that 
report brought forward, what we saw at the hearing yesterday, and some 
conclusion and things I think we can move forward on in dealing with 
this problem.
  At the outset, I recognize the work of one of my staff members, 
Cherie Harder, who has done outstanding work in the time she has been 
with me in the Senate in raising the visibility of this issue.
  It has been said that every good idea goes through three stages: 
First, it is ridiculed; second, it is bitterly opposed; last, it is 
accepted as obvious.
  Over the past 2 years, I have chaired three hearings in the Commerce 
Committee on the effectiveness of labels and ratings, the impact of 
violent entertainment products on children. The first hearing on 
whether violent products are being marketed to our children happened 
about a month after the Columbine killings took place in Colorado. When 
we started out in these hearings, these ideas I put forward were 
ridiculed, bitterly opposed shortly afterwards; but now, in reviewing 
the FTC report, the fact that harmful, violent entertainment is being 
marketed to kids is now being accepted as clear and obvious.
  We have come a long way. This is an important Federal Trade 
Commission report. When I introduced the legislation last year to 
authorize the FTC report, which was cosponsored by several of my 
colleagues, I did so because of overwhelming anecdotal evidence that 
violent adult-rated entertainment was being marketed to children by the 
entertainment industry. It has been said that much of modern research 
is corroboration of the obvious by obscure methods. This study 
corroborates what many of us have long suspected, and it does so 
unambiguously and conclusively. It shows, as Chairman Pitofsky of the 
FTC noted, that the marketing is ``pervasive and aggressive.''
  It shows that entertainment companies are literally making a killing 
off of marketing violence to kids. The problem is not one industry. It 
can be found in virtually every form of entertainment--music, movies, 
video games. Together they take up the majority of a child's leisure 
hours. The message they get and the images they see often glamorize 
brutality and trivialize cruelty.
  Take, for example, popular music. The FTC report notes that 100 
percent of sticker music--that is music that has been rated by the 
industry rating board itself as not appropriate for the audience under 
the age of 18. The survey by the FTC was of the entertainment industry 
target-marketing to kids. This is both troubling and fairly 
predictable--troubling in that the lyrics you see that we previously 
discussed are target-marketed to young kids--mostly young boys--whose 
characters, attitudes, assumptions, and values are still being formed 
and vulnerable to being warped, and predictable in that there are few 
fans for such music who are over the age of 20.
  Movies are equally blatantly marketed to kids, and they are appalling 
in their content. Movies have great power because stories have great 
power; they can move us; they can change our minds, our hearts, and 
even our hopes.
  The movie industry wields enormous influence. When used responsibly, 
their work can edify, uplift, and inspire us. But all too often that 
power is used to exploit.
  I have seen some movies that are basically 2-hour long commercials 
for the misuse of guns.
  The movie industry has the gall to target-market teen slasher movies 
to child audiences and then insist that the R ratings somehow protect 
the movie industry. From reading the FTC report, it seems clear that 
the ratings protect the industry from the consumers rather than the 
consumers from the industry.
  Take video games. When kids play violent video games, they do not 
merely witness slaughter; they engage in virtual murder. Indeed, the 
point of what are called the first-person shooter games--that is 
virtually all of the M-rated games, sticker games that the industry 
itself says are inappropriate for an under-age-18 audience--the object 
is to kill as many characters as possible. The higher the body count, 
the higher your score. Often bonus points are given for finishing off 
your enemy in a particularly grisly way. Common sense should tell us 
positively that reinforcing sadistic behavior is a bad idea, and that 
in itself cannot be good for children.
  We cannot expect that the hours spent in school will mold and 
instruct the child's mind but that hours spent immersed in violent 
entertainment will not. We cannot expect that if we raise our children 
on violence, they are going to somehow love peace. This is not only 
common sense, it is a public health concern.
  In late July, I convened a Public Health Summit on Entertainment 
Violence. At the summit, we released a joint statement signed by some 
of the most prominent associations in the public health community. 
These are some of them: The American Medical Association; the American 
Academy of Pediatricians; the American Psychological Association; the 
Academy of Family Physicians; the American Psychiatric Association, and 
the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychologists. All of them signed 
the same document. I will only read a portion of that document to you. 
This portion of it reads this way:

  ``Well over 1,000 studies point overwhelmingly to a causal 
connection''--not correlation, causal connection--``between media 
violence and aggressive behavior in some children. The conclusion of 
the public health community based on over 30 years of research is that 
viewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive 
attitudes, values, and behavior, particularly in children.''
  There is no longer a question as to whether disclosing children to 
violent entertainment is a public health risk. It is just as surely as 
tobacco or alcohol.
  The question is, What are we going to do about it? What does it take 
for the entertainment industry and its licensees and retailers to stop 
exposing children to poison?
  There is an additional element that this generally excellent FTC 
study fails to cover. That is the cross-marketing of violence to kids.
  There is ample proof that the entertainment industry not only 
directly targets children with advertising and other forms of promotion 
but also markets to them via toys and products that the entertainment 
industry itself rates as inappropriate for children.
  Walk into any toy store in America and you will find dolls, action 
figures, hand-held games, Halloween costumes based on characters in R-
rated movies, musicians noted for their violent lyrics, and M-rated 
video games. Maybe I am particularly sensitive to this because I have 
five children. But I know this is accurate.
  There is an equally egregious aspect of marketing violence to 
children and cross-marketing of violent products to kids--one that has 
not yet adequately been investigated. We need to do so. I look forward 
to working with the FTC to ensure that this is done as well.
  Another media step we need to take is to ensure that these industries 
enter into a code of conduct.
  Consumers and parents need to know what their standards are for these 
industries; how high they aim; or how low they will go.
  I have introduced legislation--S. 2127--that would provide a very 
limited antitrust exemption that would enable but not require 
entertainment companies to enter into a voluntary code of conduct--have 
them set a floor, a base below which they won't go to get products out 
to children.

[[Page S8608]]

  We had a very telling exchange yesterday in committee. We had two 
executives from the movie industry and two from the video game 
industry. I asked them several times, Is there any word, is there any 
image so grisly, so bad, is there any example so horrible that you 
wouldn't put it in music or into a video game? Is there anything, any 
word, any image? We have some music that is very hateful toward women 
and harmful. Is there anything that you wouldn't include, that you 
could say here today you wouldn't put in music or in a video game? They 
wouldn't state anything that they wouldn't put in--nothing at all.
  We need them to set an industry code of conduct where they would set 
the standard below which they wouldn't go because many of them are 
saying if you don't do it, somebody else will. They will chase it. 
These billion-dollar industries think they don't have to go this low. 
But why not engage them in setting a voluntary code of conduct? They 
need to do so, and we need to pass this legislation to allow them to do 
it.

  There are other steps we should consider, but a rush to legislate is 
not one of them. Frankly, imposing 6-month deadlines on an industry 
that is actively fleecing money is unlikely to bring about lasting 
reform such as that suggested by the Vice President. We need to 
encourage responsibility and self-regulation. We need a greater 
cooperation from the corporations regarding their view of what they can 
do to help our children morally, physically, and emotionally--for the 
well-being of our children rather than harming them. This FTC report is 
an important step in that direction because although it concentrates on 
the tip of the iceberg, it does shed light on the magnitude of the 
problem that we have with the entertainment industry. It shows kids are 
being exploited for profit and exposes a cultural externality in this 
market.
  Ultimately, we asked the entertainment executives to come in front of 
the Commerce Committee yesterday--and in 2 weeks the movie industry--to 
work with us and to appeal to their sense of corporate responsibility 
and citizenship. Our appeal is this: Please just do the right thing. 
Stop marketing violence to our kids. If you believe a product is 
inappropriate for somebody under the age of 18, then don't target-
market to that child that same product that you yourselves rate 
inappropriate for a child under the age of 18. Just stop it. Just do 
not do it.
  If the industry persists, the FTC has stated that they are going to 
do an investigation into whether or not some members of the industry 
who are doing this are liable to charges of false and deceptive 
advertising of these products.
  As I mentioned, a code of conduct would be an appropriate step 
forward for the industry to take.
  Yesterday, we discussed the music industry making widely acceptable 
and available to parents the lyrics that are in the music because, 
right now, those are not readily accessible or available to parents. 
But ultimately, we all protect the first amendment, and nobody is for 
censorship. I state that again. Nobody is for censorship. But we need 
to appeal to this industry to just do the right thing and stop target-
marketing their products to our children. It is just wrong, and they 
need to stop it.

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