Acting out

Of the four main players in the never-ending rerun on the influence of violent entertainment upon the young, only the Federal Trade Commission is playing it straight. The others – the two major-party presidential candidates and the entertainment industry – seem to be looking for a punch line where no joke exists.

The FTC study, initiated in the aftermath of the slaughter at Columbine and released Monday, describes in 100-plus pages of appalling detail the extent to which Big Entertainment – movies, TV, music and video games – willfully ignores the self-imposed guidelines it created to keep inappropriate material, especially violent material, away from children. It lists instance after instance in which the industry intentionally and aggressively markets to children material it has itself determined to be harmful to children.

The FTC study does not link violent entertainment to violent actions. Most importantly, it does not call for, or even hint at, government regulation. Commission Chairman Robert Pitofsky, in fact, went out of his way to caution against setting up a federal “thought police.”

So naturally, the entertainment industry responds with staunch defenses of its First Amendment protections and swears it will resist with all the power it can muster any attempt to create a federal thought police. Faced with solid, case history documentation that it ignores its own system of self-regulation, the industry says the answer is self-regulation.

Vice President Al Gore says he wants to give the industry six months to clean up its act or he will propose federal regulation to impose advertising guidelines. If this were a matter, as he claims, of “deceptive advertising,” there already are laws to deal with the problem. The real problem, though, appears to be advertising that, instead of deceiving, accurately and enticingly describes the movie, CD or game being pushed. In that case, the First Amendment will always trump guidelines.

For Gov. Bush, chalk this one up a missed opportunity. He chided Mr. Gore and the Clinton administration for relying upon the entertainment industry’s willingness to police itself and then, demonstrating his well-rehearsed ability to muddle his own message, said he would work cooperatively with the Hollywood CEOs who “oftentimes pollute our children’s minds.” Try to imagine less promising way to initiate a cooperative working relationship.

But if the two candidates stumbled, the entertainment industry was as polished as ever. Faced with irrefutable evidence that it deliberately markets violent material to kids – its own documents outline, for example, plans to pitch R-rated movies on after-school TV and in high school newspapers – the industry swears it does no such thing and falsely accused the FTC of asserting a link not proven to exist and of advocating the Constitution be trampled. It’s a familiar act going stale, a gag that increasingly fails to amuse.