Jeffery Cole (director), "The UCLA Television Violence Report: 1996"
I�ve already made it pretty clear that I don�t watch a lot of television. This has been going on for a while now, but I never knew what I was missing! Consider some of the shows detailed in this report:
- DUE SOUTH � A straight-laced Canadian Mountie moves to Chicago where he is paired with a streetwise American cop. They fight crime!
- CHARLIE GRACE � Mark Harmon (forever known as the teacher in Summer School) is an ex-cop turned private detective in Southern California. Despite his hard-boiled demeanor, Harmon also has a sensitive side. He fights crime!
- HIGH INCIDENT � Produced by Steven Spielberg, this is a cop show focusing on a group of LAPD officers as they patrol the city. They fight crime!
- Not to mention the movies made especially for television! Somehow I missed GRIDLOCK, which featured David Hasselhoff playing a renegade cop who has to rescue his girlfriend (Kathy Ireland) from terrorists who are holding her hostage in a bank. He fights crime!
And imagine the agony I felt when I found out that I missed three � THREE! � animated cartoons based on Jim Carrey movies: THE MASK, DUMB AND DUMBER, and ACE VENTURA.
But the real shame, the real feeling of loss is that I never got to see one program in particular:
MATT WATERS � A show that unfortunately only lasted for six episodes, starring daytime talk show host Montel Williams as a strong-willed, moralistic, yet understanding ex-Marine turned high school teacher in the inner city. Now how the hell can you even think of canceling that? We�re talking fucking Emmy juggernaut here!
Jesus Christ! Don�t bother telling me if you remember watching any of these shows, it�ll only make me back slowly for the nearest exit, all the while keeping my eyes on your hands, looking for any weapons that you may carry.
This is the problem with having a myriad of interests and working in a used bookstore. I never would have come across this in a normal day-to-day existence, and we would certainly never have bought it if I hadn�t decided I wanted to check it out for myself. For the most part, this is just a simple review of television content that details what some folks might find objectionable. The biggest offender? America�s Funniest Home Videos. (And no, not because of the potential for the mass suicides that happen when people realize they just wasted an hour of their lives watching that show. They�re talking about the content itself.)
Some points are valid against violence in television, but others seem hypersensitive. The biggest example comes for criticism against The Simpsons, or more specifically, for the content in the Itchy and Scratchy shorts. While they acknowledge the obvious reference to the Tom and Jerry cartoons of old, the folks at UCLA say that the only people that would understand the conceptualization of the characters would be those who actually watched Tom and Jerry. Thus, they argue, children watching may mistake the violence as real.
Huh? Wouldn�t the adults have been children when they were watching Tom and Jerry? And wouldn�t that mean they realized such cartoons were NOT reality? Ergo, wouldn�t children watching Itchy and Scratchy have the same reaction, since it is modeled after the old MGM cartoons; i.e. no reaction at all?
Anyway, as sorry as I am that I missed Montel�s break into prime time, I think I�m gonna keep the television off for the time being.
Except for the Simpsons, of course. And then maybe, just maybe, someday I�ll come after you with a blender and a couple of sticks of dynamite.
If all goes according to plan, anyway.
