THE PIED PIPER OF VIOLENT MEDIA HAS A HOLD
ON OUR CHILDREN
By Patricia Ramsey
I was stunned when my son, then a 9-year-old in fourth grade,
started clamoring to rent R-rated movies. "Everyone in my class
gets to see them!" he wailed as we trudged the aisles of our local
video store. To my disgust, I found myself trying to tempt him
with action-oriented PG-13 movies, which I had vowed we would
not let him see until he was at least 11 or 12, in order to distract
him from the even more repulsive R-rated ones.
Early in his fifth-grade year, my son passionately declared that
he was the only kid in his entire grade who had not seen "Matrix."
I began to sidle up to parents at soccer games and basketball
games to find out what they were allowing their children to see.
They all bewailed their children's obsession with R-rated movies,
but some admitted that they had given in a few times. "I just
couldn't stand the arguments anymore," one father sighed. Indeed,
based on the conversations I heard while driving children around
town, having seen R-rated movies (or being able to pretend that
one had) was the lingua franca of the fifth grade.
Last spring, my son's attention turned to "parental advisory
CDs"--music with such violent or sexually explicit lyrics that
it is considered unsuitable for children under 17. According to
my son and several of his friends, everyone in the fifth grade
was buying and listening to them.
And I won't even talk about the constant pleas for "mature" computer
and video games. Our younger son, who at the age of 7 had already
seen more PG-13 movies than I would care to admit, adamantly claimed
that lots of his friends in the second grade had "teen" rated
video games and parental advisory CDs.
This fall, my sons started sixth and third grades respectively,
and we can only wonder what will come next.
This week, after learning of Monday's Federal Trade Commission
report on selling violence to kids, I understood what we were
up against. It was not that we had especially blood-thirsty children
(as I had secretly feared) or that we lived in a town of violence-prone
children and irresponsible parents. Our children, like their peers
all across the country--and probably the world--have been the
targets of deliberate marketing strategies. They are displaying
completely logical and predictable responses to advertising campaigns
skillfully pitched to their specific needs and interests.
Cynically, the purveyors of violence have turned the rating system
into an advertising advantage. By making these products so violent
and/or sexually explicit that they are officially restricted,
yet advertising them to children under 17, they create an extremely
attractive forbidden fruit that dangles enticingly in front of
ever-younger children.
According to the FTC report, the marketing strategies target
the 12- to 17-year-old audience by advertising in teen magazines
and on television shows. However, as every parent, teacher and
market strategist knows, advertising trickles down to the younger
ages through neighborhood and sibling networks. Movies, video
games and music that teens find appealing quickly grab the attention
of the preteens and on down.
The FTC report is careful not to blame violent media for specific
acts of violence. It is true that most of our children, despite
their exposure to increasingly violent media, will probably not
become serial killers or perpetrate the next Columbine-like tragedy.
But the imagery seeps into their conversations and peppers their
play. Children imitate these models because they offer the illusion
of power and strength. And as trash talk and "might is right"
increasingly pervades the peer culture, each child has to ratchet
up his own facade of bravado in order to maintain his position,
and the cycle goes on.
Of course, we know that children, especially boys, always have
played aggressive games. But instead of inventing their own themes
and weapons and using them to play out their issues surrounding
power, they are immersed in and stimulated by imagery that is
far more brutal than anything that they could conjure up themselves.
As parents, we are caught between a rock and a hard place. If
we resist, our children become angry. If we give in, we compromise
our values and expose our children to experiences and information
that they are not ready for.
For now, my husband and I, feeling ever more beleaguered, are
standing firm: no R-rated movies, no M-rated video games and no
parental-advisory CDs.
But the cost is high--many confrontations and the end of our
pleasurable Friday evening ritual of renting and watching movies,
because our kids are no longer interested in the kind of movies
that we prefer that they see.
I know we are not alone--many parents describe themselves as
"holding back the tide" and "being swamped" by the pressures of
advertising directed at children.
I have a dream--a vision of all of us parents linking arms and
shouting, "No!"
Let's do it!
