Why Do Hollywood and TV Keep Showing US VIOLENCE?

• Author: SPARKS, CHERI W.

"Just as a number of those who love pizza turn away in disgust if it has anchovies, plenty of people who love movies and TV shows turn away at the prospect of media entertainment rifled with explicit violence."

ON SEPT. 13, 2000, Robert Pitofsky, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, the culmination of an FTC report on the marketing of violent entertainment to children. One of the alarming revelations of the report was the conclusion that 80% of the R-rated films studied by the FTC were specifically targeted to children under the age of 17. In the case of one marketing plan for a violent, R-rated movie, the goal explicitly stated by the marketers was to "find the elusive teen target audience and make sure everyone between the ages of 12 and 18 was exposed to the film."

The marketing of violence to youngsters is the most recent manifestation of governmental concern about violent content in the mass media. Over the last 35 years, the overwhelming emphasis in academic research (much of which was funded by the government)has been the impact of media violence on aggressive behavior. A more minor theme has been on the possible desensitizing effects of exposure to media violence. The consensus among most social scientists is that viewing violence is causally related to both aggressive behavior and desensitization, although the statistical size of these effects is not particularly large, and some critics express skepticism about the extent to which results from laboratory experiments translate to violent behavior outside of the lab.

Judging from this past history, controversy about the effects of media violence is likely to continue. However, one important question amidst all of the controversy has not attracted much research attention: How many viewers really like media violence? If some do, what insights might be available about the reasons for being drawn to this type of entertainment? To us, it seems remarkable that these questions have not drawn more attention from scholars. While more systematic research is certainly needed in order to understand the issues surrounding these questions, some valuable clues are already available from existing studies.

Consider someone who has seen "Pulp Fiction" three times, finding it outrageous, funny, and clever. Yet, she squints her eyes during the most violent scenes just as she does during any picture containing graphic violence. This particular viewer has three movie types she systematically avoids: those that have a story line involving slaves, films featuring child abuse, and prison pictures. This individual maintains that all three types of these movies virtually guarantee ugly, on-screen brutality.

The little data that is available on the enjoyment of media violence suggests that a significant segment of the population expresses a general preference to avoid explicit depictions of bashing, beating, pinching, poking, raping, ripping, smashing, slicing, and twisting of flesh. If this is the case, why does Hollywood continue to chum out images of violence and plan media campaigns directed specifically to children?

The research to date suggests that one way to understand the answer to this question is to understand that there are at least four important ways to conceptualize the enjoyment of...