Précis: The
motto of this conference is “it is time to orchestrate a common strategy to
affirm and defend the natural family.” One prong of this strategy must focus on
the mass media of entertainment, which has promoted an anti-family agenda since
the demise of the golden age of Hollywood in 1966. Since 1966, the mass media
of entertainment has abandoned responsibly for license. To restore sense and
sensibility, we must redeem the values of the mass media of entertainment
according to biblical principles: by influencing media executives to adopt
higher standards imbued with Christian and traditional family values; and, by
informing and equipping moral people in America and around the world,
especially parents, families and Christians, to make wise media choices based
on the biblical worldview. Making wise choices and protecting children from
harm from the mass media involves understanding: 1) the problem; 2) the
susceptibility of children at each stage of cognitive development; 3) the mass
media of entertainment; 4) your worldview and values; and, 4) media
wisdom.
MEDIA-WISE
(Show
2004 Gala promotional video)
Scripture: "But
if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to
put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying
their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God." (1 Timothy 5:4 (NIV))
Morals
make cents:
On
one visit to the head of a major movie studio, he complained to me that the box
office was down. He asked me what I thought the problem was, and I replied,
"Your customers have been killed off. Teenagers are the biggest movie
going group, and there are less of them now than ever. 32 million or more
children have been killed in the womb. Think of the box office you have lost as
a result." Suddenly, he became concerned about the loss of his audience.
In
the beginning:
To
paraphrase Charles Dickens' immortal opening in the TALE OF
TWO CITIES over one hundred years ago: It is the best of times, it is the
worst of times. Today, I am going to tell you some bad news and some good news.
They are not mutually contradictory. Rather, like the nature of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ, who was both fully man and fully God, it is a both/and not
an either/or situation.
The
good news is, of course, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. However, it is also that when
we started Christian Film & Television Commission™ ministry's MOVIEGUIDE®
in 1985, there was only one movie with positive Christian content; in 2003, there were 116 or 42 percent of the movies
released. When we started there were only six movies aimed at families; in
2003, there were over 40 percent. When we started, more than 80 percent of the
movies released theatrically were R-rated; now, less than 45 percent are
R-rated each year. Moreover, there are nine new positive big budget movies
about Jesus Christ being released and produced over the next few years,
including: THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, THE GOD/MAN, THE
LAMB, THE GREATEST KING, THE ALPHA AND OMEGA, and THE GOSPEL OF MARK. The
chairman of a major studio recently told me at lunch that he attributed these
shifts directly to our influence and our economic benchmarking of the
entertainment industry. This was the same studio head who years before was
concerned about the falling box office.
But,
I will tell you more about that later.
The
bad news is that families are failing and a significant contributing influence
to that failure is the mass media of entertainment, which has been promoting an
anti-family agenda for many years and aggravating the lust of the eyes and the
lust of the flesh. For too many years that message of Hollywood has been:
-
God does not exist.
-
The “god” who exists is not personal.
-
“god” is irrelevant.
-
Romantic love, sex, money, and power
are the highest goals of life.
-
Premarital and extramarital sex is
normal, frequent, and OK - and is without consequences.
-
Rebellion and disrespect are normal,
frequent, and OK.
-
Crude language and behavior are normal,
frequent, and OK.
-
Smoking, drinking, and recreational
drug use are normal, frequent, and OK.
-
Romantic love is real love.
-
Hollywood “stars” are to be imitated
and idolized.
-
Hollywood “stars” and rock musicians
have the answers.
-
Youth, beauty, and money determine the
value of a life.
-
Christians are kooks.
-
Conservatives are kooks.
And,
many in the society have bought the anti-family lies of the mass media of
entertainment.
Furthermore,
the media not only sets the cultural agenda and defines the norm, but it also influences
behavior. There have been over 10,000 studies on the influence of the media. In
1972, the US Surgeon Generals Office reported on 3,000 studies on the influence
of television. In 1978, the National Institute of Mental Health reported on
10,000 studies. In 1991, the American Psychiatric Association said that the
evidence that movies and television influenced children to commit violence was
irrefutable. The New York Times agreed and said that this was not a free speech
issue, but a public policy issue. In 2000, four major medical associations in
the USA said that there was a causal connection between violence in the mass
media of entertainment.
However,
the most powerful statement of the influence of the mass media of entertainment
came from Leslie Moonves, the president of CBS Television when he testified
before Congress after the Columbine killings. Mr. Moonves said, "If anyone
thinks that the media didn't have anything to do with this, they're an
idiot."
In
this regard, research has shown that different people are susceptible to
different media influences. Seven to eleven percent of the children are susceptible
to the violence in the mass media of entertainment, while thirty-one percent
want to copy the sex and over sixty percent are influenced by drugs and
alcohol.
Furthermore,
as the Bible notes, prosperity proceeds judgment. God wants to prosper us, but
when He does, He says that we turn from him and forget the homeless, the needy
and the outcast. Then, judgment starts, and we stew in the juice of our own
sin.
When
good men do nothing
During
the Golden Age of Hollywood, the mass media of entertainment used to be
pro-family and pro-morality tale. During those years, the church was the
primary influence behind the scenes in the entertainment industry and helped
the entertainment industry adhere to the Motion Picture Code. Then, the church
shut down the Protestant Film Office in 1966 and the Catholic Film Office moved
out of Hollywood. Within three years,
movies went from: THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD to the first X-rated movie where
the pastor was the villain who led the star into homosexuality -- MIDNIGHT COWBOY;
THE SOUND OF MUSIC to the first sex and Satanism movie -- ROSEMARY'S BABY; and,
from MARY POPPINS to the first ultra violent movies -- BONNNIE AND CLYDE and
THE WILD BUNCH.
All
this proves Edmund Burke's dictum that Evil will triumph when good men do
nothing. The entertainment industry in the process moved from liberty guided by
responsibility, to license guided by anything goes. And, regrettably, having
abandoned the Motion Picture Code, Hollywood's switched to ratings in 1969
which are a self-serving marketing tool. In fact, the MPAA rating system is the
ultimate marketing ploy to children.
The
ratings sham
On
October 5, 1990, the first NC-17 film, HENRY AND JUNE, was released in theaters
across the country by the infamous MCA-Universal, who distributed THE LAST
TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. Actually, HENRY AND JUNE is an X-rated film featuring a
menage-a-trois (a man, his wife and their girlfriend), but the Motion Picture
Association of America invented the new category of NC-17 to deceive the public
so that the major movie companies, who pay the bills at the MPAA, can move into
the lucrative X-rated market without the stigma of the X rating.
What
this means for the average American is that obscene, X-rated movies, which were
formerly restricted to so-called art houses and porno theaters and could not
advertise on television, radio or in the local newspaper, are now in the local
mall multiplex theaters attracting an audience with deceptive advertisements in
the local newspaper and on the local TV and radio stations. Since this will
generate revenue for all involved, except the poor person who pays hard earned
money to see this filth, the newspapers, TV stations, radio stations and other
media are overjoyed with this repackaged smut peddling and have joined the
bandwagon supporting the new rating.
Movies
are not art
They
are entertainment, which employ artistic and communicative elements. The
entertainment industry is a $30 billion a year business which appeals to
people’s visceral emotions to separate them from their hard earned dollars.
Much of that money comes from R-rated films, what the movie industry calls
“horny boy” movies, because they are targeted at the hormones of teenage boys
who drag their dates along so they can be desensitized to promiscuous sex so
they will consent to fornicate afterwards in some secluded spot.
Art
is not beyond good and evil. It is subject to judgment on moral and ethical
grounds. For example:
The
Holocaust Museum in Israel displays Nazi art, which denigrates Jews and inflamed
the German people against the Jews. This bigoted art is evil and deserves the
censure which society has leveled against it.
Instructing
the most powerful person in Hollywood
One
key to rebuilding the family is to rebuild the mass media of entertainment by
teaching them responsibility and wisdom. The Christian Film & Television
Commission™ ministry has had great success in this regard by influencing the
most powerful men in the entertainment industry who are the teenagers who go to
movies and by helping Hollywood understand that good movies do better at the
box office.
To
teach the most powerful person in the entertainment industry, the teenager to
be media wise so that they will chose the good and reject the bad, is a
five-step process.
Many
Christian parents are concerned about the influence of media violence on their
children, but many of those who are concerned don’t know what to do about the
problem. The good news is that there are effective ways to teach your children
to be media-wise.
As
director of the TV Center at City University of New York, I helped develop some
of the first media literacy courses in the late 1970s. Since then, years of
research have produced a very clear understanding of how to teach media
literacy.
There
are five pillars of media wisdom.
The
first is understanding the influence of the media, which may be titled,
“breaking the bonds of denial.”
As
Dale Kunkel, professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, points
out, after thousands of intensive studies in this area, only one significant
researcher still denies the influence of the media, and that researcher last
did real research in this area in the mid-1980s. In the wake of the Columbine
High School massacre, CBS president Leslie Moonves put it quite bluntly,
“Anyone who thinks the media has nothing to do with this is an idiot”
(Associated Press, 05/19/99). Thus, the American Psychological Association's
report on media violence concluded, “There is absolutely no doubt that those
who are heavy viewers of violence demonstrate increased acceptance of
aggressive attitudes and increased aggressive behavior.”
Children
on killing sprees… Increased risky behavior by children…. Children at war with
their parents…. Daily, newspapers
proclaim the greatest threat facing families – the millions of children (who
are a reward from the Lord according to Psalm 127:3) who were not raised in the
fear and admonition of the Lord, or on OZZIE AND HARRIET or LEAVE IT TO BEAVER,
but on NATURAL BORN KILLERS, HALLOWEEN and SCREAM.
The
first signs of the moral character of many of the generation Y who were raised
on and by the mass media of entertainment may be the killings conducted over
the last few years by the adolescents and pre-adolescents in the USA. According
to exhaustive research, the violent media of entertainment has set the moral
agenda for the future.
To
paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt: If you educate a man’s mind and not his heart,
you will have an educated barbarian.
This
is not to stay that all contemporary children are educated barbarians. Studies
show that most who watch the media merely become desensitized. A significant
minority become frightened and paranoid. Regrettably, 7 to 11 percent of the
adults and up to 31 percent of the teenagers say they want to copy what they
see.
In
The Los Angeles Times reports that the Hollywood-based
entertainment industry looks forward to the new wave of teenagers because the
Hollywood executives have found that teenagers are most easily attracted to sex
and violence and immoral behavior in movies and on television.
With
the greater numbers comes greater influence. Teenagers are on their way to
becoming America's cultural arbiters. Since the success of SCREAM, the
entertainment industry has put dozens of teen horror projects in the pipeline.
Networks are adding teen programs with plenty of sexual activity based on the
popularity of programs such as DAWSON’S CREEK, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and
PARTY OF FIVE.
Today's
teenagers may be even more of a pop culture steamroller than their parents
were. There will be as many of them as there were teenage boomers during the
1960s. They see far more movies than any other demographic group. While only
16% of the population, they buy 25% of the movie tickets. Raised by cable TV,
they want constant stimulation.
American
Teenagers:
-
Teenagers spend $122 billion of their own and their parents' money each year,
not including their influence on family purchases.
-
In the last three months, 72% of
teenagers age 12-19 have gone to the movies.
-
Movie going is considered an "in" activity among 92% of teenagers,
more than playing sports (89%), using the Internet (90%) or going to the beach
(76%).
-
In the last three months, 71% of
teens purchased at least one full-length CD, 33% bought a CD single and 35%
bought a full-length cassette.
-
Movie going peaks in the teenage years. People age 12-20 make up 16% of the
population, but buy 26% of movie tickets.
-
Nearly 90% of 12- to 20-year-olds reported going to the movies
"frequently" or "occasionally." Only 3%-4% said they never
go to the movies.
|
Los Angeles Times,
Calendar 06/09/98 citing: Teenage Research Unlimited; Motion Picture Assn. of
America; and, Nielsen Media Research.
|
Of
course, media is not the whole problem, but only one part of the equation that
could be summed up with the sage biblical injunction, “Do not be misled: 'Bad
company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33, NIV). This is the
message of the Surgeon General's Report on youth violence, which showed that
watching media violence causes violence among children – bad company
corrupts good character, whether that bad company is gangs, peer pressure or
violent television programs.
Breaking
the bonds of denial also means noting that there is a lot of good entertainment
out there, which we honor every March at the Annual MOVIEGUIDE® Faith &
Values Awards Gala and Report to Hollywood in Hollywood. In fact, because of
our efforts, the number of movies with Christian content has more than doubled
in the last five years.
The
second step in media wisdom is understanding the susceptibility of children at
each stage of cognitive development. Not only do children see the media
differently at each stage of development, but also different children are
susceptible to different stimuli. As the research of the National Institute of
Mental Health showed many years ago, some children want to copy media violence,
some are susceptible to other media influences, some become afraid, and many
just become desensitized. Just like an alcoholic would be inordinately tempted
by a beer commercial, so the propensity for susceptibility plays an important
part in what kind of media will influence your child at his or her specific
stage of development.
Children
go through different stages of cognitive development. Although there are many
factors that are common to all ages of development, there are also unique
distinctions.
Children
often see the world and the media quite differently than adults. Parents generally look at television
programs semantically in terms of the meaning of what is said or what is
happening. Children see syntactically
in terms of the action and special effects in the program. For instance, with
regard to music, a mother will say to her child, "Did you hear the lyrics
in that awful song?" And, the child will respond, "Ah Mom, I don't
listen to the words. Did you hear the rhythm and the beat?"
Cognitive
development is often directly impacted by the mass media, especially
television. It is important to understand that cognition is not thinking;
rather, thinking is part of cognition, and cognition itself is the process of
knowing, which philosophers and theologians call epistemology. Cognitive
development is similar to building a house step-by-step from a blueprint, or to
adding colors to our mental palette, or to installing an operating system in a
computer so that the computer can then do all the tasks, or thinking, that you
direct it to do.
Each
of these tasks must be done correctly and in the right order or the result will
be a disaster. The human operating system develops over many years in a series
of stages. Each stage has unique characteristics and each stage must develop
properly.
For
instance, once when I was teaching at an Ivy League graduate school, a woman in
the audience shrieked because her toddler had picked up a sharp instrument and
was about to do what every toddler does with whatever they pick up, which is
put it in his mouth. After quickly taking the sharp tool away from her toddler,
the mother started to lecture him.
After
the wave of concern in the room died down, I noted that toddlers are in the sensation
stage of cognitive development, which merely means that they learn through
their senses, and that taking the object away from her child was the right
thing to do, but lecturing the toddler would have no effect because the toddler
was not at that stage of development where he could understand the logic of her
arguments. Thus, I noted toddlers have to be protected by their parents and
cannot be expected to make wise decisions when they are presented with
dangerous situations.
When
you pass from one stage of development to another, you tend to forget what the
previous stage was like. Thus, when my six-year-old boy, Robby, was frightened
by a thunderstorm, my eleven-year-old, Peirce, tried to get his younger brother
to be quiet by telling him to "Shut up." When this compassionate
request didn't work, my oldest told Robby that the reason for the thunderstorm
was that God was angry with him. Of course, this only aggravated Robby’s
fears. I pointed out to Peirce that
Robby was affected by the storm very differently than he was because Robby was
in the imagination stage of development wherein his imagination was
predominant, and he was trying to sort out the difference between fact and
fiction.
I
reminded Peirce about the time he had a friend stay over night when he was
9-years-old, and the friend had nightmares all night long. The next morning, I
asked the young boy what was bothering him, and he said that his father had
taken him to see the R-rated movie TOTAL RECALL, an extremely violent movie.
The boy said that he didn't like the scene where Arnold Schwarzenegger shoots
Sharon Stone, who is posing as his wife, and says, "Consider that a
divorce."
When
I called his father to tell him of the fears expressed by his son, he replied
that his son was a man and that he took his son to a lot of R-rated movies. I
noted that his son was in the imagination stage of cognitive development and
was incapable of dealing with the violence in many R-rated movies. I said that
taking him to see these films was like putting him on the front line of
psychological and spiritual warfare just like sending children into battle
without adequate training and before they are big enough to carry their
weapons. After three months, the father called to say that I was right and that
he could see that his son was disturbed by the movies to which he had taken
him.
Perhaps
Lt. Col. David Grossman has done the most to help us understand the ability of
the mass media of entertainment to influence younger media consumers to
violence.
Lt.
Col. Grossman spent almost a quarter of a century as an army psychologist,
learning and studying how to enable people to kill. When he investigated the
killings by the 15 pre-adolescents and adolescents last year, he found that
there was a significant correlation between how the media had trained them to
kill, and how the army trains its recruits to kill.
Lt.
Col. Grossman points out that killing is unnatural. Killing requires training
because there is a built-in aversion to killing one's own kind. Only sociopaths
– who by definition don't have that resistance – lack this innate violence
immune system.
Thus,
children don't naturally kill. It is a learned skill, and they learn it from
violence in the home and, most pervasively, from violence as entertainment in
television, the movies, and interactive video games.
Understanding
how the military increases the killing rate of soldiers in combat is
instructive, Lt. Col. Grossman notes, because our culture today is doing the
same thing to our children. The training methods militaries use are
desensitization, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and role
modeling.
Lt.
Col. Grossman points out that brutalization and desensitization are what
happens at boot camp. From the moment you step off the bus, you are physically
and verbally abused: countless pushups, endless hours at attention or running
with heavy loads, while carefully trained professionals take turns screaming at
you. This brutalization is designed to break down your existing mores and norms
and to accept a new set of values that embrace destruction, violence and death
as a way of life. In the end, you are desensitized to violence and accept it as
a normal and essential survival skill in your brutal new world.
Something
very similar to this desensitization toward violence is happening to our
children through violence in the media – but instead of 18-year-olds, it begins
at the age of 18 months when a child is first able to discern what is happening
on television. Even though young children have some understanding of what it
means to pretend, they are developmentally unable to distinguish clearly
between fantasy and reality.
When
young children see somebody shot, stabbed, raped, brutalized, degraded, or
murdered on TV, to them it is as though it were actually happening. To have a
child of three, four or five watch a "splatter" movie, learning to
relate to a character for the first 90 minutes and then in the last 30 minutes
watch helplessly as that new friend is hunted and brutally murdered, is the
moral and psychological equivalent of introducing your child to a friend,
letting her play with that friend, and then butchering that friend in front of
your child's eyes. Regrettably, this happens to our children hundreds upon
hundreds of times.
Lt.
Col. Grossman shows that the Japanese were masters at using classical
conditioning with their soldiers. Early in World War II, Chinese prisoners were
placed in a ditch on their knees with their hands bound behind them. One by
one, a select few Japanese soldiers would go into the ditch and bayonet
"their" prisoner to death. Up on the bank, countless other young
soldiers would cheer them on in their violence. Comparatively few soldiers
actually killed in these situations, but by making the others watch and cheer,
the Japanese were able to use these kinds of atrocities to classically
condition a very large audience to associate pleasure with human death and
suffering. Immediately afterwards, the soldiers who had been spectators were
treated to sake, the best meal they had had in months, and to so-called comfort
girls. The result? They learned to associate committing violent acts with
pleasure.
Operant
conditioning teaches you to kill, but classical conditioning is a subtle but
powerful mechanism that teaches you to like it.
As
Lt. Col. Grossman shows, our children watch vivid pictures of human suffering
and death, and they learn to associate it with their favorite soft drink and
candy bar, or their girlfriend's perfume.
Lt.
Col. Grossman states that the third method the military uses is operant
conditioning, a very powerful procedure of stimulus-response,
stimulus-response. A benign example is the use of flight simulators to train
pilots. An airline pilot in training sits in front of a flight simulator for
endless hours; when a particular warning light goes on, he is taught to react
in a certain way. When another warning light goes on, a different reaction is
required. Stimulus-response, stimulus-response, stimulus-response. One day the
pilot is actually flying a jumbo jet; the plane is going down, and 300 people
are screaming behind him. He is scared out of his wits; but he does the right
thing. Why? Because he has been conditioned to respond reflexively to this
particular crisis.
The
military and law enforcement community have made killing a conditioned
response. Whereas infantry training in World War II used bull's-eye targets,
now soldiers learn to fire at realistic, man-shaped silhouettes that pop into
their field of view. That is the stimulus. The trainees have only a split second
to engage the target. The conditioned response is to shoot the target, and then
it drops. Stimulus-response, stimulus-response, stimulus-response – soldiers or
police officers experience hundreds of repetitions. Later, when soldiers are on
the battlefield or a police officer is walking a beat and somebody pops up with
a gun, they will shoot reflexively and shoot to kill. 75 to 80 percent of the
shooting on the modern battlefield is the result of this kind of
stimulus-response training.
Now,
if you're a little troubled by that, how much more should we be troubled by the
fact that every time a child plays an interactive point-and-shoot video game,
he is learning the exact same conditioned reflex and motor skills.
Lt.
Col. Grossman says that he was an expert witness in a murder case in South
Carolina offering mitigation for a boy who was facing the death penalty. He
tried to explain to the jury that interactive video games had conditioned him
to shoot a gun to kill. He had spent hundreds of dollars on video games
learning to point and shoot, point and shoot. One day he and his buddy decided
it would be fun to rob the local convenience store. They entered, and he
pointed a snub-nosed .38 pistol at the clerk's head. The clerk turned to look
at him, and the defendant shot reflexively from about six feet. The bullet hit
the clerk right between the eyes - which is a
pretty remarkable shot with that weapon at that range – and killed this father
of two.
Afterward,
Lt. Col. Grossman asked the boy what happened and why he did it. It clearly was
not part of the plan to kill the guy – it was being videotaped from six
different directions. He said, “I don't know. It was a mistake. It wasn't
supposed to happen.”
One
of the boys allegedly involved in the Jonesboro shootings (and they are just
boys) had a fair amount of experience shooting real guns. The other one was a
non-shooter and, to the best of our knowledge, had almost no experience
shooting. Between them, those two boys fired 27 shots from a range of over 100
yards, and they hit 15 people. That's pretty remarkable shooting.
Lt.
Col. Grossman says that he runs into these situations often – kids who have
never picked up a gun in their lives pick up a real gun and are incredibly
accurate. Why? Video games.
Lt.
Col. Grossman notes that in the military, you are immediately confronted with a
role model: your drill sergeant. He personifies violence and aggression. Along
with military heroes, these violent role models have always been used to influence
young, impressionable minds.
Today,
the media are providing our children with role models, and this can be seen not
just in the lawless sociopaths in movies and TV shows, but it can also be seen
in the media-inspired, copycat aspects of the Jonesboro murders. This is the
part of these juvenile crimes that the TV networks would much rather not
report.
When
the pictures of teenage killers appear on TV, somewhere there is a potentially
violent little boy who says to himself, “Well, I'll show all those people who
have been mean to me. I know how to get my picture on TV too.”
Thus,
Lt. Col. Grossman notes we get copycat, cluster murders that work their way
across America like a virus spread by the six o'clock news. No matter what
someone has done, if you put his picture on TV, you have made him a celebrity,
and someone, somewhere, will emulate him.
The
lineage of the Jonesboro shootings began at Pearl, Mississippi, fewer than six
months before. In Pearl, a 16-year-old boy was accused of killing his mother and
then going to his school and shooting nine students, two of whom died,
including his ex-girlfriend. Two months later, this virus spread to Paducah,
Kentucky, where a 14-year-old boy was arrested for killing three students and
wounding five others.
A
very important step in the spread of this copycat crime virus occurred in
Stamps, Arkansas, 15 days after Pearl and just a little over 90 days before
Jonesboro. In Stamps, a 14-year-old boy, who was angry with his schoolmates,
hid in the woods and fired at children as they came out of school. Sound
familiar? Only two children were injured in this crime, so most of the world
didn't hear about it; but it got great regional coverage on TV, and two little
boys in Jonesboro, Arkansas, probably did hear about it.
Is
this a reasonable price to pay for the TV networks' “right” to turn juvenile
defendants into celebrities and role models by playing up their pictures on TV?
The
third part of media wisdom is understanding the grammar of the media so that
you can deconstruct and critique what you are watching by asking the right
questions. Children spend the first 14 years of their lives learning grammar
with respect to 16th Century technology -
the written word. They need to be taught the grammar of 21st Century
technology. Thus, they need to know how aspects of different media work and
influence them, who controls the entertainment media and how, and how to be
able to ask the right questions of what they watch, such as, Who is the hero?
the villain? And, what is the premise?
Contrary
to common sense and the weight of evidence, for many years people in the
audience accepted the fallacy that the media did not influence their
behavior. These people failed to make
wise choices in their media consumption and, consequently, contributed to the
support of degrading, unwholesome and often immoral media.
Of
course, many of them wanted to believe the media myth because they lusted after
the illicit, the emotive and the evocative much like media addicted children
who argue the media don’t influence them while begging and whining for the
latest trendy, media-hyped product or article of clothing.
Most
people no longer believe the false disclaimers of the media spokespersons and
now think the biggest problem facing our society is a breakdown of morality,
which they attribute to the negative influence of the mass media.
After
years of denial, even 87% of the top media executives now admit that the
violence in the mass media contribute to the violence in society.[1] And children, too, are aware of the ability
of the entertainment media to influence their behavior.[2]
People
throughout the world have a particular distrust and disdain for the negative
influence of the explicit entertainment being produced by Hollywood.
While
such awareness is important, awareness alone is not the answer to the
problem. It is, of course, the first
step toward the answer.
The
answer is to go beyond complaining.
People must be helped to develop the media awareness and discernment
skills to use the entertainment media without being abused by it.
The
fourth part of media wisdom, your children need to understand their Christian
values so they can be able to use those values to evaluate the answers they get
from asking the right questions. If the hero wins by murdering and mutilating,
your children need to understand why this is bad, no matter how likeable the
hero seems to be on the surface.
Parents
have an easier time than teachers with number four, because they can apply
their deeply held beliefs to evaluate the media. Even so, media literacy and
values education are two of the fastest growing areas in the academic
community, because educators realize that something is amiss. Therefore, I
speak all around the world at national education associations and present my deeply
held Christian beliefs as the yardstick that I use to evaluate the
ascertainment questions needing to be asked.
Yale
scholar Harold Bloom analyzes the emergence of a post-Christian America in his
book, THE AMERICAN RELIGION, and says that the god we worship is
ourselves. He says the real religion of
America is Gnosticism, an elitist heresy that combines mystical Greek and
oriental philosophies and claims that a person needed special knowledge to get
to the highest heaven. Christianity
posits that you need no special knowledge because Jesus Christ offers salvation
to all who believe in Him by faith, which is a gift from God.
Considering
the plethora of worldviews presented in the mass media, it is important to have
a basic knowledge of them and how they differ. The more you understand these
worldviews and how they differ, the better your discernment in all areas of
life, including the mass media.
To
understand the worldview of a movie, you must discern its doctrine of reality,
doctrine of creation, doctrine of man, doctrine of salvation, doctrine of
knowledge, and the other 20 critical components of a biblical Christian
worldview.
Then,
the child must ask the right questions to discern the basic components of the
movie or other media product and compare the answers to the plumb line of your
biblical standards.
The
final aspect of media wisdom is to understand how to redeem the values of the
mass media of entertainment. The Christian Film & Television Commission™
ministry has had great success in this regard as noted earlier.
In
1983, after serving as president of the organization that produced the Emmy
Award winning C.S. Lewis CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE
WARDROBE for CBS TV and after funding five feature films, I met George
Heimrich, director of the Protestant Film Office in the 1950s and 1960s.
Inspired by the ministry of the Protestant Film Office, I reinstated that
important work by establishing the Christian Film & Television Commission™
as the only Christian advocacy group in Hollywood listed with the guilds. Mr.
Heimrich donated his Protestant Film Office files to the Christian Film &
Television Commission™ where they now reside. Since then, the Christian Film
& Television Commission™ has served as a liaison, working with studio
executives in understanding the needs and concerns of the general public for
wholesome, family entertainment.
The
Christian Film & Television Commission™ is a ministry dedicated to
redeeming the values of the mass media according to biblical principles:
-
by influencing media executives to adopt
higher standards imbued with Christian and traditional family values, and
-
by informing and equipping moral people in America and around the world,
especially parents, families and Christians, to make wise media choices based
on the biblical worldview.
In
1985, after understanding that the most important person in Hollywood is the
teenager who buys most tickets at the box office, I began publishing
MOVIEGUIDE®, a monthly family guide to movies and entertainment magazine which
reviews all movies from a Christian perspective. MOVIEGUIDE® helps parents know
before their children go. It is the most reliable guide to moviegoers in
helping them choose the good and reject the bad. MOVIEGUIDE®’s very accurate
content ratings note not only sex, violence and profanity, but also worldview,
theology, philosophy, and other important criteria.
Also
starting in 1985, I began teaching parents and Christian leaders how to teach
children how to discern between good and bad entertainment and how to build in
them the desire to choose the good. This training led eventually to his THE
MEDIA-WISE FAMILY™ book, video series and audiotapes.
For
these seminars, I draw upon years of theological training (I am on the Steering
Committee of the Theological Summit Conference) and my research into cognitive
development theory and the influence of the mass media of entertainment during
his tenure during the late 1970s as the Director of the TV Center at City
University of New York, one of the top three television departments in the
United States. As the director of the TV Center, I did important research into
the influence of the mass media of entertainment for a Temple University
program on the mass media of entertainment, sponsored by the Annenberg
Institute, and incorporated into the research the National Institute of Mental
Health’s studies in the late 1970s on the mass media’s influence.
From
the detailed information that MOVIEGUIDE® is unique in gathering, I also
started my “Report to the Entertainment Industry,” an insightful box office
analysis of the vast moral American audience. Information on negative or
positive content, Biblical or anti-Biblical themes, increase or decrease of sex
or violence, and over 20 other indicators is carefully tabulated and compared
with box-office receipts for several years. Based on this empirical data, I
have been able to prove to Hollywood executives that America’s public prefers
wholesome, worthwhile, moral movies, and it would benefit these executives to
support the production of more good movies.
Along
with the yearly “Report to the Entertainment Industry,” I select the ten best
family friendly and the ten best morally edifying mature audience films of the
year and awards the producers, directors, writers, and distribution companies
associated with these movies plaques of recognition at an annual awards
ceremony in Hollywood. I also present the coveted $25,000 Epiphany Prizes for
the Most Inspiring Movies and Television Programs. These are cash prizes
granted to movies and television programs which help people to know and
understand God and His love.
Now
armed with more than 50 years of statistical information, 20 years of research
and support from leaders in the entertainment industry, I am doing more than
watching the world change – I am using the media to change the media. The most
important part of this missionary work is, of course, promoting the Gospel of
Jesus Christ in a unique way that satisfies the real spiritual needs of all
people.
Although
there are several Christian fellowship and evangelism groups, the Christian
Film & Television Commission is the only Christian advocacy group in the
entertainment industry out of over 300 advocacy groups in the entertainment
industry. As an advocacy group with a missionary focus, we work with the major
entertainment companies to help them understand the concerns of the 135 to 165
million Americans who go to church every week.
As
an example of the advocacy work of The Christian Film & Television
Commission, Jeffrey Katzenberg of DreamWorks contacted me to recruit the top
Christian theologians to work on the development of the God-centered production
of the groundbreaking animated movie, THE PRINCE OF EGYPT. These theologians contributed
to the moral and theological excellence of that production.
Each
year around Oscar time, MOVIEGUIDE® hosts the Annual MOVIEGUIDE® Awards Gala
and Report to the Entertainment Industry in Hollywood, where it rewards the
best worthwhile movies and TV programs of the previous year. At the gala event,
I present a statistical analysis based on the magazine’s reviews, the Annual
Report to the Entertainment Industry. This analysis consistently shows that
worthwhile movies with moral, biblical or even pro-Christian stories, themes,
sounds, and images usually make far more money at the box office on average
than movies with excessive violence, foul language, nudity, explicit sex, and
other content that strongly violates traditional family values and traditional
Christian teachings.
Thus,
the mass media of entertainment needs to do much more to reach the traditional
church-going family audience if it wants to increase its profits. The
entertainment industry can do this by making more worthwhile movies with traditional
biblical values and traditional biblical creeds and learning how to market them
better. Christian Film & Television Commission™ ministry and MOVIEGUIDE®’s
staff and supporters want to help industry leaders do just that, not only by
analyzing trends and handing out awards but also by consulting with filmmakers,
industry leaders and publicists on various projects.
The
Commission also sponsors the very important MEDIA-WISE FAMILY seminars to help
families teach their children to be media-wise, in a God-centered and
Christocentric way, informed by the biblical worldview based on God’s Word. I
have spoken to countless groups, including family groups and church-based
groups, in America, Europe and Asia about developing media wisdom for them and
their families, children, friends, and colleagues. Among the many academic
institutions where I have presented MEDIA-WISE FAMILY lectures are Dartmouth
College, the University of Virginia, UCLA, and the University of Sheffield in
the U.K.
Measuring Success in this Mission Field
The ultimate measure of success is the
changed hearts and minds of the Hollywood decision makers. Thus, the production
of more acceptable movies is a measure of success. In this regard, when
we started Christian Film & Television Commission™ (1978)/MOVIEGUIDE®
in
1985, there was only one movie with positive Christian content; last year,
there were 116 or 42 percent of the movies released. When we started there were
only six movies aimed at families; last year, there were over 40 percent. When
we started, more than 80 percent of the movies were R-rated; now, less than 45
percent are R-rated each year. Furthermore, in recent years, 80 to 90 percent
of the Top Five to Ten Movies at the Box Office have been either family movies
with traditional moral values or movies with strong, positive Christian content
and worldviews, like FINDING NEMO or THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. The chairman of
a major movie studio recently told me at lunch that he attributed these shifts
directly to our influence and our economic benchmarking of the entertainment
industry.
There are important demographic reasons
for this shift, especially the impact of the 77 million Generation Y-ers on the
box office. The Christian Film & Television Commission™ and its
publication, MOVIEGUIDE®, led the entertainment industry by showing them the
direction this generational demographic shift was going many months and
sometimes years before it was reported in the entertainment industry journals
and the Los Angeles Times.
In this regard, it is very important to
help the most powerful person in the entertainment industry, the consumer,
choose the good and reject the bad,
thus affecting the box office. This can be done by having more people
reached with the MOVIEGUIDE® and THE MEDIA-WISE FAMILY message, and more press,
more television coverage contribute to this goal.
The Annual MOVIEGUIDE® Awards Gala and
Report to the Entertainment Industry is targeted at the top entertainment
industry leaders who can green light (approve) movies and television programs
and thus imprint their interpretation of morality and spirituality onto the
whole of global society; and, at the millions of movie consumers who need to be
encouraged to be media-wise so that they can support the good and reject bad
entertainment. Through our broadcast of the Awards Gala on TV, the event will
also reach millions of entertainment consumers, who can also influence
Hollywood by changing the way consumers vote at the box office.
By bringing together the top
entertainment decision-makers to receive their prizes and awards, this annual
event provides an effective forum for my Report to the Entertainment Industry,
which graphically presents the economic benefits of adhering to worthwhile
moral and spiritual principles. The Report to the Entertainment Industry shows
these entertainment leaders that someone is watching, counting and analyzing
their work. In the process, it shows that concerned people are intelligent
consumers and not merely passive fodder for the entertainment publicity mill.
The report presents carefully researched statistics which dispel the myths that
sex and violence sells . . . and shows that worthwhile, redemptive movies
prosper. This report has inspired many of these media decision-makers to change
their values and improve the products they produce.
Thus, one can also measure the success
of the Annual MOVIEGUIDE® Awards Gala and Report to the Entertainment Industry
by the Hollywood executives and talent who attend the event, including their testimonials.
Establishing personal relationships with these decision makers is crucial if we
are to have a positive influence on the mass media of entertainment. This is an
ongoing process, however, which takes years of continued effort to achieve
higher and higher levels of success.
Attracting major stars to both give
awards and to accept awards is an important part of measuring the success of
each Awards Gala, because they can give us a higher level of visibility in
Hollywood, in the news media and in society at-large. Such higher visibility
also can help us promote our missionary outreach. Therefore, another way to
measure success is by the amount of press clippings we receive from both the
secular media and the Christian media for each Annual MOVIEGUIDE® Awards Gala
and Report to the Entertainment Industry and the ongoing work of the ministry.
Next, one can measure success by the
number of TV networks and stations which pick up our annual broadcast version
of the Awards Gala. The timeslots in which the program airs air are just as
important, if not more so. Such high exposure helps us solicit subscriptions
for MOVIEGUIDE®, as well as generate interest in my Annual Report to the
Entertainment Industry and in my MEDIA-WISE FAMILY seminars. Consequently, our
success is also measured by the number of requests we receive for these items,
not only from the entertainment industry but from consumers, including parents
and families, as well.
Finally, we measure our success by
whether we accomplish our goal of witnessing to Hollywood, and the world, about
the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the wonder of His Grace, Mercy and
Love. Thus, Christian faith, energized by God’s Love, must be the central focus
of everything we do. If we succeed in expressing that faith, then God
spiritually will bless us a million fold.
These
charts will help you understand our two-pronged strategy: (Show
charts) (Show
videos)
Recently,
Variety, the premier trade publication for the entertainment industry, noted
that the Christian Film & Television Commission™ is the leading Christian
group trying to improve the moral content of movies. We welcome your support in
helping us to redeem the values of the entertainment industry, so that we can
transform our culture with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
If
we had time, I would show you a video of a little first grader in Texas. When
we were producing our MEDIA-WISE FAMILY™ DVD, we videotaped a first grade
classroom in a very conservative Christian school. I asked the first graders
how many had seen the most violent movie of the year at that time: SCREAM.
Almost half of the children rasied their hands. The prodcuer said that these
little children could not have seen it, so I asked if anyone would tell me
thestory. One little boy told the class about all the sex and violence in the
movie. I asked him if he liked sex and violence and he said, "Yes."
The teacher was in ttears. She said that she had ask the father not to take the
boy to violent movie, btut eh father said that she should not tell him how to
raise his son.
Therefore,
we must clean up the mass media of entertainment for the benefit of our
children and grandchildren and the health of our families.
Hallmark
Cards in the USA used to have a saying, "For those you care enough to give
the very best."
What
is the key word there?
Do
you care enough to learn how to teach your children and grandchildren how to be
media wise?
If
so, we can redeem the values of the mass media of entertainment to affirm and
defend the natural family.
