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to fight Smokin' Joe
Group challenges Lieberman's anti-violence bill
By David Everitt
Senator Joe Lieberman has not only enlisted new allies and introduced a new bill in his crusade against media violence. He has also made a new enemy.
The Creative Coalition, an entertainment-industry activist group, is starting a campaign of its own to kill the Media Marketing Accountability Act, co-sponsored by Lieberman, Senator Hillary Clinton and Representatives Tom Osborne and Steven Israel.
The bill is designed to stop the marketing of adult material to children.
The Creative Coalition argues that Congress is getting out of line.
"This is not a legislative issue," says Robin Bronk, the Coalition’s executive director, "and it significantly threatens the First Amendment by trying to lump entertainment content under the deceptive-advertising label."
The bill’s premise is that the entertainment industry is guilty of false advertising when it markets such products as R-rated movies to audiences that include children, even though the products are clearly labeled and rated.
Bronk insists that the solution to this marketing issue lies within the entertainment industry. Monitoring its own marketing techniques is one solution.
But Bronk also introduces a new idea to the debate--media education.
"We’ve begun a media literacy program," she says, "to help kids become more savvy about the entertainment they watch. We’ll be running a series of town hall meetings that will include entertainment figures to help give parents what they need to know to make the next generation media-literate, to make distinctions, for instance, between infomercials and the news."
As for the industry cleaning its own house, a recent FTC report conceded that the entertainment business has taken steps to make its marketing techniques more family-conscious. The coalition maintains that the industry is ready to keep moving in that direction.
Sponsors of the marketing bill have their doubts.
"We praise their accomplishments, such as ending the practice of screening trailers for R-rated movies to audiences at G-rated films," says Rep. Steven Israel, "but we criticize the continuing practice of showing ads for R-rated movies on children's shows during family viewing hours."
Israel is keeping his eye on the film, video game and recording industries, but "my concern is more with the recording industry. I’m deeply disappointed. They continue to put parental notification on their products and then market them aggressively in ads targeted at children."
If the bill passes, the FTC would have the power to police these advertising tactics. First the commission would issue a cease-and-desist order to the offending company. Then, if the commission decided that the company was continuing to market deceptively, it could impose fines of up to $11,000 a day.
By joining the fray over this issue, the Creative Coalition is lining up alongside the Motion Picture Association of America, which has already issued a challenge to Lieberman and his co-sponsors.
MPAA president Jack Valenti has said that passage of the bill would prompt studios to release movies without ratings as a way to avoid penalties. Bronk appreciates the logic of this position.
"What this bill would do," she says, "is immunize producers not taking part in the ratings system and penalize those that do."
In theory, yes, this makes sense. But you have to wonder if the MPAA statement is a bluff.
The only reason the MPAA instituted a ratings system in the first place was to convince legislatures that they didn’t need to impose government regulations on the film industry. Releasing films unrated now would seem to invite government involvement instead of discouraging it, as the MPAA would like.
"I can’t believe the studios would do that, release their films unrated," says Israel. "That would be an irresponsible form of virtual blackmail that I think could backfire disastrously. Rather than talk about moving backwards, they should take credit for their success and build upon it."
Although she understands the rationale for the MPAA statements, Bronk prefers to emphasize a more civic-minded approach.
The Creative Coalition has pursued the issue by sending letters to the co-sponsors of the marketing bill and issuing an appeal to President Bush. The organization is trying to make it clear that the entertainment industry plans to cooperate.
"There’s always room for improvement in the ratings system. People are always looking for more information about content. And if the ratings system is not working, then there should be pressure to improve it. Legislation is not the answer."
Bronk also points out that there needs to be a better understanding of what ratings are and what they provide.
"They’re not a stand-alone parenting tool," she says. "You still need parental supervision."
July 17, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-David Everitt covers technology and social issues for Media Life, writing from Huntington, New York.
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