The president's giving Hollywood a pass on violence

Several policy changes could make significant strides toward reducing young people’s exposure to violence. One obvious action would be to restrict violence on television that can be seen by young people. Right now the Federal Communications Commission has no rules regulating TV violence—the agency’s content regulations apply only to language and sexual content. The FCC itself has recognized that its inability to oversee violent content is a problem and in a 2007 report to Congress called for changing the rules.

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That same report, issued when the agency was headed by Kevin Martin, also called for an end to channel “bundling” by cable and satellite companies, the practice of forcing subscribers to pay for channels they don’t watch. Parents should be allowed to choose which cable or satellite channels—sources of the most extreme content—come into their homes. Parents shouldn’t be obliged to act as the sole filters for the torrent of material, as they are today, blocking channels and password-protecting against the ever-shifting programming.

Another helpful proposal would be to institute a real movie ratings system. As anyone who has recently seen PG-13 movies knows, the level of violence in them has increased to the point of making the Motion Picture Association of America’s voluntary rating system meaningless. Like the FCC’s rules for television, MPAA ratings emphasize sex and language over violence. The result? Feature films like Vin Diesel’s “Fast Five”—which includes people being shot, blood spurting, necks being broken and horrific car crashes—receive a PG-13.

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