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"This is the first time...kids are learning how to behave from watching TV rather than from watching real people." - family expert Mary Pipher After Janet Jackson's Super Bowl striptease, the Laguna Beach Unified School Board, days earlier having granted MTV permission to shoot a reality TV series at its high school campus, rescinded that agreement. For permission to film, the district expected a $40,000 payment. Following a lengthy application/interview process, 10 students were chosen to "star" in the series, agreeing to be stalked by MTV camera crews on and off campus. Anticipating concerns about how lights, cameras and voyeurism might negatively affect actual learning, MTV had given its word not to interfere with the education process. "It's an exciting opportunity," gushed Superintendent Theresa Daem, quoted in the local Laguna News-Post. Then came the Super Bowl, and like Jackson's blouse, all bets were off. Says Dr. K Turner, a member of the school board, "When MTV came to us, initially none of us wanted to have anything to do with them because we felt like that's not what we're here for." But MTV insisted that they were producing a "documentary" and, according to Turner, "We thought maybe some positive publicity around teenagers would be a good thing." MTV, positive? Turner was quoted after the Super Bowl in the Orange County Register: "Every one of us knew it was a sleaze operation." It's hard to believe that the board was so unaware of MTV's modus operandi of titillation and objectification. Or that its members did not recognize the MTV deal as a microcosm of a larger challenge, one that the Los Angeles Times' Steve Lopez defined in an October 2003 column as he lamented raising his daughter in today's society: "Everyone is on the make." In a small way, Jackson's breast may have exposed again America's unease with the lowest common denominator and the increasing effort by media to reach ever-younger children. The latest outcry might carry more than an echo: A February Gallup Poll shows that 75 percent of Americans believe the entertainment industry should make a serious effort to reduce the amount of sex and violence in movies, television shows and music. Some 24 percent say this isn't necessary. Yet, despite the hue and cry over Janet Jackson, these numbers actually represent a decline: Gallup results in 1995 found that 83 percent of Americans were critical of the entertainment industry's efforts. Polling nine years ago was closer to the time then-Vice President Dan Quayle chastised "Murphy Brown" for its portrayal of a fatherless household, and long before reality TV shows topped the ratings lists, putting at risk family shows that mimic "Cosby" for shows that star hulking lame brains and titillating single women. Today's irony - family values rank exceedingly high on any national poll, yet "Survivor"-type programming seems to be the moral standard - requires subtlety and incongruity. School boards and the rest of us should not even pretend to characterize the phenomenon of selling out our children. Indeed, they are bought and sold so easily by media, so routinely that they - or those we elect to serve their needs - actually volunteer for the "opportunity" to become cartoons, objects and the demographic ideal for product research. While an on-campus reality show may seem extreme, Jean Kilbourne, in her book, "Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel," documents the trend of easy exploitation through an increasingly aggressive ad presence on campus: "Ads are emblazoned on school buses, scoreboards, and book covers...corporations provide 'free' material for teachers, and...many children are a captive audience for the commercials on Channel One, a marketing program that gives video equipment to desperate schools in exchange for the right to broadcast a 'news' program studded with commercials to all students every morning." Broadcasters (even Howard Stern, who is getting bumped from a couple of radio stations) are feeling the heat. The Wall Street Journal in late February reported on the firing of Bubba the Love Sponge (Todd Clem), a shock jock employed by Clear Channel Communications, Inc. "In January, the Federal Communications Commission proposed a $755,000 fine against Clear Channel - its biggest indecency fine in history - for 26 alleged violations of indecency laws by Mr. Clem dating back to 2001," the newspaper reported. Clear Channel now has, at least for the moment, a zero-tolerance policy for indecency at its more than 1,200 radio stations. And, for the moment, sex and violence are on notice. Kilbourne points out what is, apparently, difficult for some otherwise thoughtful and committed educators to see: "Imagine the public outcry if a political or religious group offered schools an information package with 10 minutes of news and two minutes of political or religious persuasion. Yet we tend to think of commercial persuasion as somehow neutral, although it certainly promotes beliefs and behavior that have significant and sometimes harmful effects on the individual, the family, the society, and the environment." Fact: Children are particularly vulnerable to TV and related media messages, whether embedded in ads or entertainment. Fact: These messages go well beyond the simple plea to buy, buy, buy. They promote values, encourage attitude and glorify behavior. A generation ago, parents objected to rock 'n' roll, MAD magazine, bellbottoms. Children back then begged for dolls and Hot Wheels cars. Kids bought records and copies of "The Exorcist" and "Carrie," hiding them from Mom and Dad. It was fun. There existed, for good or bad, a clear distinction between what we learned in school and the underground collective teenage consumption of forbidden fruit. Parents didn't seem to know what the latest marketing trend was anyway, at least not until the holidays. Today the increased advertising presence in schools is a troubling extension of its pervasive presence at home. The message reaches the child from so many avenues, with so many twists, that acting as censor is very difficult. It's there on the billboards, on the Internet, in racks of magazines at the local bookstore. Family counselor and social critic Johann Cristoph Arnold, in his book, "Endangered: Your Child in a Hostile World," declares that "children today are exposed to a steady barrage of images and expressions whose combined effect may be far greater than that of the most caring adult in their immediate lives. I am speaking, of course, of the entertainment industry, and the Internet, and the way in which they have replaced parents as the ultimate source of authority in millions of 'wired' homes around the globe." He cites Mary Pipher, family expert and author of "Reviving Ophelia," who warns: "This is the first time in the history of the human race that kids are learning how to behave from watching TV rather than from watching real people." The late media critic Neil Postman noted the phenomenon more than 20 years ago in his seminal book, "The Disappearance of Childhood." He warned that television was supplanting a role in the coming-of-age processes, in how children learn about the world and their places in it. The problem, as Postman saw it, was that TV is "an open-admission technology to which there are no physical, economic, cognitive or imaginative restraints. The 6-year-old and the 60-year-old are equally qualified to experience what television has to offer." Qualified. Which means that, while it takes time to learn the alphabet, to pound a nail with a hammer, to play the violin, to read a novel with mature themes, "learning" to watch television can be achieved by anybody, immediately. They become qualified, proficient, literate if you will, in hours or even minutes by simply clicking on the remote. Back then, Postman noted a trend now in full bloom: the presentation of children in the media not as children, but as "miniature adults" whose "interests, language, dress or sexuality" do not "differ significantly" from their adult character counterparts. So, sitting them in front of television is giving them hammer, nails, violin all at once, absent practical or spiritual instruction. Parents might anticipate benign or meaningless results. Or catastrophe. With billions in profit at stake, children and adolescents are a deliberate target of the miniature adult strategy. Kilbourne cites this boast by the Turner Cartoon Network to its advertisers: "'Today's kids influence over $130 billion of their parents' spending annually. Kids also spend $8 billion of their own money. That makes these little consumers big business.'" And she adds this from Mike Searles, president of Kids R Us: "If you own this child at an early age, you can own this child for years to come. Companies are saying, 'Hey, I want to own the kid younger and younger.'" Remember that old "Saturday Night Live" sketch about the unapologetic "toy" salesman being grilled by an investigative journalist about his nifty "Bag of Glass" toy? He calls it "educational," not to mention fun for the kiddies. We laugh at that Dan Ackroyd character, which depends on clearly recognizing the line between danger, risk, value and, yes, education. In 30 years, industry has successfully blurred that line. How, exactly? In part through linking every film, TV show, video and character with a collateral product. In part through co-opting, wearing down, tiring out and infantilizing parents, who should know a powerful alliance between media and the toy industry when they see one. And who might, if they were not quite so tired and perhaps just a little braver, challenge this brave new world of corporatization and globalization. In his study, "Out of the Garden: Toys and Children's Culture in the Age of TV Marketing," Canadian communications Professor Stephen Kline asserts, "We cannot lose sight of the question of quality when the cultural products delivered by the market are ultimately motivated not by an interest in the desire to enlighten, integrate, or even educate the child, but by economic considerations." Consider the Bratz doll phenomenon. First introduced in 2001, this posse of multiracial girlfriends clad in shrunken, shredded clothing manages to make Barbie, once scandalous, seem sedate. Clothing is all that's shrunken on their otherwise well-developed figures. The Bratz pack epitomizes trashy glamour, exemplified in the MTV aesthetic: Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce, former Mouseketeers Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, and, yes, Janet Jackson. It's a long way from Annette Funicello. It's important to see Bratz as the latest model of a blend of sexy innocence and unattainable and exaggerated feminine beauty that teaches girls to objectify themselves. It's echoed in the boy toy aisle where hyper-masculine "action figures" replace dolls and the message isn't so much dress up as lock and load. Parents, embarrassed in the checkout line, shrug and commiserate with one another: What can you do? They want it. How can I say no? What harm is it? Johann Arnold warns, "In fact, the hard truth is that the most convenient solution may hide the gravest dangers. But in a land of fast food and credit cards, tanning salons and 24-hour TV, that's not popular advice." The problem, he suggests, is a profound lack of reverence for children and for the rest of us, the grown children. Certainly, advertisers don't revere our children. MTV doesn't revere our children. So we must. Today's challenge is, frankly, overwhelming. The Internet, cable, classroom ads. Being overwhelmed is easy because, indeed, overwhelming us is the strategy. Rebellion is risky, difficult. It requires patience, perseverance and a full commitment to remain engaged with our children as they encounter these forces, our rivals for authority and influence. Postman claimed that most parents were not up to the challenge. But think of the care you took with your baby, especially in those early months when she seemed so vulnerable. You kept her warm, or strapped her snugly into the carseat. There were vaccinations. You worried about the pain, the possible side effects. You vaccinated your children against diseases that threatened them. Prevention. Protection. Much of parenting is making decisions for our children until they can make them for themselves. So why do we hesitate to vaccinate against other threats? Lisa Alvarez of Laguna Beach is an English professor at Irvine Valley College. Senior Writer Kimberly A. Porrazzo and Executive Editor Craig Reem contributed to this report. The Good with the Bad Looking at both sides of the media coin Where Pamela Ezell sees overt violence and sex during the family hour, she also sees the huge success of "Finding Nemo" and the popularity of "Everybody Loves Raymond." "We can't take the short view that it is all bad, and that the whole world is NC-17. But there will always be media marketed to families," says the Chapman University assistant professor of English. Ezell teaches classes in popular culture, was a recent contributor on a book about "The West Wing," and has worked in TV as a writer. Ezell says it is a given that "people know better than to sit down with their young children and watch 'Sex and the City.'" But expect outrage when Janet Jackson exposes all without warning during a cultural event such as the Super Bowl. "What concerns parents is the sleaze factor, or sleazy element coming into mainstream entertainment, that parents are unaware of, and need to censor," says Ezell. For popular culture, boundaries are snapped from time to time: In the 1970s, it was "All in the Family." In video games, it has gone from Pong to decapitation. Ezell points to a show that "broke a lot of barriers" in recent years: "Friends." That balance is in constant sway, going from one extreme to another, she suggests. America fell in love with the Beatles and "I Want to Hold Your Hand," but had a tougher time handling a more controversial John Lennon. Elvis Presley couldn't be filmed for a time from the waste down as he gyrated to his songs. Today, we have Britney Spears influencing teenage girls. "There isn't a parent in America who hopes that her daughter grows up and dresses like she does," Ezell says. "What she sings, how she behaves...is meant to be shocking." And, like many stars going to the extreme edge of influence, one incident may be too much. For Spears, it was a silly, sudden marriage in Las Vegas. "Parents and the girls will overlook a lot of outrageous behavior, but when these stars step over the line, they react swiftly," Ezell says. "What concerns me is not that we have these stars who seem pretty grown up and appealing to kids, but the pervasive influence that media corporations have over kids at such a young age. They are bombarded by branding. They are completely saturated by the images and products that these media corporations promote. I don't remember media control being quite as effective and all-pervasive as it is today; to me, that is part of the difference, in that kids get so much more from TV and films and video games and less and less from school, and library and family. They become less important as media become more important." Rather than stepping back, Ezell suggests that parents be "vigilant." "Parents need to talk a lot more about what this imagery is; parents can't just turn off the TV and think that is the end of it. Kids...have feelings about it, and they don't know how to express. Parents and teachers have to talk about it: Why Janet Jackson is a problem. Why does she feel a need to be undressed on television? What societal value puts women in a position that being naked is a marketing ploy?" As for the future, Ezell predicts: "In some ways we won't go backwards, but in other ways, we'll come back in balance." Just don't expect her to sit through "Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance." That, she says, "borders on bad taste." - By Craig Reem Book Review "Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel" by Jean Kilbourne "It turns lovers into things and things into lovers and encourages us to feel passion for our products rather than our partners." - Jean Kilbourne, in her book on media messages Advertisers spend billions of dollars trying to lay claim to the money in your wallet. The car you drive, the home you live in and the clothes you wear may well be the result of some ad copywriter trying to get inside your head, trying to make you think YOU came up with the great idea to purchase the product they're being paid to promote. While advertisers spend bundles to learn how we respond to their messages, Jean Kilbourne has spent a lifetime examining the messages themselves. What started as a simple observation (her gut reaction to an ad she saw in 1968) has resulted in books, films and lectures, all intending to warn us of the gripping power of the advertisement. In "Can't Buy My Love," Kilbourne says that advertising can cause "relationships to flounder and addictions to flourish." She believes, "It turns lovers into things and things into lovers and encourages us to feel passion for our products rather than our partners." And she is passionate about how current campaigns devalue women. Some might consider her take on, say, the Charmin toilet paper ad, to be a little over the top. The ad shows a middle-aged couple emptying shopping bags. The woman in the photo is holding a package of Charmin. The copy reads, "Bath tissue is like marriage. The longer it lasts, the better it is." At first glance, it appears to be a cute play on words. But Kilbourne writes, "...the comparison is ludicrous, trivializing, and ultimately odious." She continues, "We are surrounded by hundreds, thousands, of messages every day that link our deepest emotions to products that objectify people and trivialize our most heartfelt moments and relationships." Kilbourne hits home when it comes to children. Clearly the ads they encounter influence not only what they buy at the mall, but also how they behave when they're there. In her chapter, "The More You Subtract, The More You Add," she points out that adolescents are new and inexperienced consumers: "Advertisers are aware of their role and do not hesitate to take advantage of the insecurities and anxieties of young people, usually in the guise of offering solutions." A quick breeze through the book, just to view the ads, supports Kilbourne's claim that women (girls in particular) are sexualized and stereotyped. A two-page Calvin Klein ad, for example, shows a little boy looking strong and expressive, while the young girl on the opposite page looks meek and submissive. If you have a child, a daughter in particular, this book will enlighten you as to how she is being targeted and, more importantly, how she is being ever-so-subtly brainwashed. If she's 13 or older, share it with her. - By Kimberly A. Porrazzo The Gallup Poll shows a conflicted America What is and what isn't as it relates to American values? The Gallup Poll has done extensive research into this matter. Here is some of the conflicting evidence: • A February Gallup Poll shows that 75 percent of Americans believe the entertainment industry should make a serious effort to reduce the amount of sex and violence in movies, television shows and music. Some 24 percent say this isn't necessary. • That same poll indicated that younger Americans are more tolerant than generations past. Those under 50 - and especially the 18- to 29-year-olds - are less likely to believe the entertainment industry should right itself than did Americans of similar ages nearly a decade ago. • While there is an assumption that our value system has failed families, families don't feel that way. A June 2001 poll indicated that 96 percent of U.S. adults were "very" or "somewhat" satisfied with their family life. And, in an April 2002 poll, "breakdown of the family/values" was mentioned by less than 2 percent of respondents when asked to name the most important problem facing America today. • Here is what the Gallup Poll has discovered this year regarding offensive material. Some 61 percent of respondents are offended by violence on TV; 58 percent by profanity; 58 percent by sexual content; and 52 percent by homosexuality. However, the poll notes that "age strongly predicts whether a person finds such content offensive." Less than a majority of Americans ages 18-29 "find any of the content offensive." • Only 21 percent of the adult viewers who saw Janet Jackson's striptease at the Super Bowl were offended by it. • In a May 2003 poll, Gallup pointed out the irony of William J. Bennett, long considered a moral compass for conservative Americans. When his gambling was reported, 63 percent of those polled said gambling is morally acceptable. But on issues in which he draws a line, a majority lean the other way. Here are percentages of those who find the following morally acceptable: "divorce" (66 percent); "sex between an unmarried man and woman" (58 percent); and "having a baby outside of marriage" (51 percent). Source: The Gallup Poll |
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