Blue Corn Comics -- Terrorists Followed Media Violence Script

Terrorists Followed Media Violence Script
(10/29/01)

Another response to Terrorists Followed Media Violence Script—a column forwarded by Dave Grossman:

Friends,

The following is from Dr. Judith Reisman, one of the great thinkers and writers on the topic of media influence. To a certain degree (a CERTAIN degree) what the terrorists are hating (and attacking) is not America, but the sickest most depraved aspect of our culture: Hollywood. They do not know us, but they know Hollywood, and they rightfully hate those cynical, self loathing purveyors of decay.

The NY Times put it like this: "That sort of ironic, hip attitude is going to have to undergo revision," said Jonathan Galassi, the publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. "Any sort of sense of cynicism and self-absorption -- nobody is going to be interested in that." Many others have written me to express their concern in this same area. One writer put it like this:

"Islam's view of the U.S. through the media lens. If the average devout Muslim could meet the REAL America, the hard working, similarly devout average Joe and Jane and their family, things could be really different. I had a Palestinian roomate/friend in college, years ago in New York City. He was disgusted and amused at much of the decadence that one could see from the street. But he also learned that most Americans were not like that. He would introduce me to his friends as one of the "good Americans." They were very kind and generous. If you were their guest for an evening, it was hopeless to think of paying for anything yourself."

Another writer put it like this:

"I spent a summer in Pakistan working with Afghan refugees in 1981. Those were the days when you could watch DALLAS and STARSKEY AND HUTCH on TV in Pakistan. That is what they thought it meant to be an American. It undercut their traditional culture with the most superficial, trite consumerist, violent one. If you look at the targets of terrorists, they are rarely religious ones, but cultural ones."

Now Judith Reisman has written an excellent piece on this topic (below) and I commend it to your attention.

Stay staunch!
Dave

*****

Flash-back from the star-studded September 22 telethon, "America: A Tribute to Heroes," to my three years in Israel witnessing Arabic hatred of omnipresent Western "entertainment."

For nary an Israeli or Arab child who paid for candy at the kiosks in Tel Aviv, Haifa, even Jerusalem, could avoid the nude and half-nude women dangling wantonly from glossy American and European magazines, pinned in rows above the head of the perspiring merchant.

Sad to say, Israeli smut peddlers unfolded their graphic "erotic" billboards everywhere, with garish paintings across the top floors of multi-storied buildings at the central bus station.

Arab leaders futilely and resentfully protested to Israeli authorities that the public displays of erotic Western images corrupted the virtue of Arab -- and Israeli -- youth.

So, it did not surprise that American film and TV studios were recently named as possible targets for terrorist attacks. In fact the "Father of the American Revolution," Samuel Adams warned that those who would undermine our virtue would destroy our nation and our Liberty:

While the People are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their Liberties to the first external or internal invader.

While our press was euphoric over the benevolence of television stations donating two broadcast hours gratis, one skeptic called the show "a hypocritical preemptive strike" to impede the coming backlash against "media pollution which has been spewing smut and violence as daily moral fare."

The buzz is, she may be right.

The New York Times just reported that the entertainment field is worried and big-dollar disaster films are now on the back burner:

Many in the industry admit that they do not know where the boundaries of taste and consumer tolerance now lie, much less where they will be in a year or two. The new piety strikes an odd note. Industries that have robustly defended depictions of mindless carnage or the degradation of women are suddenly drawing the line in seemingly arbitrary ways.

Habitual media sexploitation of American women and children is recorded in lawsuits, congressional hearings, medical and psychological research and in the heart-rending testimonies of appalling copy-cat media crimes.

One prays the telethon successfully raised money for the fallen heroes and their families and that billions more are coming from the prosperous television stations, film studios, artists and performers currently contemplating "taste."

However, at the time of this writing, ABC, CBS and NBC still plan their frontal attack on American virtue by opening their floodgates this fall to dump as much media sado-sexual pollution as our newly sensitized citizenry will stand without armed revolt.

Just before September 11, Aaron Sorkin, executive producer of the brilliant leftist propaganda series, "The West Wing," said he'll have a character "use the Lord's name in vain."

How impressive.

Media use of blasphemy, expletives and pornography increasingly mock our nation's foundations, while the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency charged with keeping our publicly owned airwaves virtuous, (as "in the public interest") refuses to terminate stations violating FCC rules.

Taste?

Our impotent FCC mollycoddles men like repugnant "shock-jock" Howard Stern who, on air, admonished the Columbine High School killers for not first raping their victims. Just after the September 11 atrocity, sheltered by the FCC, Stern again violated decency laws, solicitation to commit a crime, saying, among other obscenities (my apologies):

New York prostitutes ought to do what everyone else is doing. They ought to donate their services and go down there and give sex to the firemen while they're digging for bodies.

So, did the two-hour apologia signal the end of the media attack on our national virtue? For example, did Stern's fellow entertainers demand his station have their broadcast license withdrawn and that he be removed?

Neither the networks hosting the September 22 telethon, nor their glittering stars, nor anyone representing their guild, chose the singularly genuine way they can honor these dead. That is, by ending their decades-long anti-hero, anti-God, anti-American terrorist campaign to establish a libertarian beachhead for pansexual barbarism by driving virtue out of American life.

Media repentance would begin when some or all of the telethon stations and stars who have produced lethal "art," withdraw their toxic films, TV shows and music, like faulty tires.

Actor Tom Hanks said the benefit was "a simple show of unity."

"Unity" indeed.

To date, all of the major TV networks and film studios are united in targeting our children at home, in school and in our movie theaters with their scatological, sexual, primal, violent and ignorant programming, awash in betrayal, brutality, treason and terror.

At what cost our virtue? Adams warned the fee would be our Liberty.

—————————————————————————————————————

Dr. Reisman, president of the Institute for Media Education in Crestwood, Ky., is the author of "Kinsey, Crimes & Consequences."

Rob's reply
>> That is, by ending their decades-long anti-hero, anti-God, anti-American terrorist campaign to establish a libertarian beachhead for pansexual barbarism by driving virtue out of American life. <<

This comment in the Dr. Reisman column must be a joke. Traditionally, most media violence comes from pro-hero, pro-God, pro-American cops, spies, and killers who administer their own brand of justice outside the law. Eastwood, Bronson, Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis, Gibson, Cruise, et al. are American heroes through and through. They're the modern equivalent of John Wayne, the self-righteous vigilante hero who shoots first and asks questions later.

This year the big trend on TV is CIA-style operatives: The Agency, UC: Undercover, Alias, 24. These join military-style shows like JAG and Enterprise, cops 'n' robbers shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and legal shows like The Guardian and Family Law. Anti-American, anti-hero shows? Either I missed them all or they've all been canceled already. All I see are pro-hero, pro-American shows that uphold the status quo, with its bias toward the rich and powerful.

Reisman's mention of Howard Stern must be another joke. Stern doesn't attack America's powers-that-be. He didn't attack New York's rescue workers. What he did was his usual politically incorrect schtick, which tends to demean women, minorities, and gays.

Treating women as sex objects is what conservatives do, not liberals. You probably could coax Phyllis Schlafly to say something similar to Stern's position: that a woman's role is to comfort and please a man, not to do a man's job herself. While this denigration may hurt America, it's the same hurt conservatives have always touted: that rich white men should rule and everyone else should service them.

Curiosly, Dave, the only examples you mentioned were Starsky and Hutch and Dallas, neither of which celebrated anti-heroes or the destruction of the American way. One could argue Dallas, with its exaltation of greed and selfishness, was the epitome of the American way. The world is reacting to that, not to "liberal" shows like The West Wing that allegedly challenge America's values.

>> I am not so sure, Rob. I think that when the Code that Hollywood obligated itself to (criminals not heroes, crime must be punished, vigilante-ism not rewarded, etc) was voided in the early 1960's the model changed a LOT. Exit John Wayne, enter Dirty Harry. <<

The iconic movie protagonists I can think of are heroes, not criminals...do punish crime, often outside the law...and are rewarded for being vigilantes. John Wayne, James Bond, Shaft, Dirty Harry, Rambo, et al.—the list is long. They're all implicitly or explicitly pro-hero, pro-God, and pro-American.

Sure, the '60s brought us a shift in movies toward relevant, edgy, contrary viewpoints. But we're talking about who becomes a symbol representing American culture. There's no one in America or overseas who thinks of us as a Bonnie-and-Clyde or Natural-Born-Killers culture. To people the world over, Americans are cowboys or Rambos.

I have a hard time even thinking of a movie featuring criminals who triumphed against the Americans, the cops, or the heroes in the end. Below I've given you lots of examples of pro-God, pro-military, pro-family movies. What are some major movies that fit your model, not mine?

Dan Quayle weighs in
Grossman also forwarded some remarks by Dan Quayle, the man who took on Murphy Brown over her "family values." From the Washington Times, 10/21/01:

Mr. Quayle also blamed Hollywood for giving foreigners a distorted picture of the United States. "Have you ever seen a movie that made the military look good? That looked favorably upon religion? That showed the cohesiveness of the family? No -- and why not?" he asked. "If you were a person who had never been to America, you'd see a different country than it actually is."

Quayle's conclusion may be true, but his reasoning is false. He has it exactly backward. Consider his rhetorical questions:

>> Have you ever seen a movie that made the military look good? <<

Every war movie made before the '60s plus Green Berets, Patton, Top Gun, An Officer and a Gentleman, Saving Private Ryan, Behind Enemy Lines, Black Hawk Down, We Were Soldiers and countless others.

>> That looked favorably upon religion? <<

It's a Wonderful Life, The Ten Commandments, Jesus of Nazareth, Heaven Can Wait, Yentl, Oh, God, The Preacher's Wife plus TV shows like A Charlie Brown Christmas, Touched by an Angel, 7th Heaven and countless others.

>> That showed the cohesiveness of the family? <<

Every family movie made before the '60s, most live-action Disney movies, plus To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sound of Music, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, E.T., Hannah and Her Sisters, My Left Foot, Little Women, The Brady Bunch Movie, Parenthood, Mr. Holland's Opus, Apollo 13, The Rookie, Rocky movies, Anne Tyler movies, Hallmark Hall of Fame specials, and countless others.

>> The most corrupt, self loathing, decayed, perverse minds in America directed Hollywood and depicted "their" version of America to the world. <<

I agree a lot of bad movies out there are sending the wrong messages about America. These movies send the same messages as the rest of our culture by glamorizing sex and violence. Buy! Succeed! Get rich! Get the girl! Kill the bad guy! Win at all costs!

Hollywood produces these movies in addition to the many movies it produces featuring families, religion, and the military. The so-called bad movies aren't a problem per se. Rather, they reflect the twisted values in our culture: greed, selfishness, shortsightedness, intolerance, and so forth.

It's a good thing there aren't more movies featuring our hyper-pious Christianity or our hyper-patriotic military. The rest of the world scorns these traits: our cowboy mentality, our self-righteous belief that we're God-blessed, our egomaniacal attitude of Manifest Destiny. More pro-Christian and pro-military movies are exactly what terrorists, Muslims, and non-Americans don't want to see.

If America wants to export its values, it needs more movies like To Kill a Mockingbird, 12 Angry Men, or Guess Who's Coming to Dinner—where our values are put to the test and come out stronger than before. It doesn't need more hyper-American movies like Rambo, Dirty Harry, or John Wayne's Westerns, where everything is black and white and seldom is heard a discouraging word.

Grossman defends Reisman and Quayle (12/17/01)
>> I think that when the Code that Hollywood obligated itself to (criminals [are] not heroes, crime must be punished, vigilanti-ism not rewarded, etc.) was voided in the early 1960's, the model changed a LOT. <<

I have a hard time even thinking of a movie featuring criminals who triumphed against the Americans, the cops, or the heroes in the end. I've given you lots of examples of pro-God, pro-military, pro-family movies. What are some major movies that fit your model, not mine?

* More opinions *

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