In 1993
Mary Whitehouse CBE, President of the National Viewers and Listeners
Association, delivered the following address to the Annual Convention
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t is a strange experience to
find oneself involved now with precisely those issues that were uppermost in
our minds almost 30 years ago. That it
should have taken the tragic and fearsome murder of a little two-year-old boy
to move the minds and hearts of us all to ask - why? - is a burden we must all
carry.
Speaking at our very first
public meeting at Birmingham Town Hall in May 1964, I said as a matter of
common sense "If you constantly portray violence as normal on television
it will help to create a violent society" and how laughed to scorn we
were. And we constantly declared to the
hollow laughter of the so-called libertarians that the exploitation of sex and
the use of foul language could only demean human relationships and degrade
communication. And nothing has happened
in the years since to undermine those convictions. Indeed experience has
strengthened them.
We are all aware of, and grateful for, the way in
which the media - the press in particular - has been prepared, at long last, to
echo this concern, though I note with some dismay that there is a tendency to
condemn violence while giving excuses for foul language and sexual
explicitness. This is a very dangerous
path to follow. Take the matter of foul
language. It has, as we know, always
been a characteristic of human communication to fall back on verbal abuse as a
safety value. But once this language is
normalised by constant use then physical violence becomes the automatic
reaction to anger. Concern about the
often, gross, exploitation of human sexuality in films and television has
nothing to do with prudery. It has
everything to do with a passionate concern to treasure the God given
experience, which lies at the very heart of human existence. When men - and women - as is happening now,
ruthlessly exploit sex until pornography and violence become commonplace then
all of us, including the children, are anaesthetised to the horrors around us.
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etailed monitoring of late night
films shown on all channels has in recent months been carried out by committed
and I can only say noble, members of NVALA.
Copies of the reports have been sent to the Prime Minister amongst
others and have, I am sure, played a key role in his Government's growing
determination to take action in this field.
I would not wish to inflict upon you here more than a brief reference to
the kind of material I am talking about but when I tell you, for example, that
in film 'commando' (ITV), heavy with vicious violence and constant foul
language, a man holds a serrated knife at a bound child's throat. Endless violence has characterised these
films with variations such as in the French film 'les valeuses' when two louts
menacing a lone young woman on a train with her baby, make her submit to her
breast being sucked for milk by one of the youths while the other one stood
by. They then turned to watch another
woman commit suicide by pointing a revolver between her legs and pulling the
trigger.
These monitoring reports have
been sent to Mr Duke Hussey of the BBC, Mr George Russell, Chairman of the ITC
and to the heads of the individual companies involved. Their replies have indeed made interesting
reading. On the one hand Sir John
Banham, Chairman of Westcountry television concludes his reply by thanking us
for taking the trouble to write and expresses the hope that, to quote, we in
VALA "will be encouraged to keep up our very important work". John McGuckian, Chairman of Ulster
television, concludes his reply with the words "your constant promptings
remind us of our responsibilities in that regard and ensure that they are given
the prominence and priority which they deserve". The Chairman of Anglia, David McCall, says that we are
"right to be vigilant about the amount of violence seen on the television
screen". In varying degrees all
the other replies were courteous, thoughtful and concerned as was that from Mr
Hussey, Chairman of the Governors of the BBC.
He made it clear to us that he shares our "feeling of sorrow and
revulsion over this terrible murder" and assured us that he and his colleagues
are "well aware of the need to keep the kind of issues mentioned at the
forefront of their minds".
One reply that 'stood out a mile' was that from
Michael Grade, Chief Executive of C4.
He returned my letter unanswered with a brief note marked 'personal'. However, not least, in view of the violently
obscene nature of some of the films transmitted by his channel as well as
others, the public interest demands that his letter should be published. It reads as follows:
"Whilst
I share the nation's horror at the murder of James Bulger, I do not believe it
helps to use the event to launch one of your campaigns. I am surprised at you. I am returning your letter which I consider
unworthy".
Extraordinary! But we did not need to launch a
campaign. So great was the national
revulsion aroused by little James Bulger's death that it was the media - press,
TV and radio which reflected the Country's horror and which came to us for
comment. Far from being in the vanguard
of enlightened broadcasting philosophy, Mr Grade, has shown himself as being
far behind the times! One wonders what
advertisers will make of it all not only from within Britain but from far
afield. A Japanese TV crew flew over
specially to interview us. Canadian TV
also arrived, as did journalists from international, national and regional
papers and radio programmes.
Time and again the point was
headlined that we had been "right all the time". But the point is not whether we had been
proved right but what adjustments the broadcasters are prepared to make in the
light of this public concern or will it all be forgotten "nothing so dead
as yesterday's news" as the saying goes.
It fills one with despair almost to see how people who should know
better have refused to face up to the challenge. Michael Winner for one as one would expect. More seriously Colin Shaw, Director of the
BSC, was also quoted in The Times as saying "nobody has discovered
a direct link between television violence and violence on the
streets". My heart sank as I read it
that someone in Mr Shaw's position should be so ill-informed about
international research, carried out over many years, in many countries, which
does indeed leave impartial commentators with no doubt as to the truth of the
matter.
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he American Medical Association,
the American Psychiatric Association and the National Parent Teacher
Association are among hundreds of academic bodies internationally which have
all concluded that there is overwhelming evidence that TV and film violence
causes important increases in real life violence and aggression in normal
children and adult viewers. Their
research has shown that factual, non-glorifying documentaries have been found
to increase rather than decrease sensitivity to violence. When the purpose is to entertain, however,
major increases in verbal aggression, anxiety and actual criminal behaviour
have been repeatedly found. The
overwhelming consensus of this research is that "violent entertainment
plays a major role in teaching a culture and distrust to all ages, social
classes, ethnic backgrounds and intelligence levels".
It is really amazing to see how
the concerns and solutions to them that we put forward all those years ago are
still valid today. I am not claiming
for a moment that our battles have been financially won, only that the validity
of our challenges has been reinforced as time has gone on and increasingly
public opinion has moved to support us.
There have been specific victories - The Child Protection Act, The
Indecent Displays Act, The Video Recordings Act now lie upon the statute book
and the BSC called for at our very first public meeting 30 years ago. It has to be said that none of these have
served to halt the tide of violence and decadence that has demanded such a
terrible price, not least, from the young as the pitiable fate of little James
Bulger reminds us. In an extraordinary
way that awful tragedy may well have served to turn the tide.
How encouraging to see that the
young - the children - have a very clear sense of where at least some of the
blame lies. Two weeks ago the news of
the world published the results of a poll they had had conducted amongst
children by 'continental research'.
"An overwhelming 98% of youngsters admitted gory TV shows, movies,
videos and video games had a harmful effect on behaviour and "33% of
children listed TV violence as the biggest single cause of youth
crime". "A huge majority -
87% of youngsters polled - also claimed that children copied what they had seen
on screen. "Other factors felt to
have contributed to the rise in crime included bad homes, lack of parental
discipline and the declining influence of religion. "But the level of violence on TV shows and especially videos
is clearly what worries people the most.
Asked id they thought there was too much violence on TV, 61% of adults
said there was, with 39% satisfied the level was 'about right'. Nearly half (45%) of children aged six to 14
said there was too much, or the rest, 53% thought it was about right and 2%
complained there was not enough! More
than half the children (57%) had seen one or both of Arnold Schwarzenegger's 'Terminator'
movies and 25% had seen the Hannibal the Cannibal shocker 'Silence of the
Lambs'. Those were the top three
named by adults as having high levels of violence or sex. Another 42% of kids had watched 'Robocop'
and 29% listed 'Nightmare on Elm Street'.
At the end of all this what can
I say but that imitation lies at the very heart of human experience from birth
to death and for intelligent professionals now to claim that there has to be
proof of a link between televised and social violence is a measure of just how
far they and indeed all who subscribe to the idea have moved into an unreal
world. How, for instance, can you prove
that little children copy the activities of other children. You can't except by seeing how they behave.
It is against this
background that it is worth considering the role of the broadcasting standards
council and how at our very first meeting in Birmingham all those years ago we
powerfully criticised the contempt with which viewer’s complaints were
treated. We said that what was needed
was an Independent Broadcasting Council through which viewers could be assured
that their voices would be heard and, where appropriate, acted upon. It took over 25 years for the present
Broadcasting Standards Council to be established and I would be less than
honest if I did not confess to considerable disappointment. From the time we first called for such a
body we always envisaged it as an independent voice for the viewers and
listeners. The fact that, for example,
Colin Shaw, its Director, has spent a lifetime in television means that
ordinary people feel that their views are swept aside and discounted. It is a matter of great regret that the
Council, in its present form makes far less contribution to the raising of
broadcasting standards than we had expected.
Inevitably with the development of satellite the public will feel less
and less confident of being able to make any effective contribution to the
quality of an industry that has so profound an effect upon our lives. The heart of the problem lies with the
Council's policy of criticising and commenting upon the complaints received
rather than accepting them as the genuine reaction of the viewer with the
result that a very high proportion of them are rejected.
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arlier this month I received a
letter from the Rt Rev Bill Westwood, Bishop of Peterborough, who has been a
member of the Council since its establishment and I think it is a document that
the Prime Minister may well wish to study.
The Bishop has given me permission to quote from his letter in which he
says that he "found himself always in a minority" and that he looks
upon his "tenure of that office as one of the failures of my life. In discussion and voting I was regularly
defeated by a combination of that sociological and psychological and media
centred thinking which characterises our generation". "I believe, he said, that the standards
of our television have declined and believe that the horrendous material which
appears on television programmes and on video is now a major contributory cause
of the breakdown of the social fabric of our society ... those responsibility
for television are more casual in their approach to violence and will go on
being so in my judgement despite the James Bulger tragedy. I believe that portrayal of sex is for the
most part without any context or commitment despite the geometric progression
of AIDS throughout the world. I fear
that their attachment to the easy and cynical laugh continues, despite the fact
that we are in a desperately serious situation as a nation. All these things continued to grow in my
four years on the council and this most powerful of all influences in a nation,
other than the home, continues in its shoddy way. This was probably one of the greatest inventions of the twentieth
century and could have done so much more for us". "So that is very sad comment of an
institution which was born out of so much hope. One cannot resist the thought that there has been a concerted
campaign amongst media oriented members of the Council to undermine and destroy
its powers".
I propose, therefore, that a resolution go from
this meeting to the Prime Minister requesting that he immediately set in motion
whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the council becomes the voice of
the people and not its judge.
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ow let me say with all the
conviction at my command that I am in no doubt that what the future holds, not
only as far as broadcasting is concerned but as far as the whole quality of our
culture and therefore our family and national life, will depend upon the will
of everyone of us to create a more effective obscenity law. The truth is that it has been - and is - the
failure of the present Obscene Publications Act that has landed us in the mess
we are now in. All our high ideals and
lofty aims will fail and all that has been achieved over the years will come to
nought unless our commitment to effective obscenity law is fulfilled.
Earlier this month an exhibition
of pornography was shown to nearly 400 MPs in the House of Commons. Some of them walked out, unable to take it,
many expressed themselves "appalled and sickened" by what they had
seen saying that they realised for the first time just how disastrous the
situation is. I would beg you now to
use every opportunity within the media and the press, in all your public
speaking and preaching to this end. Let
us meet with and encourage our MPs to put pressure upon the Government - in
other words give them no peace until the necessary action has been taken. I would draw your attention to the fact that
our proposals for amending the law are available on the bookstall for you to
give to your MP.
The truth is that no
one should have any peace or know any complacency until this last great hurdle
is overcome and the children, and indeed everyone, deserve no less.
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1994 A Dreadful Price To Pay
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