{T.V. Violence}[11th April 1968]

[Redbook1:22-24][19680411:1130b]{T.V. Violence}[11^th April 1968][Age 16]

{continued}

            I have just been listening to a marvellous song called "Delilah", sung by Tom Jones.  I only realised what the words were the last time I heard it  "I felt the knife in my hand -- and she lived (?/laughed?) no more".  The people who complain about violence on television etc.  aren't altogether wrong.  I think part of the reason for the violence in the U.S.A.is the attitudes which they have been taught about violence.  When you see all the time brutal gangster-type films, in which the people who are shot are unreal, and documentaries on e.g. Vietnam, you become impervious to it.  In t.v. thrillers, the heroes are the only people who can be built up into real people; it is the "empty" people, who are not built up on t.v. lest the audience should be angry when they die, who are allowed to be killed.  One can see it from the producer’s point of view: the audience will always become involved in someone who is a real character, and they will be hurt and angry if that person is killed -- because they won't see him any more.  They may turn over to another channel.  So only the unreal people, those who don't matter, are killed -- and they are killed as often as is necessary to keep the excitement going.  It is only natural that viewers should make an unconscious assumption that only people who don't matter are killed, and that people who are killed don't really feel it.  When the opportunity comes -- in riots -- to hurt or kill someone, the killer doesn't think twice about it -- because the victim is not a real person.  He is only a subsidiary character, and he has no real meaning in the life of the killer.  Therefore, for the killer, he is not important.  THEREFORE HE IS NOT IMPORTANT.  It is obvious where the gap in logic lies.  The killer fails to see that to other people the victim must be important.  This lack of sensitivity must be attributed to the television in part at least.  After all, the television thriller has a time honoured framework.  At the centre is the hero, who corresponds to the killer in everyday life.  Around him is a close circle of friends and acquaintances who help him in his escapades.  But outside that are ordinary people, who walk about in the streets.  They are just there to provide scenery; they are quite unreal.  When the getaway car ploughs through them they scatter; the camera doesn't pause to see whether they survive or not: they are irrelevant.  The camera takes the normal human and make him see himself from the point of view of the abnormal, anarchic human.  He doesn't recognise himself as one of the crowd; he now sees himself as one outside the crowd.  This attitude gradually takes over his life.  The crowd don't matter; they can be sacrificed to his own needs; they aren't real people, they don't feel as he does.  They can be killed or hurt without conscience.  Of course he doesn't consciously accept this attitude; it creeps up unawares.  This, I feel sure, it's part of America's trouble: partly the repetition of violence until it becomes meaningless, partly the attitude of t.v. to ordinary people.  So far it has not taken over here, but there are signs that it could easily happen.  Our t.v. programmes and films are following the American trend.  Why, as D says, is sex not allowed on films when murder and violence is allowed?  We've got our priorities back to front.

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