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Toy Story
by David Cohen
Advertisers like to take advantage of children's
natural credulity. In a world full of dazzling advertisements,
how do children react to them? Have they learned how
to weigh up advertising before they succumb to its promises?
"Why's that man got his hand
up a sock? Don't they know how to do it properly? That's
not going to get me to buy it, is it?" carped one
seven-year-old about the glove puppets used in Burger
King's The Lost World television advertisement.
Call it cynicism. Call
it sophistication. Nowadays it's not unusual to find
children as young as four making judgments like these,
claims Nicky Buss of the advertising agency Ammirati
Puris Lintas in London. By then children are "brand
literate" and they can see through "marketing
hyperbole".
Or can they? Is advertising
geared at children even ethical? Since the 1970s, the
battle between the forces for and against child advertising
has hinged on whether or not kids understand the motive
behind advertising. The debate is far from over, but
new studies suggest that Buss is onto something. Either
children are getting wise to the advertising game, and
at an earlier age than in the 1970s and 1980s, or in
the past psychologists underestimated their young subjects'
ability to work out other people's motivation.
It doesn't take a genius
to work out why advertisers are trying harder to market
directly to children. British children aged four to
fourteen spend an average of £2.49
each week. This makes the pocket money market worth
more than?ê1.5 billion a year, according to a recent
report from management consultancy Datamonitor. In the
US the pocket money market is worth a massive $64 billion
a year.
Selling to children has
become big business, and advertisers want to make it
as scientific as possible. Winthrop Publications in
London has just launched the International
Journal of Advertising and Marketing to Children. One
article reports that 60 per cent of children aged two
to eleven know by the end of October what they want
for Christmas, and that for girls under seven the biggest
deciding factor is what they see on television.
Conferences and consultancies
abound. Pay￡2000 and you can attend Kid Power 99 at
any one of a string of European venues. The meetings
offer workshops on "what works with kids and why",
"peer group1 marketing" and how
to "think like a kid". Consultancy firms will
tell you how to build "a wall of communication"
to influence "your core consumer lifestyle"
from the moment said consumer is two years old.
Meanwhile the London-based
Children's Research Unit (CRU), a for-profit organisation,
surveys the tastes of 7 000 children, three times a
year in their schools, via the Internet. Children are
notoriously fickle, and advertisers have a hard job
keeping up with their capricious tastes, explains Glen
Smith, the unit's director and a psychologist who also
edits the International Journal of Advertising and Marketing
to Children. For a fee, market researchers can buy "hot
topix2 spots" in the survey, he says.
There are, of course, regulations
in most countries specifically to protect the child
consumer. In the UK, "advertising must not take
advantage of children's natural credulity and loyalty
and must not arouse unreasonable expectations of toys
and games by special effects", says Helena Hunt
of the Independent Television Commission (ITC). "Children
must also not feel under pressure to buy." And
the ITC Code works, according to the Advertising Association's
James Aitchison. "Less than 1 per cent of complaints
received by the Advertising Association in 1998 related
to ads for toys or games," he says.
But what counts as taking
advantage of a child's natural credulity? And isn't
that an impossible standard to meet, if a child does
not even grasp the notion that ads are trying to sell
something? If on the other hand, children are aware
of the purpose of ads, those aimed at children are no
more sinister than those aimed at adults.
The backdrop to today's
research on kids and advertising is the cognitive theory
put forward over 70 years ago by the famous Swiss psychologist
Jean Piaget. According to Piaget3, children
go through four stages of cognitive development—a model
that, with relatively modest tweaking, still dominates
child psychology today. Between two and seven years
old, children are in the "pre-operational"
stage. Completely egocentric, they are at the mercy
of their immediate perceptions. They lack what psychologists
call a "theory of mind": they don't understand
that the world looks different from another person's
perspective, or that other people can
have motives and desires that differ or even clash with
their own. They certainly couldn't be expected to realise
that an advertisement was a manifestation of those different
motives. After seven, children enter the "concrete
operational" stage: they become less egocentric4,
are capable of more structured thinking, and understand
that the world is not always as it seems to their immediate
perceptions5.
Had Piaget ever considered
children and advertising (and it's likely he would have
thought it beneath him, being more concerned with such
heady questions as how children solve syllogisms), he
would have argued that they had no clue as to the motives
behind the media until well into the concrete operational
stage.
The first studies on children's
understanding of advertising seemed to fit Piaget's
model. One 25-year-old study found that 96 per cent
of five to six year olds, 85 per cent of eight to nine
year olds and 62 per cent of eleven to twelve year olds
"do not fully understand the purpose of TV advertising".
At the time, psychologists in the US used those findings
in their bid to press the US Federal Trade Commission
to ban toy ads on TV, on the basis that children under
the age of eight didn't understand "the commercial
meaning" of ads. Advertisers persuaded the FTC
against a ban.
But in the 1990s similar
arguments led to a ban on toy ads on TV in Greece and
Sweden. Swedish law bans any product ads that aim to
attract the attention of the under-twelves. Now the
European advertising industry wants to see those bans
lifted, or at the very least to ensure that they don't
spread. Ironically, some psychologists who might usually
be more comfortable arguing against sales pitches6
to children have had to concede that are shrewder
than they once supposed.
Take Jeffrey Goldstein,
a psychologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
Goldstein, who also writes reports on the latest research
into children and television for companies such as Nintendo
and Compaq, believes that the test used in the 25-year-old
study was too stringent. To be deemed "fully aware",
kids had to explain verbally that ads were trying to
sell something and make money out of children.
Psychologist Henry Wellman,
of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, argues that
Piaget's framework does not fit the modern child. "Children
[nowadays] are exposed to a much wider range of social
interaction. They go to day care; they don't live in
nuclear families. They engage much more in pretend play,"
Wellman says. Children communicate with far more people
at earlier ages than they did in the past. It grows
them up.
According to Wellman's
analysis of thousands of children's conversations, "around
the age of three to four children understand that what
you display on your face doesn't necessarily go with
your internal state. By the age of five to six, most
children understand you can deceive people by showing
one kind of overt behaviour and
feeling something else." If you understand deception,
you are well on the way to understanding advertising.
Piaget may have chosen
just the experimental subjects to exacerbate any difference
in the cognitive abilities of children of the 1920s
and of the present day. He based most of his key ideas
on observations of his own children—Jacqueline, Laurent
and Lucienne—whose upbringing was very sheltered.
His studies also suffered
from a problem that plagues child psychology to this
day: how do you get a child to make explicit what may
be an implicit understanding?
One way to tease you out
what children implicitly understand about advertising
is to see whether they realise that TV ads are different
from regular programmes. In one such experiment, 66
children aged between four and eight years old watched
two sorts of ads. The genuine version extolled a face
cream on the basis that it made users better looking.
A doctored version praised the cream but the punch line
was that it gave users disgusting spots. The children
were asked which they preferred—and why. Children aged
four to five liked the funny endings better and did
not notice whether or not the punch lines made commercial
sense. All the eight-year-olds were totally familiar
with the advertising game. They laughed at the doctored
ads－ not just because they were funny but because they
were pathetic as ads. A face cream that gives you spots
is not a product that will sell, they pointed out.
But it was the reactions
of six-year-olds that revealed most. Just over half
understood that there was something wrong with the funny
endings, even though they couldn't always say just what.
That suggests that many six-year-olds only have a limited
understating of what ads are trying to achieve, says
psychologist Brian Young of the University of Exeter,
who reported the findings at the 1998 British Psychological
Society conference.
An experiment conducted
by the CRU reaches a different conclusion. Four-year-old
children were shown TV commercials and were asked—using
dolls representing mum, dad, children and so on—to select
the doll that the advert was talking to. "We found
if there was a frozen pea commercial they moved the
mum forward, if it was a toy they moved the child doll
forward," Smith says. If four-year-olds understand
whom a sales pitch is aimed at, he says, it is reasonable
to assume they have some implicit understanding of advertising's
goal.
Smith has not published
this research because, like much of the CRU's output,
it is only available to clients. Smith says his study
and others reassure him that advertising to children
is not "sinful or wicked", but, he concedes,
one should "be mindful of the gullibility of young
children".
Although the growing consensus
is that by the age of five many children realise there
is something different about ads, some psychologists
claim they still do not truly understand the purpose
of advertising.
How can they, asks Young, when they don't
even know how to "sell" them selves?
"A number of studies," he says, "show
it's only around the age of seven that children get
a sense of promoting themselves. For example, if you
ask six-year-olds to put themselves forward to become
one of a team they tell you about themselves warts and
all7." Only around seven—still young,
according to Piaget's theories—do children understand
that if they want to convince others to have them on
their team, they need to accentuate the positive and
eliminate the negative in the best tradition of Madison
Avenue.
It might seem as if recent
studies on children's grasp of advertising are fuelling
the debate rather than settling it. But one clear trend
has emerged－ and one that's troubling for advertisers.
Almost as soon as children understand what advertising
is about they become hostile to it.
One study of girls and
boys aged seven to eleven in Aberystwyth, Wales, found
the children to be not only knowing but dismissive of
TV ads. Even seven-year-olds "responded with surprising
hostility", says Merris Griffiths, a child psychologist
at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth. "They
felt insulted by the ads. They say things like ‘This
is trickery'. The girls had the most hostile reactions.
You'd think none of them had played with a Barbie doll."
Then there was that seven-year-old's put-a-sock-in-it
comment.
Advertisers and marketers,
it seems, have every reason to get a severe case of
jitters whenever they plan a new Beanie Babies or Pokmon
sales campaign. After all, says Goldstein, "there's
a conference every day on marketing to kids. If advertisers
really knew how to sell to children, they wouldn't be
doing that."
(1984 words) TOP
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课文一
玩具的故事
戴维·柯亨
广告客户喜欢利用儿童天生轻信的特点。在一个充满令人眩目的广告世界，儿童对此类广告的反应如何？他们在接受广告承诺之前，是否学会了怎样评价广告呢？
“为什么那个人将手伸到袜子里？难道他们不知道怎么做是对的吗？那样子是不会使我买的，对吧？”一名7岁儿童看到汉堡王的电视广告《失去的世界》中的布袋木偶，挑剔地说。
你可以管这叫玩世不恭。你可以管这叫精于世故。伦敦灵狮广告公司的尼克·布斯声称，如今见到4岁的孩子做出这样的判断是经常的事。4岁的孩子们已经“精通各种品牌”，并能看穿“广告的夸张”。
或者，他们真能么？瞄准孩子的广告符合道德吗？自20世纪70年代以来，赞成与反对儿童广告两股力量之间的斗争，集中在孩子们是否理解广告后面的动机。这场争论远未结束，但新的研究显示，布斯已有所进展。要么是与七八十年代相比，孩子们在更小的年龄懂得了广告游戏；要么是过去的心理学家们低估了这些年幼的研究对象理解他人动机的能力。
不需要什么天才就能想象出，为什么打广告的人竭力向儿童直接推销。4至14岁的英国儿童每周平均需花2.49英镑。据数据监控管理咨询处最新报道，这使零花钱市场一年的价值达15亿英镑。在美国，零花钱市场每年达640亿美元巨额。
向儿童销售已成为一笔大买卖，打广告的人必须尽可能使它具有科学性。伦敦温斯偌浦出版社刚刚发行了《国际儿童广告与销售学刊》。一篇文章报道，60%的2至11岁小孩到了10月底，都知道自己圣诞节需要什么。对7岁以下的女孩来说，最主要的决定因素，是她们在电视上见到的东西。
研讨会与咨询很多。花上2000英镑，你便可以参加99儿童威力研讨会在欧洲的系列会场中任何一场会议。会议提供专题研讨会，关于“什么对儿童起作用，为什么”，“同年龄组销售”及如何“像孩子一样思考”等。咨询公司就会告诉您，怎样建立“交际之墙”，从消费者两岁开始来影响“你的核心消费者的生活方式”。
同时，位于伦敦的赢利机构“儿童研究所”，通过国际互联网，在一年之内3次对在校7000名儿童的味口进行调查。儿童们以口味易变而著称。格伦·史密斯是该研究所的主任兼心理学专家，主编《国际儿童广告与销售学刊》，他解释道，广告客户很难满足儿童反复无常的味口。他说，市场研究者花点钱就能购买调查中的“热门话题”。
当然，多数国家都有具体保护儿童消费者的规定。在英国，“广告不能利用儿童天生的轻信与真诚，不能用特殊的影响，不合理地引起对玩具和游戏的期望，”独立电视委员会的海伦娜·亨特说。“不能让儿童感到必须购买的压力。”据广告协会的詹姆斯·艾奇孙说，独立电视委员会的法规已开始生效。他说，“1998年广告协会收到的对玩具或游戏广告的投诉不到1%。”
但是，怎样才算是利用儿童的天生轻信呢？如果孩子连广告是在推销商品这个概念都没有搞懂，那这是不是一个不可能实现的标准呢？相反，如果孩子们意识到了广告的目的，那么针对儿童的广告就只是和针对成人的广告一样阴险。
当今儿童与广告研究的背景，是70年前瑞士著名心理学家让·皮亚杰提出的认知理论。皮亚杰认为，儿童经历4个认知发展阶段——这个模式相对只作了少许改进，至今仍然主导着儿童心理学。在2至7岁之间，孩子们处在“前运算”阶段，完全以自我为中心，受直接感觉的支配。他们缺乏心理学家所说的“理论心理”：不知道世界从他人的视角去看是不同的，或其他人会有与他们自己不同甚至相冲突的动机和欲望。当然不能指望他们会意识到，广告是那些不同动机的显露。7岁以后，孩子们进入“具体运算”阶段：他们不如以前那样以自我为中心，更能进行结构性思考，并且懂得世界并非像他们即刻感知的那样。
如果皮亚杰考虑过儿童与广告（可能他会认为这不值得自己研究，他更关心儿童是怎样解决推论法这种令人头痛的问题），他可能会争论说，儿童直到具体运算阶段，才能对媒体背后的动机有所了解。
对儿童理解广告的最初研究似乎符合皮亚杰的模式。一项25年的研究发现，96%的5至6岁儿童，85%的8至9岁儿童以及62%的11至12岁儿童，“不完全懂得电视广告的目的”；当时，美国的心理学家企图用这些研究结果迫使美国联邦商务委员会禁止在电视上做玩具广告，理由是8岁以下的儿童不懂得广告的“商业意义”。登广告的商家则劝说联邦商务委员会反对这一禁令。
但是在90年代，类似的争论则导致希腊与瑞典禁止在电视上做玩具广告。瑞典法律禁止任何旨在吸引12岁以下儿童注意力的产品广告。目前，欧洲广告业想看到这些禁令被解除，或者起码保证这种禁令不再蔓延。具有讽刺意味的是，一些通常在反对向儿童使用推销词时感到更舒服的心理学家，不能不承认，这些推销词比他们曾想象的要机智得多。
以尼德兰乌得勒支大学心理学家杰弗里·戈得斯坦为例。戈得斯坦为任天堂及康柏这样的公司撰写关于儿童与电视最新研究方面的报告，他认为，这个长达25年之久的研究用的测试过于严厉。要被视为“充分意识到”电视广告的目的，小孩就不得不用语言来解释：广告企图推销商品，赚小孩的钱。
安·阿伯的密执安大学心理学家亨利.威尔曼认为，皮亚杰的框架不适合现代儿童。威尔曼说:“[如今的]儿童接触到更为广泛的社会交往。他们上日间托儿所；而不是生活在核心家庭成员中。他们参加更多的扮演游戏。”与过去相比，如今的儿童在更小的年龄接触更多的人。这样便促使他们成长。
根据威尔曼对数千名儿童对话的分析，“在3至4岁之间，儿童们懂得你脸上所表现的，并不一定与你的内心状态一致。大部分5至6岁的儿童懂得你可以通过显露一种表面的行为来骗人，而实际上想着另外的事情。”如果你能理解欺骗，你一定会懂得广告。
皮亚杰选择的实验对象，也许刚好加大了20年代的儿童与现在的儿童之间认知能力的差异。他主要的观点是基于对自己的孩子的观察——雅克琳娜、劳伦特以及露西安——而他们是在很封闭的环境下成长的。
同时，他的研究受到至今仍困扰着儿童心理学领域的一个问题的困扰：你如何能让孩子讲清楚也许他们心中理解的事？
要搞清楚儿童对广告的内心的理解，一个办法是观察他们是否意识到电视广告与常规节目的区别。在这样一个实验中，66名4至8岁的儿童观看两类广告。其中原版广告赞美一种面霜，因为它使使用者好看。改编了的广告也赞扬这种面霜，但关键的一句台词是说它使使用者长出讨厌的斑点。实验问孩子喜欢哪一个广告，以及为什么。4至5岁的孩子更喜欢那可笑的结尾，并没有注意那关键词是否具有商业意义。所有8岁的孩子都很熟悉广告游戏。他们看了改编了的广告都笑了——并不只是因为有趣，而是因为作为广告这是不成功的。他们指出，让你长斑点的面霜是不能畅销的。
但是，6岁儿童的反应最能说明问题。只有超过一半的孩子能理解广告有趣的结尾存在着问题，尽管他们并不都能说出原由。这说明许多6岁的儿童对广告目的的理解是有限的，伊克赛特大学心理学家布莱恩·扬在1998年英国心理学协会研讨会上报道了这一结果。
但儿童研究所进行的一项实验得出了不同的结论。他们向4岁的儿童放映电视广告，用布娃娃代替妈妈，爸爸和孩子等等，要他们挑选推销广告针对的布娃娃。史密斯说：“我们发现，如果是一个有关冰冻青豆的广告，他们把妈咪推向前；如果是一条有关玩具的广告，他们把代表孩子的布娃娃向前移动。”他说，如果4岁的孩子懂得推销台词是对准谁的，那就有理由假定，他们对广告的目的内心是理解的。
史密斯没有发表这一研究结果，因为它像儿童研究所的其它成果一样，只提供给顾客。史密斯说他的这一研究及其它研究使他相信，向儿童做广告并非是“有罪或邪恶的”，但是，他承认应当“注意幼儿易受欺骗的特点”。
尽管越来越一致的意见是，许多儿童在5岁时就意识到了广告的不同之处；有些心理学家声称，他们仍然不真正懂得广告的目的。
扬说：当他们连怎样“推销自己”都不知道时，又怎么会懂得广告的目的呢？“一系列研究显示，”他说，“儿童只是在7岁左右才有推销自己的意识。例如：如果你叫那些6岁的孩子推荐自我加入一个团队，他们会告诉你自己的缺点。”只有在7岁左右——按照皮亚杰的理论，他们仍然很年幼——孩子们才理解，如果他们想说服其他人接受自己加入团队，就得按照麦迪逊大街（注：美国广告业中心）最优良的传统，强调自己的优点，回避自己的缺点。
近来对儿童理解广告的研究，似乎是给争论火上加油，而不是解决争论。但出现了一个明显的倾向——令广告客户很烦恼的倾向：几乎是儿童一懂得广告的意义，就会对广告充满敌意。
在威尔士的阿拜利斯特韦斯，一项对7至11岁男女儿童的研究发现，孩子们不仅了解电视广告，而且持很轻蔑的态度。甚至7岁的儿童也“表现出惊人的敌意”，阿拜利斯特韦斯的威尔士大学儿童心理学家梅利斯·格利弗斯说。“他们觉得受到了广告的侮辱。他们会说出‘这是诡计’一类的话。女孩们的敌对反应最强烈。你会以为她们中没有人玩过芭比娃娃。”而7岁的小孩便会发出“住嘴”之类的评论。
看来，只要广告商和销售商们想策划一场新的促销活动来销售豆宝宝或宠物小精灵，都有足够的理由变得惶恐不安。戈德斯坦说：“毕竟每天都有关于向儿童销售的研讨会。如果广告商真知道怎样向儿童进行推销，他们一定不会那样做的。”
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Text 2
Watch and Learn
by Gregg Easterbrook
In the days after the Colorado slaughter,
discussion of violent images in American culture was
dominated by the canned positions of the anti-Hollywood
right and the mammon-is-our-God film lobby. The debate
missed three vital points: the distinction between what
adults should be allowed to see (anything) and what
the inchoate minds of children and adolescents should
see; the way in which important liberal battles to win
free expression in art and literature have been perverted
into an excuse for antisocial video brutality produced
by cynical capitalists; and the difference between censorship
and voluntary acts of responsibility.
The day after the Colorado
shooting, Mike De Luca, an executive of New Line Cinema,
told USA Today that when kids kill, "bad
home life, bad parenting, having guns in the home" are
"more of a factor than what we put out there for
entertainment." Setting aside the disclosure that
Hollywood now categorizes scenes of movie stars gunning
down the innocent as "entertainment," De Luca
is correct; studies do show that upbringing is more
determinant of violent behavior than any other factor.
But research also clearly shows that the viewing of
violence can cause aggression and crime. So the question
is: In a society already plagued by poor parenting and
only slightly limited gun sales, why does the entertainment
industry feel privileged to make violence even more
prevalent?
Even when researchers factor out other
influences such as parental attention, many peer-reviewed
studies have found casual links between viewing phony
violence and engaging in actual violence. A 1971 surgeon
general's report asserted a broad relationship between
the two. Studies by Brandon Centerwall, an epidemiologist
at the University of Wisconsin, have shown that the
post war murder rise in the United States began roughly
a decade after TV viewing became common. Centerwall
also found that in South Africa, where television was
not generally available until 1975, national murder
rates started rising about a decade later.
Leonard Eron, a psychologist
at the University of Michigan, has been tracking video
violence and actual violence for almost four decades.
His initial studies in 1960 found that even the occasional
violence depicted in 1950s television—to which every
parent would gladly return today －caused increased aggression
among eight-year-olds. By the adult years, Eron's studies
find, those who watched the most TV and movies in childhood
were much more likely to have been arrested for, or
convicted of, violent felonies. Eron believes that 10
percent of U.S. violent crime is caused by exposure
to images of violence, meaning that 90 percent is not,
but that a 10 percent national reduction in violence
might be achieved merely by moderating the content of
television and movies.
"Kids learn by observation,"
Eron says. "If what they observe is violent, that's
what they learn." To cite a minor but telling example,
the introduction of vulgar language into American public
discourse traces, Eron thinks, largely to the point
at which stars like Clark Gable began to swear onscreen,
and kids then imitated swearing as normative.
Defenders of bloodshed
in film, television, and writing often argue that depictions
of killing don't incite real violence because no one
is really affected by what they see or read; it's all
just water off a duck's back9. At heart,
this is an argument against free expression. The whole
reason to have a First Amendment is that people are
influenced by what they see and hear; words and images
do change minds, so there must be free competition among
them. If what we say, write, or show has no consequences,
why bother to have free speech?
Trends in gun availability
do not appear to explain the murder rise that has coincided
with television and violent films. Research by John
Lott, Jr., of the University of Chicago Law School shows
that the percentage of homes with guns has changed little
throughout the postwar era. What appears to have changed
is the willingness of people to fire their guns at one
another. Are adolescents now willing to use guns because
violent images make killing seem acceptable or even
cool?
Following the Colorado
slaughter, The New York Times ran a recounting
of other postwar mass murders staged by the young, such
as the 1966 Texas tower killings, and noted that they
all happened before the advent of the Internet or shock
rock, which seemed to the Times to absolve the
modern media. But all the mass killings by the young
occurred after 1950—after it became common to watch
violence on television.
When horrific murders occur,
the film and television industries routinely attempt
to transfer criticism to the weapons used. Just after
the Colorado shootings, for instance, TV talk-show host
Rosie O'Donnell called for a constitutional amendment
banning all firearms. How strange that O'Donnell didn't
call instead for a boycott of Sony or its production
company, Columbia Tristar—a film studio from which she
has received generous paychecks and whose recent offerings
include 8MM, which glamorizes the sexual murder
of young women, and The Replacement Killers,
whose hero is a hit man and which depicts dozens of
gun murders. Handguns should be licensed, but that hardly
excuses the convenient sanctimony of blaming the crime
on the weapon, rather than on what resides in the human
mind.
And when it comes to promoting
adoration of guns, Hollywood might as well be the NRA's
marketing arm. An ever-increasing share of film and
television depicts the firearm as something the virile
must have and use, if not an outright sexual aid.
But doesn't video violence
merely depict a stark reality against which the young
need to be warned? American society is far too violent,
yet the forms of brutality highlighted in the movies
and on television—prominently "thrill" killings
and serial murders—are pure distortion. Nearly 99 percent
of real murders result from robberies, drug deals, and
domestic disputes; figures from research affiliated
with the FBI's behavioral sciences division show an
average of only about 30 serial or "thrill"
murders nationally per year. Thirty is plenty horrifying
enough, but at this point, each of the major networks
and movie studios alone depicts more "thrill"
and serial murders annually than that. By endlessly
exploiting the notion of the "thrill" murder,
Hollywood and television present to the young an entirely
imaginary image of a society in which killing for pleasure
is a common event. The publishing industry also distorts
for profit the frequency of "thrill" murders.
The profitability of violent
cinema is broadly dependent on the "down-rating"
of films—movies containing extreme violence being rated
only R instead of NC-17 (the new name for X)—and the
lax enforcement of age restrictions regarding movies.
Teens are the best market segment for Hollywood; when
moviemakers claim their violent movies are not meant
to appeal to teens, they are simply lying. The millionaire
status of actors, directors, and studio heads—and the
returns on the mutual funds that invest in movie companies—depends
on not restricting teen access to theaters or film rentals.
Studios, in effect, control
the movie ratings board and endlessly lobby it not to
label extreme violence with an NC-17, the only form
of rating that is actually enforced. Natural Born
Killers, for example, received an R following Time-Warner
lobbying, despite its repeated close-up murders and
one charming scene in which the stars kidnap a high-school
girl and argue about whether it would be more fun to
kill her before or after raping her. Since its inception,
the movie ratings board has put its most restrictive
rating on any realistic representation of lovemaking,
while sanctioning ever-more-graphic depictions of murder
and torture. In economic terms, the board's pro-violence
bias gives studios an incentive to present more death
mayhem, confident that ratings officials will smile
with approval.
When R-and-X battles were
first fought, intellectual sentiment regarded the ratings
system as a way of blocking the young from seeing films
with political content, such as Easy Rider,
or discouraging depictions of sexuality; ratings were
perceived as the rubes' counterattack against cinematic
sophistication. But in the 1960s, murder after murder
was not standard cinema fare. The most controversial
violent film of that era, A Clockwork Orange,
depicted a total of one killing, which was heard, but
not on-camera. In an era of runaway screen violence,
the ‘60s ideal that the young should be allowed to see
what they want has been corrupted. In this, trends in
video generally mirror the misuse of liberal ideals.
Anti-censorship battles
of this century were fought on firm ground, advocating
the right of films to tackle social and sexual issues
(the 1930s Hays office forbade, among other things,
cinematic mention of cohabitation) and free access to
works of literature such as Ulysses, Story of O,
and the original version of Norman Mailer's The
Naked and the Dead. Struggles against censors established
that suppression of film or writing is wrong.
But to say nothing should
be censored is very different from saying that everything
should be shown. Today, Hollywood and television have
twisted the First Amendment concept that occasional
repulsive or worthless expression must be protected,
so as to guarantee freedom for works of genuine political
content or artistic merit, into a new standard in which
constitutional freedoms are employed mainly to safeguard
works that make no pretense of merit. In the new standard,
the bulk of what's being protected is repulsive or worthless,
with the meritorious work the rare exception.
Not only is there profit
for the performers, producers, management, and shareholders
of firms that glorify violence, so, too, is there profit
for politicians. Many conservatives or Republican politicians
who denounce Hollywood eagerly accept its lucre. Bob
Dole's 1995 anti-Hollywood speech was not followed up
by any anti-Hollywood legislation or campaign-funds
strategy. After the Colorado murders, President Clinton
declared, "Parents should take this moment to ask
what else they can do to shield children from violent
images and experiences that warp young perceptions."
But Clinton was careful to avoid criticizing Hollywood,
one of the top sources of public backing and campaign
contributions for him and his would-be successor, Vice
President Al Gore. The president had nothing specific
to propose on film violence—only that parents should
try to figure out what to do.
When television producers
say it is the parents' obligation to keep children away
from the tube, they reach the self-satire point of warning
that their own product is unsuitable for consumption.
The situation will improve somewhat beginning 2000,
by which time all new TVs must be sold with the "V
chip"—supported by Clinton and Gore—which will
allow parents to block violent shows. But it will be
at least a decade before the majority of the nation's
sets include the chip, and who knows how adept young
minds will prove at defeating it? Rather than rely on
a technical fix that will take many years to achieve
an effect, TV producers could simply stop churning out
the gratuitous violence. Television could dramatically
reduce its output of scenes of killing and still depict
violence in news broadcasts, documentaries, and the
occasional show in which the horrible is genuinely relevant.
Reduction in violence is not censorship; it is placing
social responsibility before profit.
The movie industry could
practice the same kind of restraint without sacrificing
profitability. In this regard, the big Hollywood studios,
including Disney, look craven and exploitative compared
to, of all things, the porn-video industry. Repulsive
material occurs in underground porn, but in the products
sold by the mainstream triple-X distributors such as
Vivid Video (the MGM10 of the erotic business),
violence is never, ever, ever depicted—because that
would be irresponsible. Women and men perform every
conceivable explicit act in today's mainstream porn,
but what is shown is always consensual and almost sunnily
friendly. Scenes of rape or sexual menace never occur,
and scenes of sexual murder are an absolute taboo.
It is beyond irony that
today, Sony and Time-Warner eagerly market explicit
depictions of women being raped, sexually assaulted,
and sexually murdered, while the mainstream porn industry
would never dream of doing so. But if money is all that
matters, the point here is that mainstream porn is violence-free,
yet risqué and highly profitable. Surely this shows
that Hollywood could voluntarily step back from the
abyss of glorifying violence and still retain its edge
and its income.
Following the Colorado
massacre, Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer
declared to a campaign audience, "In the America
I want, all of these producers and directors, they would
not be able to show their faces in public" because
fingers "would be pointing at them and saying,
‘Shame, shame.'" The statement sent chills through
anyone fearing right-wing thought control. But Bauer's
final clause is correct—Hollywood and television do
need to hear the words "shame, shame." The
cause of the shame should be removed voluntarily, not
to stave off censorship, but because it is the responsible
thing to do.
Put it this way. The day after a teenager guns down
the sons and daughters of studio executives in
a high school in the tiny Los Angeles suburbs Bel Air or Westwood, California,
Disney and Time-Warner will stop glamorizing murder. Do we have to wait
until that day?
(2191
words) TOP
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课文二
观看和学习
格雷格·伊斯特布鲁克
科罗拉多杀人案之后，反好莱坞右翼势力的刻板立场与唯利是图的电影业游说团左右了关于美国文化中暴力形象的讨论。这场争论忽略了三个重要的问题：成人可观看的（任何）内容与未成熟儿童及青少年应观看内容的区别；为了争取文学艺术的自由表现形式而进行的自由论战已被引入歧途，成了那些玩世不恭的资本家生产反社会的影视暴力的借口；审查制度与自愿的负责任行为之间的区别。
科罗拉多枪杀案次日，新线影业的主管麦克·德洛卡对《今日美国》说，孩子们杀人是因为“令人不快的家庭生活、不负责任的父母以及家中藏有枪支”，这是“比我们为了娱乐而上演的节目更为重要的因素”。如果将德洛卡披露的好莱坞现在把影星枪击无辜的电影镜头归类为“娱乐”这一点放在一边，那么他说的是正确的；研究确实表明，家教比其它因素对暴力行为更具有决定性。但研究也清楚表明，观看暴力镜头能引起挑衅和犯罪行为。问题就在于：在一个缺乏家教，枪支销售限制很少的问题困扰的社会，为什么娱乐行业感到自己有特权，可以使暴力更为流行？
即使研究者分析出了其它影响，例如家庭关怀，许多针对同龄人的评论研究发现，观看虚假的暴力镜头与从事实际暴力活动之间存在着因果关系。1971年美国公共卫生署长的报告，确定了两者之间的紧密关系。威斯康辛大学流行病学家布兰登·森特沃尔的研究已经表明，战后谋杀案在美国的上升大致是在普及电视10年后开始的。森特沃尔还发现，南非直到1975年才普及电视，而全国谋杀发生率在约10年以后开始上升。
密执安大学心理学家列奥拉德·埃郎跟踪影视暴力与实际暴力几乎40年了。他最初的1960年的研究发现，甚至是50年代的电视节目中偶尔表现的暴力行为——如今所有的家长都乐于回到50年代——也在8岁儿童中引起了越来越多的挑衅行为。埃朗的研究发现，到了成年，那些在儿童时代观看电视或电影最多的人，最有可能因犯暴力重罪而被捕或受到指控。埃朗相信，美国10%的暴力犯罪是由于接触暴力形象引起的，这就说明有90%的暴力犯罪不是这一原因所致，但是仅仅通过调节电视和电影的内容，便可以减少全国10%的暴力犯罪。
“孩子们通过观察来学习，”埃朗说。“如果他们观察到的是暴力行为，那也就是他们学的东西。”举一个很小但有说服力的例子，埃朗认为，粗鄙的语言运用于公共话语，在很大程度上可以追溯到像克拉克·盖博这样的明星开始在屏幕上用粗话骂人那一时刻，而孩子们就模仿粗话骂人，以为是合乎规范的。
为电影、电视及文学作品中流血场面辩护的人常常辩解说，对杀戮的描述不会引起真正的暴力,因为没有人会真正地受他们观看或阅读的东西的影响，丝毫没有影响。这种论调的本质是反对自由表现。拥有第一条修正案的全部原因，是人们会受自己所见所闻的影响；语言与形象的确改变人的思想，所以人们当中必须要有自由竞争。如果我们所说所写或所演的不会产生什么影响，那为什么还要不怕麻烦有言论自由这一条呢？
容易获得枪支的倾向，似乎不能解释和电视及表现暴力的电影巧合的凶杀案的上升。芝加哥大学法学院小约翰·洛特的研究表明，拥有枪支家庭的比例在整个战后没有什么变化。似乎起变化的只是人们更乐意互相开枪射击。青少年现在乐意使用枪支，是不是因为暴力形象使杀戮显得可以接受或者显得更酷呢？
科罗拉多凶杀案之后，《纽约时报》列举了其它战后发生的、由年轻人引起的的凶杀案，如1966年德克萨斯塔楼凶杀案，并且注意到这些凶杀均发生在国际互联网与休克摇滚乐出现之前，在《纽约时报》看来，这似乎是免除了现代媒体的责任。但所有由青年人犯下的群体凶杀都是1950年后才发生的——发生在观看电视上的暴力变得平常以后。
每当发生可怕的凶杀事件，影视业总试图把批评转移到武器的使用上。如科罗拉多枪杀事件刚刚发生，电视谈话节目主持人罗茜·欧·唐妮德就呼吁修正宪法，禁止所有枪支。奇怪的是，欧·唐妮德却不呼吁抵制索尼及其制片公司哥伦比亚三星公司——她从这家电影制片厂领取巨额薪水。公司的最新影片包括《八毫米》，此片美化对青年女子的性谋杀；以及《替身杀手》，其主人公是一位职业杀手，该片表现一系列枪杀。手枪应该配有执照，但这不足以成为现成的伪善的借口，把罪过全归于武器，却不考虑人的头脑中想的东西。
而且，提到促进枪支崇拜时，好莱坞完全可以是全国枪支协会的营销部。越来越多的电影与电视即使没有把枪支描写成彻底的增加性魅力的器具，也把它描写成男性必须拥有和使用的物品。
但是，是不是影视暴力只表现了要警告年轻人不受其害的赤裸裸的现实？美国社会充满着更多的暴力，然而，电影与电视所突出的暴力形式——主要是“惊险”谋杀及系列谋杀——都是对现实十足地歪曲。现实中的谋杀几乎99%都是由抢劫、毒品交易、家庭分歧所引起的。隶属联邦调查局行为科学部的研究数据表明，全国每年平均只有约30起“惊险”谋杀和系列谋杀案。30起已够恐怖了，但目前，主要的电视网络系统及电影制片厂中的每一家，就在一年内生产了比这个数目更多的“惊险”谋杀和系列谋杀片。永无止境地利用“惊险”谋杀的概念，好莱坞及电视给青年人展现了一幅完全是幻想的社会景象。在这个社会里，为了乐趣而谋杀是一件极其平常的事。出版行业为了谋利也歪曲“惊险”谋杀的频率。
暴力电影的利润率在很大程度上依赖“降低影片级别”——充满着极度暴力的影片只被定为R级而不是NC-17级（X级的新说法）——以及放松执行对观看电影年龄的限制。青少年是好莱坞最大的市场板块；当制片商声称暴力电影并非针对青少年，他们简直是在撒谎。演员、导演及电影巨头的百万财富——以及投入电影公司共同基金的回报率——都依赖于不对青少年上影院或租影片进行限制。
制片厂实际上控制了电影级别评定委员会，并且永无止境地对其进行游说，以便不把那些充满极度恐怖的影片评为NC-17级，级别评定的唯一形式实际上是强制性的。如《天生杀手》这一影片在经过时代华纳公司的游说后，被评为R级，尽管该片反复出现谋杀的特写镜头及一个引人注目的镜头。这一镜头中，明星们绑架了一名女中学生，并且争论是强奸前还是强奸后杀死她更有趣。从成立之初起，电影级别评定委员会就对任何性爱写真予以最严厉的限制，而对更为生动的谋杀和折磨描写表示认可。简言之，委员会支持暴力的倾向刺激制片厂拍摄更多描写死亡的镜头，他们深信评定委员们会微笑着赞同的。
当关于R级与X级的论战刚开始时，知识界把分级制度看作一种手段，来禁止青年人观看带有政治内容的影片，如《逍遥骑士》，或反对性描写；影片分级被认为是乡巴佬反击成熟的电影。但在60年代，一桩桩的谋杀案并不是电影界标准的精神食粮。那个时代最有争议的暴力片《发条橙》一共描述了一次谋杀，但谋杀是听到的，而没有表现在屏幕上。在屏幕暴力失控的年代，60年代让年轻人想看什么就看什么的理想已经被滥用了。因此，影视方面的倾向通常折射出对自由理想的滥用。
本世纪反检查制度的斗争有坚实的基础，倡导电影业有权处理社会与性问题（20世纪30年代的海斯办公室禁止在电影中提及的事情中包括同居），自由使用文学作品，如《尤利西斯》，《O的故事》以及诺曼·梅勒初版的《裸者与死者》。对检查制度的反对，确立了对电影与写作的压制是错误的。
但是，说任何东西都不应当受到检查并不等于说什么东西都可以上演。第一修正案规定必须保护偶尔令人反感或无价值的描述以确保真正具有政治内容和艺术价值作品的自由，而今天好莱坞将这一思想歪曲了一种新的标准，使宪法规定的自由主要用来保护那些一点也不强调优点的作品。根据新的标准，受保护的内容都是令人反感或毫无价值的，那些有优点的作品则是极少的例外。
从美化暴力的电影业中获利的不仅有电影公司的演员、制片人、经理以及公司的股东，还有政客。许多公开指责好莱坞的保守党和共和党政客，急于收取来自好莱坞的不义之财。鲍勃·多尔1995年的反好莱坞演讲，并未带来任何反好莱坞的立法或运动基金策略。科罗拉罗枪杀案后，克林顿总统宣称：“此时此刻，家长们应该想一想，怎样保护儿童避开暴力形象和经验，它们扭曲了年轻人的感知和理解。”但是，克林顿小心谨慎，并未批评好莱坞。好莱坞是他和他未来的接班人副总统戈尔获得公众支持及竞选赞助的重要来源之一。总统对电影暴力未作具体建议——只是让家长们琢磨该做什么。
当电视节目制作人说让孩子们远离电视是家长们的责任时，他们到了自我嘲讽的地步，是在警告说自己的产品不适合于消费。情况在2000年初将会有所改善，到那时，所有出售的新电视机都必须装有“V型硅片”——该计划受克林顿和戈尔的支持——能让家长锁住暴力节目。但是，至少得花上10年功夫才能使全国大部分电视机装上这种硅片，但又有谁知道年轻人会不会大显身手来破解它呢？电视制片人只需停止炮制这种不必要的暴力场面，而不是依靠多年才会有效果的技术安装。电视节目可以大大减少杀人的场面，但仍可在新闻广播、记录片及那些真正相关的偶然的恐怖场面中报道暴力事件。减少暴力并不等于审查制度；它是将社会职责置于利益之上。
电影业也可以同样做出节制而不需要牺牲利润。在这方面，包括迪斯尼在内的好莱坞大制片厂们，首先是与黄色影业相比，显得懦弱与唯利是图。令人作呕的素材出现在地下黄色影片中，但诸如Vivid
Video（色情业中的米高梅）这样的主流XXX片发行者出售的产品，绝对不会描写暴力——因为那样做是不负责任的。在如今的主流黄色影片中，女人和男人表演着各种可以想像的、清晰露骨的行为，但所表演的总是两厢情愿，并且几乎上充满阳光和友好的。从不出现强奸或性威协的场景，性谋杀的场面是绝对禁止的。
今天巨大的讽刺是，索尼和时代-华纳公司急于出售清晰露骨的描写女性被强奸以及带有性攻击或性谋杀的影片，同时主流黄色影业连做梦都不会做这样的事情。如果金钱是问题的关键，问题是，主流黄色影业没有暴力，但它是淫秽和高利润的。的确，这表明好莱坞能够主动从赞美暴力的深渊中抽身退步，同时仍然保留它的优势和利润。
科罗拉多枪杀案之后，共和党总统候选人加力·鲍尔在一次竞选活动中对听众宣称：“在我希望的美国，所有这些制片商与导演，他们都不敢在公共场所露面”，因为人们会手指“指着他们说‘可耻，可耻。’”这些话令那些害怕右翼思想控制的人感到沮丧。但是鲍尔最后的一段句子是对的——好莱坞及电视的确需要听听“可耻，可耻”这几个字。应当主动地除去羞耻的原因，不是为了逃避审查，而是因为这是要做的一件负责任的事。
这么说吧，有一天，在加利福尼亚洛杉矶豪华的郊区贝莱尔或威斯特坞的某一所中学，少年们用枪击倒了电影制片厂经理们的儿女们，迪斯尼、时代-华纳公司将停止美化凶杀。难道我们真的要等到那一天吗？
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