Whitehorn’s world Setting TV censorship priorities
By
KATHARINE WHITEHORN
Like a three-year-old who has proudly learned to count up to four, the British are beside themselves because they now have four television channels to choose from instead of three. At the sariie time, there plans for the introduction • Jcable television, now perrectly ordinary in America, and there is a good deal of genuine worry about the idea of pornographic programmes that car be beamed into houses where there are small children.
Naturally enough, there is an enormous fuss about all this, but unfortunately protesters are throwing their case away by making as much fuss about unimportant things as about the major issues.
The thing that gets my goat about the protesters is not that they find certain films or certain programmes revolting—the wave of horror films or cop serials designed to glorify police brutality, or the jolly little package of child porn movies on its way from America are revolting. It is not that they wistfully yearn for channels showing only programmes they like— I wouldn’t mind a channel, myself, that showed nothing but science programmes, old movies and the sort of costume serials that let you off having to read the book.
Nor do I blame them for their perfectly justified worry over uncontrolled cable, and their distrust of
safeguards. In most families the only person who would understand a locking device would be the children.
And in any event, about the one thing studies of television and violence have shown is that it is exactly those neglected, maybe disturbed, youngsters whose viewing would be quite unrestricted who would be most likely to copy the violence they saw., No. what drives me to frenzy is their apparently total inability to distinguish between one kind of offensiveness and another: between someone saying piss off and people gang-banging a girl; between a programme that's trying to say something a bit way out and difficult that may tread on a few toes, and a film that’s straight sadistic exploitation of bloodlust.
They get steamed up about rude words; and I suppose, as one who earns a living with words, I ought to be pleased whenever anyone shows signs of being able to tell one from another.
Sure, people do mind about the language—my husband gets a lot of flak from his father about his language
every time het gets out a new thriller.
But it doesn't actually matter. No one is going to be frightened or corrupted by it: no one's going to rush out and do it just because they've heard the work (how do you p. . . anyway?)
Then there is the outrage of visual shock. Visual impact is certainly different from the impact of print: written words and the act of
reading do provide some sort of mental filter which isn't there when an image hits the eye. But visual shock isn’t necessarily reprehensible. I can’t stand, myself, to see medical operations—nor snakes, come to that, they make me dream. But cobras and heart transplants don't have to be kept off the screen just to stop me passing out cold on the floor. The lingering, sticky, sadistic shot of someone slicing into a woman with a razor is horrible, while a surgical operation is not: because what is being done is horrible and a good director could probably make your hair stand on end just as much with something less explicit off camera as he could by showing every detail. But then what you're discussing is whether there's any need to bring such things to our attention at all.
If it’s the latest piece of demonic, possession it almost certainly isn’t; if it's a question of El Salvador it probably is. But the fact that something is shocking to see is not, in itself, the concluding argument either way. Nasty words don’t matter that much; nasty pictures
may or may not be necessary; and when it comes to nastv messages, you're teetering on the brink ol censorship.
There’s a terrible row going on, for example, about a programme that’s to show a homosexual party—but why shouldn’t they have a programme of their own once in a while? The effect-of all these goons screaming their heads off about the bits that do not matter is that sophisticated and powerful, people are likely to discount any protest about cable television and so fofth altogether. This type of protest is creating a situation where there's no middle position between letting anything be shown, anywhere, however frightful, and wanting a huymn-singing single channel with nothing on it but the “Waltons" and the “Muppets."
To make an effective case, you must have a better argument than just "It’s not what I’ve been used to."
Perhaps “Nothing human to me is alien" is a bit more than most of us can manage; but "nothing alien to me is human’’ is simply not good enough. Copyright “Observer” Syndication Service.