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(Note: I wrote this letter as a reply to an editorial in The Hollywood Reporter where the columnist, Ms. Busch, decried Senator Lieberman and the furor over violent movies and television shows being marketed to children)
Ms. Anita Busch, Editor
The Hollywood Reporter
Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036-4396
Fax: (323) 525-2377
Re: SOUND OFF! In THR of September 15-17, 2000
Dear Ms. Busch:
Below are my comments regarding your SOUND OFF! Column:
Welcome, Hollywood, to the "slippery slope"!
Let me begin by saying that I have never voted for a Democratic Party candidate or a Republican Party candidate in my life, though I have voted for candidates in every election for which I have been eligible to vote. I am stating this up front because these days party political affiliation (alongside racial affiliation) tends to be an overwhelming factor in any debate. As a life-long third-party voter, I consider myself somewhat immune from being written-off as partisan.
For many years Hollywood has dismissed the heretofore largely Conservative idea of "slippery slopes". This argument, of course, states that if you allow one thing to happen, it will lead to other more serious consequences, as in someone walking along a slippery incline and tumbling all the way down a hill because of it. Most often Conservatives have used this argument in support of the right to carry and bear arms and the right to continue to prosecute the War on Drugs and most often Liberals have rebutted such assertions, labeling the "slippery-slopers" as paranoids or fanatics. But there are a variety of old sayings that have become appropriate viz a viz the recent threat from Congress and the FTC to regulate the entertainment industry: "Be careful what you ask for…you may get it" and "What goes around comes around" come to mind immediately. Many of us are familiar with the Holocaust parable where the narrator laments that first "they" came for this group and that group and she said nothing, but then they finally came for her, and there was no one left to speak out on her behalf.
That is what is happening here. The slope got slippery for the entertainment industry a few years ago when Hollywood decided to jump on the bandwagon and demolish the Big Tobacco and the firearms industries. You even mention the similarities in your editorial. At that time, given Hollywood's fixation with pseudo-health, its hatred of big business, and the fact that the entire issue tended to revolve along party lines, few if any in the entertainment community had the courage to stand up and publicly question whether freedoms were being unduly sacrificed. The attitude of the time was that this was a question of health, and that Big Tobacco and the firearms manufacturers did not have the right to create and distribute a legal product that was perceived as being targeted towards or aimed at children and which was also perceived as having deleterious health affects on society in general and children in particular.
With Hollywood behind the push Joe Camel was terminated, the "evil" Big Tobacco companies have been put on the run, and firearms manufacturers are already entrenching for their big battle (and big money has flowed into the coffers of those most vehement in leading the charge). But what Hollywood has failed to recognize is that when you make a choice to sacrifice freedoms for any purpose, you open the door for others to do the same. Does this mean we should never regulate freedom for the public good? No. But it does mean it should only ever be done in extremis, and after careful consideration, and certainly not with the type of public hysterical jump-on-the-bandwagon haste that seems to be de rigueur these days.
More specifically, Hollywood in particular and people in general need to separate those things they dislike from those things for which they are willing to sacrifice freedoms in order to make them illegal. You cannot legislate or expect your government to legislate based on the principal of "ban that which displeases me". Displeasure is a very subjective thing, and communal displeasure is a very fickle beast, subject to demagoguery and the breezes of fashion and trend, and inclined to eventually be turned back on the very persons who benefited previously from the same outlook.
Recently, a non-scientific poll conducted on a random sampling of Americans found that a full 60% of them were willing to give up a portion of their Bill of Rights freedoms to help fight the War on Drugs. I find this absolutely terrifying, and so should anyone who is concerned about the future of our nation and its mode of government. Have we become so eager to create new laws and to look to the government for solutions to all of society's ills that we are willing to, in essence, trade tyranny for security?
So now we have Big Tobacco take two, only this time it's not Big Tobacco anymore is it? And it's not pro-gun lunatics arguing about the slippery-slope effect is it? This time it is hitting Hollywood close to home, and now…only now…is Hollywood standing up with righteous indignation at the heavy-handedness of the government in threatening to regulate the content and marketing of violent motion pictures (and music and video games). But like the narrator in the Holocaust parable, where were you freedom lovers when Big Tobacco was being pummeled? Where were you when the Second Amendment was being trammeled? It is time the entertainment community realize that it is not individual self-interested issues that need to be fought for, but broader principals that need defense. Do not just stand up and be heard when government casts its gaze on your business or your home. If government intervention in the right to commerce is deemed proper in the case of cigarettes and firearms, then that same principle has to apply to violent films. All three are being marketed towards or sold to minors and all three have proven health risks, especially towards children. On the other hand, if it is not government's job to regulate the entertainment industry, but rather the industry's job to self-regulate, then why wasn't this option given to Big Tobacco?
The last paragraph of your column, every single word, could have been applied to Big Tobacco or the gun lobby:
Can everyone be more responsible? Yes. We need parental supervision of children who smoke/might have access to firearms. With tobacco/firearms, we need a combination of more vigilant enforcement of existing regulations and self-policing is the answer, not government legislation.
Stop this madness - before this country's founding fathers (and the First Amendment/Second Amendment) end up lying in a bloody mess on the Senate floor.
Thank you for your consideration.
Devin Cutler
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