Juvenile delinquency (1955)

72 JUVENILE DELINQUENCY The industry would readily agree that no harmful movies should be seen by American youngsters. The cooperation afforded us by the industry in our study attests to this fact. Eric Johnston and his office greatly assisted both my staff' and myself in our study, and we have been in touch with them for several months now. When our investigation was first announced, some industry repre- sentatives expressed concern about our purposes. As we progressed, however, their attitude toward us, toward our study, has changed. Now I think they are convinced that between us we can examine the trade and come up with some conclusions that will be beneficial both to the industry and to our investigation of the mass media. In recent months, the subcommittee has been receiving an increas- ing amount of correspondence from intelligent people throughout the country. These people are concerned about an increase in what is felt to be unnecessary movie violence. They complain of excessive brutality, sadism, and illicit sexual behavior in motion pictures. Many of these letters link the increase in the brutal nature of many juvenile crimes with this increase in crime and violence in movies. We on the subcommittee realize that to say bad movies create addi- tional delinquency is far-fetched. You cannot say a child will see a movie and then commit an act of delinquency. But we do feel that with the prevailing world conditions, with the uncertainty of the draft, with the lurking thought of atomic destruction, with all of these as background an atmosphere of violence is being conveyed by the mass media. While these media are, on the one hand, reflecting the behavior of the older generation, they are, in turn, forming the minds of the younger generation, and that is where our greatest danger lies. While social scientists at this time cannot fully pinpoint the exact relationship between movies and children's behavior, they do feel that to allow the indiscriminate showing of scenes depicting violence or brutality constitutes at least a calculated risk to our young people; a risk we cannot afford to take. The same scientists strongly feel that these films are often viewed extensively by the type of children who can least afford to see them, that is, by emotionally unstable children who have already developed behavior of a sadistic or brutal nature. These children may gain support and ideas from a similar type of film. While these contentions have not been proven by controlled ex- periments, scores of clinical psychologists and psj^chiatrists, surveyed and heard by the committee—men and women w4io have handled emotionally warped delinquents—feel that the mass media provide fertile material for furthering the antisocial behavior of their parents. The subcommittee has also received numerous complaints about the advertising of motion pictures. Readers of even the most respectful family newspapers have noticed an increase in w^hat they consider bad advertising. They report to us—sending us clips from news- papers all over the country—that these advertisements have reached a point close to the obscene in some few cases. By implication and innuendo these ads appear to remain within the l)ounds of discretion, but their total impact, especially on imprissionable young minds, can only be provactive. The technique will also be looked at today. In these advertisements supercharged sex is sometimes the key- note. Purple prose is keyed to feverish tempo to celebrate the natural-