Let There Be Light

Unfortunately, this "debate" has obscured the real issue. The real issue is not "violence." It's responsible quality television.

The CAUCUS QUARTERLY and the CAUCUS itself is clear about this. In the last two issues--and in the CAUCUS' Aims and Objectives--we collectively have stressed that television must improve or risk becoming a destructive force in our society.

As a group of enlightened men and woman, we producers, writers and directors know that unemployment, poverty, racism, drugs and guns create more social misery than "violent" television. We must not--as a group--allow others to deflect attention away from the real problems of American society. True, we recognized that violence on TV is something that needs to be attended to, so we pushed and shoved and attended conferences and symposia.

But what did we get? First, we got an on-air announcement on parental discretian. Then, we got --maybe--the "V" chip. It was enough to get Congressman and TV executives all puffed up like they did something.

But, truly, the problem neither begins nor ends there. Our fight is not just against violence on television. It's against an increasinqly degrading quality of work.

And, too, it's against bromides and false solutions like the on-- air announcement and the "V" chip. We need to be in the vanguard of those who insist that the real fight against violence and crime starts with a comprehensive fight against unemployment, poverty, racism, drugs and guns.

We know, because we in the CAUCUS are part of the fight, that the Brady gun-control bill, simple as it is, hasn't been passed yet. We know, too, that federal support for drug and alcohol treatment programs have been cut and that funds have been withdrawn from the anti-drug program for schools.

Drugs and guns . . . These have been CAUCUS issues. They remain CAUCUS issues. In our efforts to detoxify "violent" TV, let us not be hypocrites and deflect our attention --and society's--away from these very real issues. Pronouncing "Due to some violent content, parental discretion is advised" before and/or during a telecast will simply NOT solve the problem of drugs and guns in our society.

And the "V" chip, which is addressed elsewhere in this issue, is--as one critic called it--a medieval cure; like a leech it will draw the good blood as well as the bad blood from the sick patient. Do we lose "Henry V" (Olivier's and Branagh's) and the "Three Stooges," and "Roots!" Violence, it needs to be said again and again, has been a staple of good drama going back to Greek tragedy. Indeed, Shakespeare's violence makes some of the current violence look tame.

The problem, as the London Times recently so aptly described it, is that there is a "pornography of violence" and that comes from sheer exploitation and bad writing. The television artist (and that's all we're discussing here) has surrendered his or her sensibilities for transient monetary gain; we've stopped thinking to continue selling. We settle for mediocrity just because it pays well.

Apathy and indifference are our enemies; they lead us to making corrupt choices. We cannot feel good just because we've been in the forefront of a battle against violence on TV. We need to reappraise ourselves an individuals and re-evaluate our role in television. Too many of us seen to be finding ourselves at the "end of our rope" in this business, wondering if all the time and energy we've put in hasn't simply left us empty-handed, short of fulfilling our dreams. Think back to all the good we hoped to be doing by getting involved in television in the first place. We begin to change things by first admitting that we've been part of television failing to illuminate the world we live in. We need to provide such illumination, in both our dramas and our comedies.

We need to speak out, to respond to our oft-expressed idealism. We have to be proud and angry, and to paraphrase Mother Jones, "be bitchy and raise hell." We have to be angry. And we have to give voice to our outrage. We have to shed ourselves of what the N.Y. Times called our "compassionate indifference," i.e. feel bad but walk away (from the homeless).

All of our children grew up, or are growing up, on television; are they threatening to rape and pillage and burn? And don't they know how to beat the advertisers, using the remote control to destroy the very essence of commercial television, watching each channel for an instant--zapping by the commercials, before settling an something that -- if it isn't art --doesn't transform them into axe-killers. But they aren't being transformed into concerned, thinking citizens, either. And that's what's killing me.

If our outrage can be infused into our work, maybe "compassionate indifference" can become just plain down-home compassion. Social and governmental actions produced the homeless. Social and governmental actions can give the homeless homes. Society and government conspired to create the unemployed; they can create employment. Our children and our children's children must not be numbed by television. They must be--to use the current ward-- empowered. They must be energized. Not in 12 steps. Not in 60 second workouts. Not instantly. But over a long period during which we, as artists, ASK THE QUESTIONS, DEMAND THE ANSWERS. We must be careful to at least identify the problems. We don't have to solve them.

Ours is a public trust. Not so is this trust solely the networks'. It is ours, too. What we do counts--in our episodes, our movies, our sitcoms.

Violence is an issue. I, for one, am glad we addressed it, continue to address it. But I want to see us "go for the whole thing". . . raise our collective voices and focus on the fight to make America a place where--like it was when we were growing up--everyone expected to live happily ever after. Only a few, we are told, now believe they will even "make-do."

When I joined on to do the QUARTERLY, I was hopeful these 200 or so pages a year might help me to resurrect my television soul. I was eager to provoke my colleagues, to force them to look in the mirror and ask, "How did we lose it?" And, more importantly, "How do we find it back?" I wasn't worried about the "it." We all know what "it" is. It's why we got into television. It wasn't just to make money.

Personal reasons dictate that I not pursue my work as editor beyond this issue. The year during which I've worked marks the 25th Anniversary of what very well may be the watershed year in 20th Century American history. 1968 could very well have been the year hopes peaked and began to fade. It was the year in which Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy were killed. Of the Chicago Democratic Convention. Of Nixon's election to the Presidency. Of the Vietnam War. But it was also the year of Apollo 8.

So in closing this piece--a personal addendum to the Steering Committees CALL TO ACTION in the summer issue, and as a kind of editorial punctuation mark to a too brief career as editor of this journal, let me take you back to the experience of Apollo 8, 1968, and ask you to reflect on this one journey out of darkness. It should give all of us the strength to will ourselves to do the impossible.

It was Christmas Eve. And for those who believed in the holiness of that night, and for those who did not, there was a communion of spirit as Apollo 8 circled the moon, taking three Americans: Borman, Lovell and Anders, on man's first journey around that celestial body. There was something beyond a religious experience as science bound us all together on this earth and there was something beyond science an Frank Borman quoted from the Old Testament . . . its very first words . . . "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered in the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light."

Let there be light.

The light that can come from a television screen. The light we can make.