September (Web-only) 2000

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The Federal Trade Commission reported recently that Hollywood deliberately markets violent R-rated movies to children, and a resulting Senate hearing has legislators contemplating the ban of such tactics. Yet few Christian movie critics are enthralled with the idea, despite their equal distaste for Hollywood's glamorized violence.

For starters, Christian critics doubt laws will do any good. "Cigarette companies no longer advertise to youth, and yet smoking among youth is up," notes David Bruce of Hollywood Jesus. "And remember the Reagan commission on pornography? It removed Playboy magazine from all 7-11 stores. Two years later it was back! … No matter what good and useful laws are passed, it will not fully eliminate the problem." World magazine elaborates: "It is not just that the advertising is directed to young people. The products are directed to young people." Michael Elliott of Crosswalk.com says that's the drawback of a free market. "There will always be men and women who will, for self-serving reasons, act in a manner destructive to a moral or decent society. All governmental regulations would do is to change the manner in which such individuals would practice. But their practice will continue as long as the market exists, regulations or no regulations." (Even Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate hearing, concedes in Newsweek that "the free market [does not trump] our children's well-being.")Even if government guidelines were to change Hollywood's output, most critics still wouldn't support them. "Personally, I am not sanguine about any form of government intrusion into the family and its affairs," says Thomas A. Carder, president of Childcare Action Project, "other than necessary ...