One program showed a bomb blowing off someone’s fingers.
Another featured scenes of a bull impaling a woman on its horns.
Still others included startling images of a husband shooting his wife, a man being buried alive and people hurtling to their deaths from hot-air balloons.
While the overall tonnage of televised mayhem has declined in the past two years, according to a University of California-Los Angeles study, violence on so-called reality specials — everything from cop chases and animal attacks to natural disasters and gruesome accidents — has surged alarmingly.
Concern about violent programming is so widespread that earlier this month federal regulators approved the so-called “V-chip,” which would allow parents to automatically block violent or other unwanted programs. But violence comes in so many forms on TV that it is increasingly difficult for parents to sort out what they do and don’t want their kids to see.
Reality programming adds yet another layer of complexity to those decisions. Yet, whether this type of program really hurts anyone is far from clear.
To critics, the shows suggest an alarming trend that could unleash everything from racial paranoia to increased street crime.
“These specials contain some of the most graphic and terrifying images to be found anywhere on network television,” UCLA’s Center for Communications Policy found. “Unlike injury or death depicted in other televised formats, viewers cannot comfort themselves with the reassurance that what they are watching is just a fictional story . . . Rather, these shows capitalize upon the opportunity to show extraordinarily gory images of actual injuries.”
Yet others contend the programs merely reveal a side of life that the public has a right — and a desire — to see.
“There are lots of self-appointed groups who would like to censor American television,” says Martin Franks, senior vice president of CBS. “My advice to the American public is, beware of those groups.”
The UCLA study, however, was paid for by the four broadcast networks as part of a 1994 agreement with Congress to monitor the quality of programming.
Researchers specializing in TV content say the impact of reality specials on children or other viewers has not been adequately studied.
Those who do want to hide, the UCLA study suggests, may find that difficult. Examining programs during 1996 and 1997, the study concluded that the level of violence on all types of TV shows is down from what it was in 1995. But it discovered that reality specials were on the rise — a trend it called disturbing, because the programs often “glorify violence.”
The study especially disapproved of Fox Network’s shows. Among them:
– “World’s Scariest Police Shootouts.” It pictured a man holding his wife hostage at gunpoint and then shooting her in the chest. “She tries to flee and he fires a few more times at her,” the study says, “but within seconds the police have gunned him down.”
– “When Disasters Strike.” It showed two planes colliding at an air show and plunging into the crowd, incinerating 61 people, the study says, adding that it also featured “automobile, plane and boat crashes, as well as people falling to their deaths from hot-air balloons.”
– “When Stunts Go Bad.” In this program, “a stunt skier accidentally falls down the side of a mountain, flipping 13 times,” the study says. “In another sequence, a man dies in a bungled Houdini-like stunt as he is literally buried alive under tons of dirt and cement.”
– “Close Call: Cheating Death.” It showed a bomb blowing up in a man’s face and a close-up of his mangled hand, minus three fingers. The study says it also showed scenes of a bear attacking a woman and of “two people falling several stories down a ladder.”
– “When Animals Attack.” One episode had “a bull impaling a woman with its horns and tossing her through the street like a rag doll,” the study says. Two other episodes featured “attacks by bears, sharks, alligators, deer, pit pulls and many other animals.”
The study was less critical of reality shows like “COPS” and “America’s Most Wanted,” though it said the latter raised occasional concerns by “intermittently glorifying and graphically showcasing excessive violence.”
Fox officials declined to discuss the UCLA study in detail. But when it initially was made public, the network’s entertainment group president, Peter Roth, commented that with so many quality programs on TV, there is room for shows that are “a little bit more commercial.”
Indeed, because of that commercial appeal, Ellen Wartella, a University of Texas researcher who studies the trend, thinks such specials are likely to become more prevalent.
“It’s pure economics,” she says. “They’re cheaper to produce than fictional programs.” And the growing number of cable channels “have this enormous appetite and need for programming.”
Mary Beth Oliver, a Virginia Tech researcher, cites another problem with the programs: Although they use real-life video, their message often distorts reality. In the police shows that she has studied, for example, more than 60 percent of the crimes are solved. But in real life, the success rate for police departments is typically lower.
Oliver’s studies also have found that members of minority groups commit a far greater share of the crimes on such shows than they do in real life. “That worries me a lot,” she says. “I think it has a real potential to contribute to racial stereotyping” and “less support for civil liberties.”
