Steve Allen battles for better television for kids

The Interview, a regular feature of The Catholic New World, is an in-depth conversation with a person whose words, actions or ideas affect today’s Catholic. It may be affirming of faith or confrontational. But it will always be stimulating.

This week, Catholic New World staff member Dolores Madlener talks with entertainer, author and activist Steve Allen.

Have you gotten a letter from Steve Allen recently? Millions of families have.

Allen, the multi-talented star of the first “Tonight Show,” author of 53 books (and counting), composer, musician, actor and funny man, isn’t laughing these days. He calls TV’s once sacred family hour (from 8-9 p.m.) “a moral sewer.” Allen says he’s “mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore.”

Married to actress Jayne Meadows for 44 years, the father of four sons and grandfather of 12, Allen has actively sought decency in the media for years. Recently he agreed to serve as honorary chairman of the Parents Television Council. Through full-page ads in major secular newspapers it seeks to persuade viewers that “dirty shows will disappear from TV if they can’t get sponsors.”

Allen’s earnest eight-page letter mailed to households across America, is part of the campaign, pulls no punches and carries a plea for everyone to mobilize to save the kids and the future of America.

Catholic New World: You’ve accepted honorary chairmanship of the Parents Television Council, Steve. Is it your love of good TV or your disgust for what it’s become?
Steve Allen: More the latter. There’s always been a certain minimum percentage of television that we hardly deserve, it’s so good. That’s true today. “Law and Order” and “The West Wing” prove it can be done. But the problem is the incredible tidal wave of sleaze, vulgarity and violence that is now dominant in the popular arts. Not only in TV, but in radio, recordings and films.

CNW: Aren’t a lot of adults just turning off TV?
SA: That’s a key point. The adults who would naturally disapprove of what I call the “Howard Stern-ization” of American television have begun to ignore it or (watch only) news shows, that sort of thing. If something disgusts you, it doesn’t make sense to immerse yourself in it. But there’s a price to pay for that “turning away,” and that is many people don’t know how hideous the situation is for their kids or grandkids.

CNW: What exactly is the danger for young people?
SA: It’s mainly young males from about 12 to 25 or so who don’t even perceive the evidence as awful. This is where a major social danger comes in. This is the demographic pool from which young women select their boyfriends and … their husbands. Living a good, decent life is more difficult than ever, no matter what your social surroundings. One of the reasons for the increasing difficulty is that the sensibilities of young males are constantly being assailed by examples of the kind of behavior that all rational societies have tried to discourage for centuries.

CNW: Some 20-year-olds are bored by disturbing shows like “Big Brother” because they say MTV was doing it years ago. Isn’t that an added dilemma?
SA: That’s the blood-chilling point I’ve mentioned in a book I’m nearly finished writing. About two years back I came across evidence reported by a professor at a university. When discussing even such things as the Nazis atrocities of the Holocaust or what Pol Pot did in Cambodia, he found what I call a strange “moral neutrality” among average young students. They are jaded and dulled to out-and-out atrocities. What kinds of husbands or wives are they going to make; even worse, what kinds of parents?

CNW: The future seems depressing. How do you keep positive?
SA: Well the fact that I’m going on fighting about the issue and writing and speaking about it is an indication that I’m not ready to assume the situation is hopeless!

CNW: What about the people who believe TV should have no limits? If you don’t like it, flip the channel.
SA: They’re wrong. If you’re standing on a corner and a man hits another with an ax and kills him, (it’s) really wrong. So this stupid, non-judgmental, “different strokes for different folks” saying from the 1960s must be clarified. A society even remotely like what the founding fathers had in mind literally cannot function on that basis.

CNW: Do you believe individuals can have an impact?
SA: C. Delores Tucker is an African-American woman who has been campaigning for years for better record lyrics. Working with (former Education Secretary) Bill Bennett, who is also concerned with the issue, she was personally responsible for making Gerald Levin, head of Time/Warner at the time, personally ashamed of one product he was marketing.

One of his companies was a record label selling the great majority of the most egregious examples of rap music. The point of the lyrics was: “Let’s go out and rape a few women tonight” and “let’s kill the cops.” During a discussion at Time/Warner, she asked an executive to read the words aloud. As soon as he saw how vile they were, he refused. Levin, to his great credit, was so ashamed he sold the record company.

CNW: Are warning labels on records one answer?
SA: Warning labels don’t work. They just help kids find out which ones are vile.

CNW: What about the Internet and youngsters?
SA: I was making a speech in Washington D.C. a few weeks ago. I mentioned I had just read a transcript of a speech by Sen. John McCain who said, at the time he was speaking, there were 27,000 websites with pornography in one degree or another.
Somebody told me later, the figure was correct when it was made, but it’s now up to over 100,000 sites. That’s an indication of a very sick society.

CNW: You and the Parents Television Council have gone after the World Wrestling Federation’s popular “Smackdown” show. What’s so bad about wrestling?
SA: If everyone who watched it was a beer-drinking 50-year-old, I’d deplore their taste but I wouldn’t see it as a social problem. Unfortunately it’s the kids from 10 to 16 who are the biggest fans.
In many instances of children killing other children, when police ask, “Why did you do this?” the answer is, “Well, I saw some of those wrestling moves on television, and I didn’t mean to kill her, but I hit her in the neck like that and she’s dead.”

CNW: Aren’t there pros and cons about the behavioral effects of violent movies?
SA: I’ve recently read a brilliant book by Cornel West, the black scholar, and Sylvia Ann Hewlett, titled, “The War Against Parents.” Referring to the film, “Natural Born Killers,” they cited 11 murderous crimes have been directly related to that picture. The criminals mentioned the movie in various ways. One guy gave the indecent finger to TV news cameras and said proudly, “I’m a natural born killer.”

CNW: Schools have been effective in steering kids from cigarettes. Could they help return taste to the tube?
SA: Yes. It’s a creative idea called “character education.” There’s a national movement called the Character Education Institute and other groups are doing the same work. Things have gotten so bad, schools have to get into the business of “moral education.” All the word means is right and wrong.

One of the hopeful notes is this is not just an issue of importance to Christians, or Catholics or Republicans or conservatives. People across the political and philosophical spectrum are just as concerned.
Even the American Humanist Association probably gathers together a lot of atheists and agnostics … they too are on our side. Like every concerned person, they walk carefully when the question of constitutional freedoms comes up, but that’s appropriate.
We can’t have a system where just because you don’t like something you arrange to have it outlawed.

CNW: Who are some other show biz supporters of the Parents Television Council?
SA: There are a lot of people in show business behind this, and there’s also a growing number of entertainers. Mort Sahl joined us recently; Tim Conway and Bob Newhart are on the team. Bill Cosby has been good on this issue for a long, long time. I did a show recently with Sid Caesar, a major comic figure in the history of TV, what Charlie Chaplin was to films.
Even a major wrestler is making public statements these days that sound like they came from PTC.

CNW: What progress has been made educating sponsors?
SA: Very often constitutional rights fall on both sides of an argument. One may have the right to something that most of the world thinks is dreadful. The world has the right to come down on your neck and say, “You should be ashamed of doing that.” So there’s a lot of shouting and a lot of sober argumentation going on, as it should be, in the American system.
When the average person responds to a PTC newspaper ad, which is the way 95 per cent of the people who join the group come in, the donation goes to pay for other ads. That’s the way the battle is being waged. It’s not for profit, and none of us are making a living at it.

The latest count is something like 500,000 Americans have responded. What is obviously arousing so much support is the issue itself. People are quite angry about this. It sounds like a joke, but I meant it in all seriousness: Howard Stern has probably done a great deal more for the cause of righteousness than anybody on our team, because what he does is so terrible. He disgusts even some jaded teenagers who I’m sure must be revolted by things like making fun of handicapped people, not just sexual behavior.

The worst offenders, the Jerry Springers, the Sterns and Madonnas, etc. are so offensive they actually are causing more and more people to coalesce as an opposition!

Donations can be sent to Parents Television Council, 600 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90117, or see their website at www.parentstv.org. Allen has his own website at www.steveallen.com.

BACK