Invading young minds

CINEMA'S OBSESSION WITH violence is growing. Most films have a liberal dose of it, and what is even worse is that much of it could have been edited out or not shot at all in the first place. Frames of brutality - cold-blooded murder or sadistic rape - mix and run along with perfect love stories or pleasing family dramas or pure children's fare. With the increasing tendency among directors and producers to allow their heroes or heroines to act out evil, if only to justify the end, the line between good and bad is disappearing. For teenagers and even those younger, this can cause moral confusion, leaving them to often grapple with this dilemma by arguing that their favourite stars can do no wrong. If they kill, they had to. If they drank, drove and ran over someone, they had no other choice. Cinema is full of such predicaments, and boys and girls apparently take the easy way out: grab what you can, destroy what you perceive as wrong or as a threat.

There is worldwide concern over the kind of values that cinema spreads. In the U.S., a Federal Trade Commission report - ordered by the President, Mr. Bill Clinton, after the deadly shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado last year - found ``pervasive and aggressive marketing of violent films...'' A spate of similar incidents undermined the credibility of the rating system followed in the U.S.: it was found that films meant for 13 years and plus were regularly sold to 10 and 11 year-old children. Mr. Jack Valenti, Chief Executive of the Motion Picture Association of America, has consistently disputed cinema's impact on impressionable minds, something with which British and other sociologists vehemently disagree. In fact, the link between crime and screen savagery is now beyond doubt. Teachers in India agree with this, and feel that blood and gore on celluloid completely desensitise children. It may not be farfetched to suggest here that the disturbing rise in the number of thefts and assaults in the country may have something to do with this.

There is a very simple solution to this. Practise restraint. Those who make pictures must devise a code to make cinema a pleasant experience. Sir Alfred Hitchcock invariably dwelt on the seedier side of life. Yet, he rarely showed a dead body. Was he not able to convey, and convey effectively and dramatically, what he wanted to? There have been others who have always handled murky themes with understated sincerity and, yes, brilliance. Perhaps, it is easiest to indicate rancour by putting a knife in a man's hand, and tinsel town mandarins are well known for such quick fixes. But with societies now in the thick of religious and caste wars, cinema must learn to be far more responsible than it has been in a long time. No one can deny that its power is awesome, that it is capable of wrecking sheer havoc. Its hold over the young is almost mesmeric, as we have seen in the cases relating to India's ``Shaktiman'', where especially boys aped the television superman and came to grief. Ultimately, a boycott of such terrible stuff may force its maker to shift gears, but in a diverse nation like India, where interests clash, this may be easier said than done. One can, then, only hope that better sense would prevail: those who wield the megaphone must learn to rely on their imagination rather than baser instincts.

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