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                                                                                ESSAY, Page 80

TV Could Nourish Minds and Hearts


By Ellwood Kieser

FATHER KIESER produced Insight and Romero and heads the
Humanitas Prize organization.


    Despite questions of the motivation behind them, the
attacks by the President and the Vice President on the moral
content of television entertainment have found an echo in the
chambers of the American soul. Many who reject the messengers
still accept the message. They do not like the moral tone of
American TV. In our society only the human family surpasses
television in its capacity to communicate values, provide role
models, form consciences and motivate human behavior. Few
educators, church leaders or politicians possess the moral
influence of those who create the nation's entertainment.

    Every good story will not only captivate its viewers but
also give them some insight into what it means to be a human
being. By so doing, it can help them grow into the deeply
centered, sovereignly free, joyously loving human beings God
made them to be. Meaning, freedom and love -- the supreme human
values. And this is the kind of human enrichment the American
viewing public has a right to expect from those who make its
entertainment.

    It is not a question of entertainment or enrichment. These
are complementary concerns and presuppose each other. The story
that entertains without enriching is superficial and escapist.
The story that enriches without entertaining is simply dull. The
story that does both is a delight.

    Is that what the American viewing public is getting?
Perhaps 10% of prime-time network programming is a happy
combination of entertainment and enrichment. I think immediately
of dramas like I'll Fly Away and Life Goes On or comedies like
Brooklyn Bridge and The Wonder Years. There used to be
television movies rich in human values, but they have now become
an endangered species. Sleaze and mayhem. Murder off the front
page. The woman in jeopardy. Is there too much sex on American
TV? Not necessarily. Sex is a beautiful, even holy, part of
human life, a unique way for husband and wife to express their
love. No doubt there is too much dishonest sex on TV. How often
do we see the aching emptiness, the joyless despair that so
often follows sex without commitment? And certainly there is too
much violence. It desensitizes its viewers to the horrors of
actual violence and implies that it is an effective way to
resolve conflict. I seldom see the dehumanization that violence
produces, not only in its victims, but also in its perpetrators.
And I never see the nonviolent alternative -- the way of
dialogue and love -- explored. Jesus has much to teach us here.
So do Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Ninety-four percent of the
American people believe in God; 41% go to church on any given
Sunday. But you'd never know it by watching American TV. We
seldom see TV characters reach for God or fight with Him,
despite the theatricality latent in their doing so. Why is that?
I find television too much concerned with what people have and
too little concerned with who they are, very concerned with
taking care of No. 1 and not at all concerned with sharing
themselves with other people. All too often it tells us the half
truth we want to hear rather than the whole truth we need to
hear.

    Why is television not more fully realizing its humanizing
potential? Is the creative community at fault? Partially. But
not primarily. I have lived and worked in that community for 32
years, as both priest and producer. As a group, these people are
not the sex-crazed egomaniacs of popular legend. Most of them
love their spouses, dote on their children and hunger after God.
They have values. In fact, in Hollywood in recent months,
audience enrichment has become the in thing. ABC, CBS and NBC
have all held workshops on it for their programming executives.
A coalition of media companies has endowed the Humanitas Prize
so that it can recognize and celebrate those who accomplish it.
And during the school year, an average of 50 writers spend a
Saturday a month in a church basement discussing the best way
to accomplish it. All before the Vice President's misguided
lambasting of Murphy Brown.

    The problem with American TV is not the lack of
storytellers of conscience but the commercial system within
which they have to operate. Television in the U.S. is a
business. In the past, the business side has been balanced by
a commitment to public service. But in recent years the
fragmentation of the mass audience, huge interest payments and
skyrocketing production costs have combined with the FCC's
abdication of its responsibility to protect the common good to
produce an almost total preoccupation with the bottom line. The
networks are struggling to survive. And like most businesses in
that situation, they make only what they feel the public will
buy. And that, the statistics seem to indicate, is mindless,
heartless, escapist fare. If we are dissatisfied with the moral
content of what we are invited to watch, I think we should begin
by examining our own consciences. When we tune in, are we ready
to plunge into reality, so as to extract its meaning, or are we
hoping to escape into a sedated world of illusion? And if church
leaders want to elevate the quality of the country's
entertainment, they should forget about boycotts, production
codes and censorship. They should work at educating their people
in media literacy and at mobilizing them to support quality
shows in huge numbers.

    That is the only sure way to improve the moral content of
America's entertainment.