The notion that people are directly inspired to commit acts of violence by films or other media programmes really is cultural theory out of the ark, and I can't see how anyone other than moralists and ultra-right politicians could possibly have time for it. The last time this sort of bullshit got a serious airing in Britain was when it was alleged that the murder of a baby by two schoolchildren (in early 1995, I think) had been a result of them attempting to re-enact scenes from the film "Child's Play 3". The judge at their trial stated in summing up that there was evidence to suggest that these individuals had seen the film, though he carefully avoided directly suggesting that the murder had been a consequence of this. Not so the right wing press, who got a sociologist from a minor university to write a report describing the relationship between children and film/television (she didn't feel the need to draw any meaningful distinction between the two) in terms of a crude effects theory that would make the sort of stuff Kracauer wrote seem subtle and nuanced. The Newsom report, as it was termed, was brandished by morals campaigners as objective proof that the media corrupts children (despite the fact that the only substantive "evidence" it contained was purely anecdotal) and used in order to call for stricter censorship. The arguments against took place within academia and out of the newspapers, although the calls for widespread video bans were, thankfully, seen off by two major film companies who threatened to boycott the British Board of Film Classification, whose role in censoring theatrical releases is a purely voluntary arrangement between the it and the industry, and has no basis in law. What I think the case showed was the tendency of politicians and other professional troublemakers to blame the film industry for all of society's ills, as it is often the path of least resistance and invariably a cheap and easy way of picking up votes. Any 12-year old who is capable of killing another human being will not have got to that state purely through seeing violent videos: if it was the case that the individual was motivated by that one event, then he was capable of being similarly motivated by a whole range of other events. I'm sure there are a great deal of 12-year olds who have seen "Child's Play 3" and subsequently suffered no ill effects. That is not to say that I endorse 12 year-olds watching this sort of stuff, but in any liberal society it is not something you can legislate against. It is up to parents to make judicious use of the off button (and, in a more positive sense, to encourage children to develop critical skills in viewing suitable material), not big brother. ----------- Leo Enticknap Univ. of Exeter, UK [log in to unmask] ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.sa.ua.edu/screensite