Producers of family entertainment are victims of media bias towards the creators of darker material. This was one of the issues on the table at Media Seminar ’95, and the above mentioned will be happy to note that media is being exhorted by a strong advocate to create a star system for the producers of non-violent fare.

The author of Hollywood vs. America, Michael Medved, whose day jobs include chief film critic for the New York Post and cohost of pbs’ Sneak Previews, spoke in Toronto May 6 at the seminar, an exploration of the impact of the infoway, cd-rom, satellite tv and multimedia on its consumers – media values vs. family values.

Playback caught California-based Medved in Chicago, prior to the event, and asked the media-and-society specialist what effect the coming endless (and in the u.s. unregulated) choice will have on the direction of content.

Medved, although wary of the possibilities, is cautiously optimistic: ‘One can argue that the new media facilitates the kind of transformation that I’ve been calling for; my concern has never been the existence of some despicable material, it’s been the creation of more worthy alternatives.’

Believing history will once again repeat itself, Medved thinks a lot of the early unsavory uses of new media will be outgrown as the market matures.

‘At the beginning of home video, pornography represented a very substantial portion of the market (as much as one-fourth) and every year that’s gone down. Right now in the cd-rom world, porno is a substantial portion of the market. I think once the novelty wears off and there’s more interesting alternatives, people will find them out.’

However, the smaller element of society that is drawn towards and profoundly affected by violent material, which can now sink to new niche depths exacerbated by the added element of interactivity, does concern Medved.

‘Since my book came out, I got a letter from a prison chaplain who said that the prisoners, particularly those in for long terms for horrendously violent crimes, spend all their time in prison watching violent entertainment.

‘The kinds of changes you’re talking about, things like Night Trap (a best-selling early cd wherein slashers pursue scantily clad coeds) which allowed you to play the game of rape and murder, became a huge issue in the u.s.,’ he says, ‘and due to the huge protest it was taken off the market.’

‘But that’s just one indication of what this new medium can do. Wait until they have a far more realistic Virtual ValerieÉ.There’s a company in l.a. that’s bought a ton of old porno films and is recycling them into cd-roms. What concerns me is not the sex aspect, but sexualization of violence, which is a very common message, unfortunately, in too much entertainment, but I think it’s becoming a little less common.’

It’s the success of family entertainment at the box office that has buoyed Medved’s confidence that a dark path will be less traveled.

‘Pulp Fiction was a successful movie, thanks to the critics, but worldwide it made one eighth the money of The Lion King.

‘That it’s really violence that sells is just not true. If you look at the top box office attractions for 1994, four out of the five are films that were aimed at family audiences, Lion King, Forrest Gump, The Santa Clause and The Flintstones.’

And to illustrate a point that media bias works against family entertainment, Medved asks: ‘Can you name the director of The Lion King, the number-one grossing film of 1994?’ While pointing out that everyone knows who directed Pulp Fiction, Medved says Lion King director Robert Minkoff and producer Don Hahn (who also produced Beauty and the Beast) can go to a cocktail party and no one will fawn over them.

Medved says his point is that the obsession with violence-soaked material is not driven by the box office, it’s driven by the entertainment media’s fascination with people who create disturbing material.

‘We need to reconsider what is praiseworthy.’ Medved likens it to an emperor’s new clothes kind of consciousness-raising – asking what is so great and artistically noble about two whacked-out hitmen wiping splattered brain matter off the upholstery of their car?

‘And on the other side, giving a little more recognition to films that send people out of the theater feeling satisfied, uplifted and maybe even a little bit happier than when they went in. I think that kind of aesthetic ambition should receive a little more credit than it does.’