Don't Blame Us for Violence in America, Say NBC Execs

Look to video games, mental illness and guns, instead

In the wake of 2012's violent legacy, top executives from NBC are shooting down any alleged link between homicides in America and the prime time dramas they promote. As Hollywood Reporter informs, NBC is on the defensive with shows like "Hannibal" on the fall lineup and the ever-bloody "Dexter" on the resume of NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt.

"Most people at this network have children and really care about the shows that we're putting out there," said Greenblatt at a recent gathering of television critics. He suggested that when it comes to the entertainment industry and violence, one would be better off looking to video games and movies, which aren't governed by obscenity rules stipulated by the Federal Communications Commission.

"I'm not sure you can make the leap that a show about serial killers has caused violence in our country," cautioned Greenblatt, who also stressed that he's no psychologist. "There are many other factors including mental illness and guns."

Via The Hollywood Reporter.

Should TV execs take much of the blame for violence in the US?

[hwyangel]

Will parents ever be held responsible for their children, or will society always bare the repercussions of their negligence?

[Fishbone345]

Brava!!!

[woodtick57]

A guy i worked with once said
"It's not that guns kill people, or that people kill people. It's that people don't teach their kids to behave."

Brilliant.

[hwyangel]

@woodtick57

No doubt we have allot of enemies that would like to see us disarmed. And unfortunately that includes half of our own government.

[Dan_Tien]

Bad parenting! That's what Arnold Schwarzenegger said was to blame. His portrayal of the Terminator relentlessly hunting down and cold-bloodedly murdering people couldn't possibly have inspired any spree killers, could it?

[marine1]

ONLY the person committing the act can be responsible, anyone thinking different will always be irresponsible

[texas_cutie75]

Parents are the front line when it comes to their children. Teach them right from wrong, monitor them, keep an eye on the indivduals they are becoming. It is the parents and families and those close to the children that matter the most. I, personally, don't care for gruesome and gory TV, but I get enough in real life. Just my very humble opinion.

[marine1]

I agree, however, society will over time have an effect on ones values.

[martydotcom]

Sounds wonderful if you live a life living on the corner of Chardonnay and Brie in two parent home with a stay at home mom who is the real soccer mom. Reality, many families both parents work. 50%+ of homes with single Mom working full time frequently in neighborhood where teaching right from wrong is difficult when wrong is so profitable. Real world TV is the least of the problems facing parents.
Happy to be able to look at my kids doing a great job with grandchildren and glad it's not me on the firing line

[texas_cutie75]

@martydotcom

I come from a single parent home, my mother passed when I was young. My father, a law enforcement officer, worked crazy hours, but made himself readily available to teachers and school officials. Our activities were monitored and shenanigans were dealt with appropriately. Yes, being an LEO might have contributed to his outlook, but we knew where we stood and just what our parameters were. This all managed on the Texas-Mexico border where teenagers in the past pretty much ran wild. So the single parent thing is all in how the child is raised. The parent is the most important role model in a childs life. There are several childhood friends that came from a single mother home where mom worked 2 jobs. These friends were raised in the rougher part of town and were kept on top of even closer than myself, and they are probably more well adjusted than I.(Crazy sentence, but its what I wanted to say..lol) The point I am making in my long winded way kids need to be watched by their parents, period.

[Republican5001]

@martydotcom Even if both parents work, that is no excuse to not parent or be a parent. When you were growing up, TV was not a readily available as it is now. TV wasn't even readily available for me as a child till I was out of high school and in college. Glad your kids turned out fine and have fabulous grandkids. Still doesn't aleviate the fact that you have to be parents 24/7 365. My wife and I have no regrets about having our kids, 10 and 8 y/o boys, but as with any couple our greatest concern was being able to afford them. Changing our lifestyle a bit, both of us getting better jobs and our mutual faith in God is what is allowing us to reasonably survive.

TV is part of the problem because all news agencies glamourize or sensationalize stories to generate numbers for funding. It is unfortunate that the only thing that makes the news is misfortunate occurances. I also fault the Internet. Too much infomation floating around freely in electronic space readily available for google searches.

If I did not need a computer for my job, we'd probably not even have one in the house let alone on our person. Just my thoughts.

[martydotcom]

@Republican5001 "Being able to afford them" being the operative phrase. I set up trusts for grandchildren's college 15, 13. 12 and 10 years ago. What was considered a more than generous sum at the time I started these trusts will now suffice thru their sophomore year of college.
I think you would be making a critical mistake not making every technology tool available to your children. I'd want my grandchildren to be as technically astute as possible to enable them to compete in todays world. I hold no illusion as to what's available on to them on the internet. Long ago I accepted the fact that any determined child will gain assess to that which Is forbidden if they set their minds to do it.. I always saw it as my parental reasonability not to deny this to my kids, but the teach them how to process it, not become obsessed by it and to treat it for what it is, trash. That which is forbidden is always far more enticing and is blown well out of proportion

[Mr_GO_HERD]

Yep it's obviously video games! Every time I see a turtle I kill it before it shoots its fireballs at me. Those pesky mushrooms are easily disposable too. I just can't wait to jump on them! Grrrrr!

[texas_cutie75]

Best comment on this topic yet!! Awesome!!!

[Fishbone345]

I keep my eyes skyward. I know our invaders from space will move back and forth across the sky as I shoot them down.

[marine1]

I'm still working on pac-man

[LALibertarian]

Due to Farmville, I've now become a farmer. I also was a mobster for a while.

[Realthinker]

Frankly, nobody foments hate like Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz. Nobody. It's relebtless, and it's all lies. The top brass at NBC allow it. Of course they are responsible. One word from them and the tone would change overnight. Psychologists have know for years that violent content breeds violence. The media has refused ti listen. People reading this will deny the obvious. It's a whole lot easier to simply blame guns and give the Democrats the disarmed populace they want than to admit we have been profoundly stupid and gone way off track in this country.

[PoliticalSpice]

Rush Limbourh, ann Coulter, sharon angels, sarah palin all call for peace on eartyh and good will to all...you are a more then a bit of a hypocrite, either that or you really are living in a delusion. Even so, these violent voices, on the left or right, are not what result in spree killings...

[Realthinker]

@PoliticalSpice Show me please where any of these people appears on tv night after night snarling with hatred over "racists" from any party. You can't. Furthermore there is abundent evidence that the Aurora theatre shooter was heavily influenced by a recent movie, up to and including his orange hair.

[PoliticalSpice]

@Realthinker I cann't cause i don't watch them, but ann coulter made some pretty hateful comments about 9/11 widows, rush, don't get me started. And all this nonesense about being born in kenya, not being an american, calling him a muslim. Please, i've been watching politics since the racism of dems like the klan and george wallace was adopted as the southern stratergy of nixon and reagan, and the veiled references and sometimes not do veiled references to obamas race are the worse i have seen in over 40 years of watching politics.

No question, the aurora shooter was influenced by the joker in batman, but when i think of a joker the first thought that comes to mind is rush limbough or some of the right wingers who rant on this site. Dems, for all there faults, hardly have that much pinach, and certianly don't have enough affinity for the second amendment to build up such an arsenal.

A joke people, take a breath abd calm down...

[Realthinker]

@PoliticalSpice You don't watch them, but you know what they said? How? Are you absolutely certain that what you were told is the complete truth? There are "veiled references" to Obama's race? Good heavens what would that be? What is the "joke"?

[PoliticalSpice]

@Realthinker i do see them on occasion, because the most outrageous stuff, you know, their greatest hits does get coverage. I gave a few examples of the reference I mean, and the joke is that folks like you actually will deny, or seem to believe that people like, palin, sharon angels, limbough, ann coulture, etc. do not make hateful remarks.

[PoliticalSpice]

I saw my share of violent tv and movie programs, read books with violent themes, grew up in the 70's where street rallies sometimes led to minor routs, followed the news on five wars. Still, I have yet to engage in serial murder or spree killings, and it's not like the bush administration didn't tempt me! People are ultimately responsible for there actions. Blaming t.v. is crazy. Besides, I though we were supposed to blame everything on bush...

[Polusalo]

Played video games my whole life. Watched violent movies my whole life. Not once have I hit a motorcycle trying to pass me with a chain, as Road Rash has taught me to do. Not once have I killed a redhead because they have no soul, therefore no heart, as South Park and Kingdom Hearts have taught me. The few times I've been in fights in my life, not once did we take turns hitting each other, like Final Fantasys taught me. Not once did I yell at a police officer who had taken up position behind his car during a standoff to "stop camping fag!" as many FPS has taught me.

[woodtick57]

No, now we blame Obama for everything. i use obamacare for an excuse for everything from being late to dinner or forgetting to signal my turn...

[PoliticalSpice]

@woodtick57 typical republican, it's obvious bush is responsible for the fact that the resaraunt burnt my toast and the coffee was cold. How can you deny such basic facts?

[woodtick57]

@PoliticalSpice Not a republican at all...just changin' with the times. it used to be Bush was to blame for everything from a flat tire to low compression in my 6th cylinder. Now it is Obama. this is the way of the new US politico discussion.

Welcome to the hypetext transfer protocol://

[Rocker]

Now you fellers know in this day and time that there are more than enough lawyers out there, who, for a fee and a cut of the winnings, will tell you and represent in court that whatever it was you did was NOT your fault and are NOT to be held accountable for your actions however stupid those actions were.

[woodtick57]

Don't our canadian naeighbors watch pretty much the same TV as US boob tube fools? Don't hey buy the same vids?

why aren't they knockin' each other off in public by the high capacity mags every month?

[nomocrap]

Canada is not immune.

In the 1989 14 women were killed by Marc Lépine at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal.

In 2006, Kimveer Gill fired 72 rounds at Montreal’s Dawson College, injuring 16 and killing a student.

In June of 2012 Christopher Husbands opened fire in Toronto’s Eaton Centre, killing two people and injuring three others.

In July of 2012 several criminal nut cases opened fire at a barbecue in Toronto killing two people and injuring 23 others.

If you compare the population of Canada especially the population density with the US they have a comparable number of people killed with firearms. It is not the gun it is the psychotic nut. If he can't get a gun he will get something else. Canada also has much more severe gun control than the US and still these things happens.

This is also not a new phenomenon. Google the Bath, Michigan School Disaster of 1927. It was the worst mass murder of school children in the history of the United States.

[Junior]

Quite simple, actually. Don't sell guns to white guys. Problem solved.

[woodtick57]

That might just solve it! Although, remember the girl shooter who spawned the song, "I don't like Mondays"? hmmm....glitches everywhere...

[CATTLEPROD]

Yeah, what a racist answer. OK on politix of course, because all evil in this country has been the white mans fault. I will admit than when we snap, lots of people die before we do, however, the thug-gangbanger mentallity of other segments of society have lots of blood on there hands too. How many people with a grill and a gun have killed 1 here, 2 there, over time adding up to alot of deaths? Are you going to profile them at the gun store the same way you will whitey?

[DARSB]

OK, I'll play.

Obviously, the blame for mass murder must be placed on violence in the media, which might give a person ideas, instead of the honest free-market gun dealers, who merely place the lethal weapon and ammunition in the killer's hands.

[mtkopf]

So is PAC Man the cause of the obesity problem in the U.S?

[marine1]

His mouth moves too fast, I can't understand him--------YET-----:}

[woodtick57]

No, much like the gunviolence problem it is the culture. when people can't sit through a 90 minute movie without stuffing their faces or go on a two hour flight without having sugar water and bad food given to them, it is our cultural attitudes towards food, or guns that creates these problems.

[mtkopf]

@woodtick57 shhh! You should know better than to say something as politically incorrect as that. You should follow the examples set by our elected GOP leaders and blame everything in sight EXCEPT the real cause and those who don't are communist, socialist nazis that are looking to take all ourfreedoms away.

[hankf68]

@woodtick57...hey, Big Macs and their "sugar water" cronies kill many more a year than most would believe, but we never get a thread for that, wtf?

[woodtick57]

@hankf68 Big macs kill people? isn't that like saying guns kill people?

[KyleMFb]

TV movies and video games do hold blame for the violent society we live in but it's not why our murder rate tops all other "civilized" country's combined bc the rest of the world watches the exact same things Americans do they play the same video games too what's the difference it's the ease of access americans have to guns while other country's don't have the overwhelming number of guns so people can easily murder someone it's easy to pull a trigger its not so easy to hack someone to death with a axe

[Bullitt]

Then why has the crime rate been going down? It has and that point is being ignored. Has anyone asked about what type of drugs he had been taking?

[marine1]

@Bullitt Doctor approved, no doubt

[Bullitt]

@marine1 drs are giving kids some strong stimulants. Rittilin and another that is VERY similar to meth. I just read an article on drudge that asked these questions. I think there is something to it.

[marine1]

@Bullitt Lets see, you start on Rittilin at 6 years old and what does this do to/for you by the time you are 18 to 25?

[woodtick57]

@Bullitt The violent crime rate is going down, but gun deaths are going up. that should be an indicator of where to look at this issue.

[Dan_Tien]

So all we need to do is ban mental illness. Problem solved.

[marine1]

Why is it that you are always right on the mark, I mean it works with the chicago gun laws.

[woodtick57]

Yet, again, other countries also haved mental illnes and lots of guns,a nd they do not have the repeated, public mass shootings the US has. what is the difference between these cultures?

[Dan_Tien]

@woodtick57 Which countries are those? Mexico? Honduras? Colombia? Afghanistan? Pakistan? Liberia?

[woodtick57]

@Dan_Tien Canada , Switzterland, the nordic states...you know all the ones people on this site have mentioned before and that you have responded to...

why do you ask again?

[Dan_Tien]

@woodtick57 I don't recall responding to those. I do recall a mass shooting of children in Norway.

[Bullitt]

Just put up whacko free zones.

[Bullitt]

Or signs saying no whackos

[woodtick57]

or, whack the whackos with the signs...

[Politicskid]

Yes, this is crazy, even though I'm not exactly a fan of NBC.

[ctc]

We have a problem.....it would be shallow thinking to believe that it hasn't evolved from a multitude of cause and effect scenarios.....including hyping violence on television and giving these murderers the attention they crave in life or in death.

[RedFloppyShoes]

My wife, who is a psychologist, has said that movie and TV violence desensitizes specifically children to violence in same manner as pornography, as they both depict graphic situation that are too mature for children to process.

While they are not solely culpable, they do play a part.

[Chanel]

The media and school systems should not be responsible for raising our nations children. Parents dont take the time to look their kids in the eyes and ask "Whats Wrong" anymore. THAT is the problem.

[Clarke12]

typical response in America these days - "it is not my fault...blame someone else". it permeates society, from the president right on down to the town drunk. people need to be accountable for their own actions in order for anything to change.

[RobertJHarsh]

What causes violence is SSRI uptake inhibitors and other "anti-depressants" that Big Pharma gives away for the most part. These drugs are supposed to be taken with ongoing therapy yet they are marketed is as "happy pills". Well I bet Adam Lanza was all jacked up on happy pills when he murdered those children.

[PayThatCEO]

Really? Funny thing. I take those "happy pills" because I suffer from very serious depression. I would be non-functional without those "happy pills". I've yet to kill anyone.

I will agree that these drugs are handed out to freely and are not monitored closely enough by the professionals prescribing them. But, there are millions of people for whom their very lives depend on these drugs, take them responsibly and should not be placed in the same category with mass murderers.

[RobertJHarsh]

@PayThatCEO There are a number of factors involved of course and I am not talking about people whom depend on them, such as yourself and others. It is a good thing they are available. HOWEVER, there is serious problem with pill factories handing these things out with little or no oversights and how people with serious mental issues are not being properly treated, instead are just "pilled up".

[PayThatCEO]

@RobertJHarsh

I agree with you, but it's not just psychotropic drugs handed out like candy. Pain medication is a leading addiction in this country. My husband and I are changing doctors because the one we have is a pill pusher - he wants everyone over the age of 50 on cholesterol medication. No alternatives. No "loose some weight or exercise more," just "here, take these pills." Forget it. I'm convinced this doctor is making money from the drug companies. He's just too adamant about everyone taking these drugs.

We concern ourselves with illegal drug dealers, but big pharmaceutical companies are just as guilty of pushing drugs.

[tomincali]

if they want to point fingers they should except the same thing in return. kind of like those in office who carry and have armed guards and say they are against guns yet want protection for their own families