THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: Is your child a potential "Jackass"? The MTV celebration of all things gross, gagging and grotesque is careful to warn viewers: "Don't try this at home." Yet, some do. Earlier this year, a 13-year-old was burned after imitating this stunt, a man turning himself into a human barbecue. Others tried it, too.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM LEWIS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Children do things and they don't realize what can happen if they do them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BATTISTA: More recently, another teen was mangled in this stunt gone awry in an attempt to impress the show's producer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Their stunt was going to be filming a person jumping a vehicle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BATTISTA: Can you blame MTV?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ALBERTI, NORTHERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY: If "Jackass" wasn't on the air, does that mean these boys would never have engaged in any risky behavior?
ERIC LIND, FATHER OF BURNED VICTIM: Why do these people have to get a free hand to do as they see fit and then just walk away from any consequences?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BATTISTA: "Jackass" producers emphasize they never accept outside videos, and they warn kids.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do not try this at home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BATTISTA: Can you really blame a TV show when someone in the audience acts like a, well, a jackass?
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. What you are about to see is exactly what happened when a group of teenagers decided to pull a stunt that police say was intended for the MTV show "Jackass." The studio audience has seen the entire video, however, we have edited this for television.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What a jump? Boys, what a jump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BATTISTA: Now what you're not seeing here is -- that was the second pass, by the way. And what you are not seeing here is this teenage boy thought he could jump over the car, and he -- that was the first pass. And he jumped up and slammed chest first into the windshield and flipped over the back of the car. Amazingly enough, he was hurt, he broke his leg, and had a lot of, you know, bruises and this kind of thing, but he's alive.
I just happen to have about 60 percent teenage boys in this audience today, so I want to ask them how they feel about this show and about this stunt, you know, being related to this show and that kind of thing. Let me start with Socrates.
You were very vocal about it before we started the show. What do you think?
SOCRATES: Well, I think that is just a show, and people want to see what they normally don't get to see in real life, as my friend, Evan, over there said. And I think that, you know, with teenagers, we're all not going to try to mimic the stupidest thing possible. There are lots of other movies like, you know, "Lethal Weapon" that are a lot worse than, you know, getting hit by a car. They actually shoot people and take violence way too seriously. But I think with this, this is just a bunch of kids who, you know, get an idea. And just because "Jackass" is now on the air, if it does get taken off, it's not going to be like, "Oh, we can't do stupid stuff anymore." They're just going to find something else probably even more violent maybe.
BATTISTA: Have you ever done something stupid in your life?
SOCRATES: Yes. Probably, but not as stupid as that.
BATTISTA: Not as stupid as that. Good to know.
Who else down here -- let me go over to Casey, because girls like this show, too.
CASEY: I believe ignorance of this degree cannot be blamed on TV or whatever. TV cannot be blamed for it, because out of the millions of people that watch this show, only a few have done such stupid things. So, I mean, that's saying something about the kids themselves and not the show.
BATTISTA: And Ryan, do you feel the same way? You don't feel like this show should be held responsible at all in any sort of, say, moral way?
RYAN: Well, no, not really, because if they take this show off the air, they're just going to bring another show back and replace it. The kids themselves are responsible, but mostly their parents, because they're the ones who brought these kids up to not understand that this is such a stupid thing to do. And, really, they did it to get on the air, to get on TV, correct? But it's just publicizing it, putting on shows even like this that that's what they're really going for.
BATTISTA: All right, you guys, let's bring our first guest into this. Jack Thompson is a civil litigator who is suing the entertainment industry on behalf of the Paducah school shooting victims. Also with us, Matthew Felling. He's a media director with the Center for Media and Public Opinion.
Welcome to both of you.
JACK THOMPSON, CIVIL LITIGATOR: Thank you.
MATTHEW FELLING, CENTER FOR MEDIA AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS: Hi, Bobbie.
BATTISTA: Jack, let me start with you. Do you think that MTV should be held responsible in any way, shape or form for this kind of connection?
THOMPSON: Sure. Well, of course. They advertise the show to children and other day parts when children they know are in the audience. MTV -- I've been interviewed by MTV a number of times over the last decade. I've met these people there. They tend to be left wing ideologues and the very type of people who are opposed to the tobacco industry pitching their products to young people because they might thereby be encouraged to smoke. And yet if you ask them about copycatting this type of behavior, they say, "Oh, my goodness. No child who isn't pre-disposed to do otherwise would do such a thing." So there's a double standard here, which they can't reconcile. And indeed, I'm not in favor of the government doing anything about this. They can be jackasses in running a show like this, but my approach in the last 10 years has been that people ought to sue entertainment entities that market dangerous entertainment like this to kids for the consequences of marketing dangerous activities to them.
And by the way, the federal government agreed yesterday in noting that the music industry more than any other sector of the industry -- and MTV is clearly out front in the music industry efforts to entice kids to engage in risky behaviors -- is the chief violator of the idea that adult products shouldn't be marketed to children.
BATTISTA: Let me -- we invited MTV to participate in the show, and they sent us the following statement, so let me get that out there. "There has never been a segment on MTV's 'Jackass' like the one described in the press release by the Independence, Kentucky Police Department. MTV takes great care to air all of its programming in a responsible manner. 'Jackass' specifically states in every episode, as well as on the MTV.com Web site that no tapes from members of the public will be accepted for consideration to air on the show."
Matthew, they do run a slew of disclaimers during the show, but is that enough that the show sort of is inherently irresponsible?
THOMPSON: Sure. It's an admission that it is.
FELLING: Well, first off, I'm afraid that I'm probably going to end up being like the civil war general in this episode who was surrounded by enemy forces at all angles. And one of his lieutenants said, "Well, what do we do now?" And he told him, "Attack on all sides." I don't think that I'm really going to agree with almost anybody on this program, but I was happy to see Socrates and the rest of the kids discuss this.
Basically, what I see this as is a collision at the intersection of culture and law. I think we have already seen the reality television, we've already seen dumb humor, toilet humor. We seen Tom Green, we've seen "Something About Mary." And so only -- something like this was only naturally going to happen eventually.
Basically, the marriage between potty humor and reality TV has been consummated, and the love child is "Jackass."
Secondly, on the law side, just a couple of weeks ago -- I don't know if anybody saw this -- a woman sued McDonald's, not for coffee, but because a pickle was too hot and it burned her lip. She sued McDonald's and won. So we have culture going a little bit too far on one side and we have litigiousness going a little bit too far on the other side. And I see this as just the battle of the pickle versus the love child. And I don't know who I want to win.
THOMPSON: Bobbie, can...
BATTISTA: Yeah, go ahead, Jack.
THOMPSON: You know, part of the problem here, I think, is gender related. I was a stay-at-home dad for four years, and men who tend to run these entertainment companies apparently don't appreciate what every mother who's around a child for a number of years understands. And that is that people of tender years, children, tend to copycat what they see. In fact, they're designed to be that way. That's how they learn. They copycat what they see. So you've got these wiseguy men who couldn't care less about what the copycatting will be, and you've got every mother in your audience who understands that if you put dangerous behavior in front of their child, they're more likely to copycat it than if they didn't see it.
BATTISTA: But you know what, Jack? When I was a kid, we didn't have these sorts of shows, and we did lots of stupid stuff. And when you get kids in a pack, they really do stupid stuff I'm sure would have given my parents a heart attack now, but... FELLING: Yeah, Bobbie...
THOMPSON: Yeah, kids do stupid things...
BATTISTA: Yeah, they do.
THOMPSON: ... but you really don't need a network to encourage them to do more stupid things like put yourself on a barbecue grill. That didn't occur to me when I was growing up in Ohio in the '50s.
FELLING: Well, I don't know if -- your name is Jack, correct?
BATTISTA: Yes.
THOMPSON: Yeah, it's short for jackass.
(LAUGHTER)
FELLING: Very apropos. Well, I don't know -- we've seen since the beginning of entertainment media. We saw cowboys and Indians, and you know the kids would go around in the school yard and kick each other around, knock each other around and call it cowboys and Indians. We had "The Three Stooges." I don't remember a subtitle beneath "The Three Stooges" saying "Don't try this at home."
But in terms of the legal angle, I saw a commercial this past week, and a beer commercial, where these men probably intoxicated attack a bear on a camping trip. I see these car commercials with these drivers going zig-zag and going probably 90 miles over the speed limit where most people live, and they're doing this to enhance their product. And at the bottom of all these commercials it says, "Please do not do. Do not drive this way. Do not behave this way."
THOMPSON: You don't typically have car ads in children's programming. You have children's products in children's programming, and that's why MTV promotes this show. If you go to their Web site, which is not age restricted -- they have clips of all of the dangerous stunts in every episode that they've ever done on this show, and therefore, kids without any parental supervision can go to the Web site, see the stunts and copy them because kids -- there's a study out of Harvard which indicates that children's brains, unlike adults, are designed and are functionally different in that they are more predisposed because of these structural difference to copycat behavior, and that's why MTV has these disingenuous warnings because they know their show is dangerous, and yet they market it to children anyway.
BATTISTA: I've got to go to a commercial break here. Let me read you the disclaimer that airs on the show, "Jackass," on MTV. It says, "Warning: The following show features stunts performed either by professionals or under the supervision of professionals. Accordingly, MTV and the producers must insist that no one attempt to recreate or reenact any stunt or activity performed on the show." And they do go on to say that, "MTV insists that our viewers do not send in any home footage of themselves or others being jackasses. We will not open or view any submissions, so don't waste your time." I got to take a break. When we come back, we'll get more about the facts of what happened in Kentucky a couple of days ago. And the question today for you on our Web poll is: Would it be better if "Jackass" is taken off the air, or should it be left alone? Take the TALKBACK LIVE online viewer vote, cnn.com/talkback, AOL keyword: CNN. We'll be back in just a second.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BATTISTA: "Jackass" is rated TV-MA, indicating it is inappropriate for children under 17. The rating appears on the screen for 15 seconds at the start of each episode. During particularly dangerous segments, a picture of a skull and crossbones shows up in the corner of the screen."
OK, back to the audience here. Kristin e-mails us: "This is another example of bad parenting. Parents are responsible for teaching their kids right from wrong, not the media. There are plenty of kids who know not to try stunts they see on TV."
Debbie's on the phone from Virginia.
You're a parent, Debbie. What do you think?
CALLER: Yes, hello. I have two teenagers and one pre-teen, and they're all fans of the show. And if they did anything like this, they deserve what happens to them.
(APPLAUSE)
They should know better. I'm a stay-at-home mother where all these parents should be: home with their kids.
BATTISTA: Well, you know, I'm not so big...
THOMPSON: Well, let me ask you -- can I ask the mother...
BATTISTA: Yeah. I was going to say I'm not so big on blaming parents necessarily, because I know I did a couple of really stupid things when I was in high school, and I knew they were wrong. It was no reflection on my parents. They had taught me right from wrong. I knew they were wrong. I did them anyway. It's like I said, that pack mentality.
THOMPSON: Let me ask this mother a question about something that happened in 1993 because of MTV. A "Beavis & Butthead" episode, which was aired at 7:00 p.m. showed incinerating your home as something fun to do. A child who was I believe 8 at the time did that and burned his 2-year-old sister into a cinder. Now was that 2-year-old, did she deserve what she got because MTV couldn't have cared less?
BATTISTA: Debbie, are you still there?
CALLER: Yes, hello.
BATTISTA: Yeah. Did you hear that? CALLER: No.
THOMPSON: What did that 2-year-old do wrong?
CALLER: Hello?
BATTISTA: I don't think she can hear us too well.
CALLER: No, I just didn't hear what he said. I'm sorry.
BATTISTA: Do you want to repeat it quickly, Jack.
THOMPSON: Can you hear me now?
CALLER: Yes.
THOMPSON: OK, in 1993, MTV aired at 7:00 p.m. an episode which made it appear to be fun to be your house down. An 8-year-old viewing that did so and incinerated his 2-year-old daughter. Now did that 2- year-old deserve what happened to her?
CALLER: No, no, no, no, I never said that. The person not doing it is not responsible.
THOMPSON: Here's the problem, though, is sometimes as in Paducah, you have innocent bystanders such as three girls who were shot and dead by Michael Carneal (ph) because he was a video game aficionado and killed innocent children because they just happened to be in school. Now what did their parents do wrong? Absolutely nothing. So I must say respectfully you're only focusing on what idiot jackasses do to themselves, whereas innocent bystanders can be hurt by these stunts as well.
BATTISTA: Let me bring -- I want to get some more facts on the case that happened a couple of days ago. On the phone with us is Sergeant Anthony Lucas with the Independence, Kentucky Police Department.
Sergeant, thank you for joining us.
SGT. ANTHONY LUCAS, INDEPENDENCE, KENTUCKY POLICE DEPARTMENT: Thank you.
BATTISTA: What did the four boys involved in this stunt tell you about what they were doing?
LUCAS: Well, so far, we've only been able to talk to three of them, and what we're finding out more now, too, is it is an open investigation. And now we've located some more people that was even there to watch. They were going to perform this stunt. And what we have here in Independence is that a couple of guys with their video cameras practiced out on some smaller stunts first of doing some bicycle jumps into a lake or riding a skateboard into a lake, and then eventually just started moving up. And this was the stunt that they wanted to pull was putting a video camera in a car, a guy driving, and then another person sitting in the front yard to film it from different angles. And also on their video camera, they have the show -- well, the words on their video camera "Jackass." And also what the driver of the vehicle told us was that, you know, they were filming this for the show. They were doing to try to send it in. You know, I don't know if they knew about MTV's disclaimers or, you know, or what, but this is something they'd been putting together for a while.
They also attempted this stunt three times before they got it down. And what happened was is that the vehicle speeding up a side street with people filming it and standing on the side of the road watching it, a boy standing in the roadway starts running towards the car. He jumps up probably as high as he could, and the car, you know, hits him in his lower legs, sends him into the windshield and onto the roof of the car, and then up in the air.
BATTISTA: And we should say he broke his leg, correct. I mean, he's OK, though.
LUCAS: Yes, ma'am. He's in surgery today. He's still in the hospital, and they're still working on him. But, yes, he has a right broken leg. He's got a left broken ankle. His chest has got numerous abrasions and lacerations where he went directly into the windshield.
BATTISTA: What will these boys be charged with if anything?
LUCAS: Right now, we have two of them charged with wanton endangerment first. Here in Kentucky, that is a class D felony.
BATTISTA: And that's wanton endangerment to themselves?
LUCAS: And also the bystanders, yes, ma'am.
BATTISTA: OK.
THOMPSON: Bobbie...
BATTISTA: Yeah, I want to ask one more question from the police department, though. Why did you guys release the videotape of this?
LUCAS: Well, we had some numerous discussions on it as soon as the incident occurred, and we retrieved those videotapes. And to watch them and everything was just incredible, and to find out exactly what they were doing and everything. We got in contact with our county attorney and also our commonwealth attorney, and it was a decision made between all of us. You know, sooner or late, we were going to have to release this video, and we took the stance on it is that we released it for the safety of the community and hopefully that, you know, someone sees this, and maybe this, you know, does what it's doing right now, start some discussions of different safety measures between the teenagers and their parents. Also, these students went to a local high school, and we didn't know if, you know, there was other students up there participating in something like this, and you know, we wanted to get the word out as far as safety.
BATTISTA: All right, Sergeant Lucas, thank you very much for joining us. Here's our suggestion. MTV should run that entire video as a disclaimer. Maybe that will get the point across better than just a verbal one.
THOMPSON: Bobbie...
BATTISTA: I have to quickly take a break, you guys, and then I want to come back and get your reaction to that. We'll be back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BATTISTA: Senator Joe Lieberman called for MTV to stop airing "Jackass" after a 13-year-old boy burned himself while imitating a human barbecue stunt in January.
Senator Lieberman complained about the show in a letter to Viacom president Mel Karmazin. In less than two weeks, MTV had changed the disclaimer for the show and moved the show from 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
To the audience.
Lisa, you're actually not a fan of this show.
LISA: No, I am not.
BATTISTA: You're in the minority here today.
LISA: I think -- how far do we have to take things? How much tragedy does it take to where we're so desensitized and we keep on watching this? And how far is it going to go? Is it going to take somebody to die for us to take it off? And kids learn by example, so we're setting the example by publicizing this, and kids are learning from this.
BATTISTA: Let me go to a parent.
THOMPSON: Exactly.
BATTISTA: Let me go to a parent in the audience quickly. We haven't heard from them -- Gary.
GARY: Well, I think the show itself is not something that I watch all the time. I've seen it before, didn't care for it. There's plenty of stupid things that happen every day without having to watch it on TV. And at the same time, I'm not so sure whether I would blame the show and say we've got to sue them because we got hurt doing something stupid. I think people are accountable for their actions. They should be -- use their common sense and do the things that they need to do. And trying to jump over a car or anything like that makes no sense whatsoever. And to blame it on the show, I'm sorry, I don't know that that works.
THOMPSON: Bobbie?
BATTISTA: Yeah, go ahead.
THOMPSON: Bobbie, one of the problems -- and I say this as a parent of an 8-year-old -- is that kids don't have all that much common sense. And I must say I'm not sure I'm going to take the advice of a teenager or a pre-teenager as to what the societal consequences of this ought to be.
The people at MTV are very clever, but they aren't very wise. And if fear is the author of wisdom, then what they ought to fear is money judgments against their clever network for injuries caused to children who don't have the common sense not to do dangerous things. And then maybe since they treasure money above the safety of others, they'll finally get the point.
BATTISTA: Let me bring Doug Rushkoff into the mix here. He's a media analyst and host of "Frontline's" recent documentary, "The Merchants of Cool." His books include "Coercion, Why We Listen to What They Say."
Doug, thank you very much for joining us.
DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF, MEDIA ANALYST: Hi. Good to be with you.
BATTISTA: Well, what do you think? Should MTV have any sort of, if not legal, moral responsibility for this show?
RUSHKOFF: Well, if they have a responsibility, it's a responsibility for the show being so bad, not being so immoral. You know, kids have done stupid things for the last several hundred if not thousand years. You know, the problem is for parents, there has never been a multi-billion-dollar media conglomerate egging them on to do, you know, greater and more dastardly deeds.
The trick with blaming MTV or of even doing a show like this that publicizes what those kids have done is it's potentially very disempowering to teens. What MTV does is presents a picture of the world where the only alternative for a teenage male is to be one of these (UNINTELLIGIBLE) characters, is to be a brutish and violent and self-effacing in the worst way rebel. And then when we do shows about the two kids who we can find who actually do something like this, we also paint a picture of kids as violent and as stupid, as jackasses. And it's a not really accurate picture of what American teens are going through today.
FELLING: That's an excellent point, because MTV has positioned itself since its beginning, since it first started with The Buggles (sic), The Bangles, whatever, video, "Kill the Radio Star," in the '80s as the avatar, as the leader of teen culture. You want to find out what color Britney Spears' belly button ring is today, you tune in. You want to find out how to be cool -- unfortunately, to a lot of high school kids, they're going to tune it in.
And I do agree if we take a step back, we can see that we're kind of adding to the problem by even talking about this.
THOMPSON: No, we aren't. FELLING: There was a book a couple of years ago called "The Death of Outrage." Well, if I could change my career, I'd be a marketing representative because I want to author the marketing of outrage.
(CROSSTALK)
THOMPSON: All the kids know about "Jackass." It's time that shows like this -- and I commend CNN for doing it. Now adults know what it's about it, and it's adults who can control and do something about what's going on. It's adults who can bring lawsuits. And somebody who's an adult ought to run MTV and preferably a woman who understands the extent to which kids are impressionable.
RUSHKOFF: Yes, but it is true that media is in the business of making money.
THOMPSON: Yes.
RUSHKOFF: And this story wouldn't have existed in the newspaper and it wouldn't exist on this network or any other if there wasn't that little media hook. Kids are running themselves over and blowing themselves up every day of the week all over America. As soon as you can find an MTV hook, then we've got copy, and then it's pay dirt.
THOMPSON: Well, who wrote "jackass" on the camera?
FELLING: Beyond the copy, to have the video. To have the video of this incident was powerful television in and of itself. I was on the StairMaster last night and every TV screen, every news channel -- CNN and the other two, we're not going to say their names -- they were showing this over and over and over.
I think it's frightening that the boy who burnt himself wasn't made as big a deal, probably because a video camera wasn't lying around. Once you have the video, it raises the consciousness and it shows people what's going on.
THOMPSON: Here's whose consciousness ought to be raised, and that is the in-house accountants at MTV, ought to sit down with the creative geniuses there and say: "If you guys keep doing shows like this, we're going to have to pay out nose to families whose kids are injured." That's the encouragement that ought to occur.
RUSHKOFF: There might even be a better way of influencing what MTV does, and that is appeal to the people who see themselves as artists, who see themselves as television producers, and show them the picture of America that they are putting together. Show them real teens, and show them the over-simplified, violent and oversexed picture of teens that they present to America, and ask them if this is as articulate they can be.
THOMPSON: You can't appeal to the conscience of Hollywood. It doesn't seem to have one.
BATTISTA: I have to take a break here. Let me go to the audience. Doug, you have children, right?
DOUG: Yes, I have two daughters.
RUSHKOFF: No, I don't.
BATTISTA: No, this Doug in the audience, I'm sorry.
(LAUGHTER)
BATTISTA: Go ahead.
DOUG: TV violence has been an issue for years and years, and we talk about it, we analyze it, we study it. But nobody does anything. Nobody takes any action in this society, and that's what's sad.
BATTISTA: We'll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BATTISTA: All right. A couple of e-mails here. Logan in Tennessee. says: "Today kids are inspired to go and shoot a gun at their schools because of what they see on the news. If we take 'Jackass' off the air, should we remove the news as well?"
Jason in Tennessee says; "The media are not responsible for any one person's actions. However, they are responsible for influencing those actions. They should at least be responsible for that."
Joining us now, our discussion here, is Helen Morrison, a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist. She is a professor at Loyola University School of Law.
Helen, good to see you.
HELEN MORRISON, CHILD AND ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRIST: Nice to see you.
BATTISTA: One of the problems, it seems to me, is that we just really don't know what the negative effects of these things are -- what they see on television or hear -- what is on children. And I thought it was interesting, there was an editorial in a paper this morning that was written by William Blinn, who was an executive producer of such shows like "The Rookies" and "Starsky and Hutch," and this sort of thing. And I think he's in -- one of the few people in Hollywood who feels like he is partly to blame.
And he said that when he was the executive producer of the show "Fame," he got so much positive response to that show, about how you changed our school, you changed our class, that he said, if we can have such a strong positive effect, how could we not possibly have a negative effect?
MORRISON: Well, He absolutely right. But I think one of your guests made a point earlier, and that is that we can look at these shows, have children look at these shows, but -- and they will be influenced, but they're not causative. I think that many of us talk also, about -- "This has been going on for years, we've done nothing about it."
And the only thing that's going to change is money. The more insurance premiums that have to be charged to MTV, and the greater rewards and awards they have in court, then we might see change.
But also, I think there was a guest who mentioned the Harvard study. For years and years prior to the Harvard study, we know that children and early adolescents cannot form judgments the way an adult forms judgments. They can't look at costs or benefits or the risk the way an adult can.
So we all have a responsibility to: A, Teach our children right and wrong, B, To show them the difference between right and wrong, and C, To give them consequences when they do something stupid that we know about.
But I don't think there's anyone in your audience who can say that they never did anything stupid, and that they wish that maybe they had used better judgment. But at least they were taught how to judge something.
BATTISTA: Let me take -- you know, I've got a child -- well, I don't want to say a child, it might be a teenager on the phone with us. James from Virginia -- James, are you there?
CALLER: Yes, I'm there.
BATTISTA: How old are you?
CALLER: I'm 23.
BATTISTA: Oh, you're not a child.
CALLER: No.
BATTISTA: OK, go ahead. Your comment.
CALLER: OK. Basically, what I wanted to say was, OK, I'm calling from Virginia, and the time that the show is aired on the east coast is at 10:00 at night on -- only on Sundays, which, for most parents, your kids would more than likely -- or at least younger kids -- would be going to bed for school the next morning. So how the one guy in the suit, I don't remember what his name was, said that the show is specifically targeted to kids, most kids are in bed at that time, for one.
And for two, the disclaimers on the show, I have never heard of anybody suing, say, a tobacco company because they have cancer after reading the side of a cigarette pack that says this is dangerous to your health and everything like that. I think they have -- I wouldn't say gone out of their way -- but they have done specific precautions as far as warning people that, you know, don't go ahead and try to do these things.
(CROSSTALK) THOMPSON: If I may, let me answer that. The fact is they advertise the show during hours in which kids will see the ads. And I must tell you, in Miami, maybe it's a cultural thing, there are plenty of kids up after 10.
And by the way, there are six heads of major medical associations who have testified to Congress in the last seven months that, indeed, there is a direct causal nexus between violent and dangerous entertainment and dangerous behavior. And we're not saying in Paducah or on this show or anywhere else that "Jackass" is the sole cause of aberrant or dangerous behavior by children. But it's one of the causes in a causal chain, if you break the link of which, this particular specific injuries to real live children may not occur.
RUSHKOFF: Well, the causal chain is actually a little more complex than that. Really, what happens is, MTV has ethnographers and researchers and cool hunters that go into the culture of teens and find behaviors and attitudes that can actually be exploited on their shows.
So, as they research boys, they find OK, there's a sort a propensity for some violent and stupid behavior in adolescent boys. Big surprise. And what they do is they exploit it, put it on show and then they end up getting a kind of feedback loop where they find the most -- the quintessence of stupid adolescent behavior, put it up on the show. Then kids see that as a reflection of their world, and think, oh, that's who we are. Then, their behavior changes and MTV researches that and it gets worse and worse and worse each year.
(CROSSTALK)
BATTISTA: Well, that's...
MORRISON: But there's another issue, and that is that you're ignoring the fact that teenagers by definition want to be cool. They want to be part of the in group. They want to be seen as much more than they feel they are, and I don't think you can avoid that fact by saying, well, if we have a quiet show, we will have quiet teenagers.
RUSHKOFF: The funny thing is, when is with a kid or even through most the '90s, it was cool you aren't on MTV because that meant you were genuinely cool. Now, it's cool to get on MTV, and you see kids going to spring break and trying on get on TV or making tapes trying to get on MTV. It's to get in the tube not stay away from.
THOMPSON: Well, I'll tell you what is way cool and that's living until you're 21, which kids now have a less chance of doing because of fact they are encouraged to engage in dangerous behaviors, whether it be sex outside marriage or drug use or all sorts of other things which are portrayed as cool and are frankly dangerous.
BATTISTA: I've got to take a break, here. We'll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BATTISTA: E-mails, Tim in California: "Showing the warnings before the show is a fake attempt at responsibility. What is the purpose of this show if not to demonstrate what can be done by a Jackass? Are they trying to start another professional sport?
Kim in California says: "You are responsible for your own actions. If you act like a jackass, then you are a jackass."
We should say, by the way, just to clear something up, that Jack, you had mentioned a few moments ago that MTV promos this show outside of that 10:00 time period. MTV called us and said they did not promo this show at all.
THOMPSON: Why do they promo it on the Internet Web site?
BATTISTA: That's a different question. But they called to let you know that they don't promo that show at all on the network to any other age groups.
THOMPSON: Then that's a recent changes because of this.
BATTISTA: All right, well, let me go to the audience and go quickly. I wanted to come down here to Kelly because she's picked up on something that Lisa said a few moments ago and, well, I'll let you say it first.
KELLY: First of all, I think it's a combination of things. I don't think that it should be blamed on parents or children. It should be -- it should be -- sorry -- it should be -- it's a combination of things. We should worry about society. We are desensitized, like Lisa said, to life in general.
BATTISTA: Well, it bothers, I think, that some of kids in the audience are saying that they like watching people get hurt, that they think it's funny and that this kind of thing...
KELLY: Like, a lot of these people that are saying that in the audience are younger than I am, and you don't realize as you get older that you look back on those things and you're like, what did I do? And if you are old enough and you look back on those things that you did and you're lucky enough to be alive, then you;re grateful and you're thinking, why are these people younger than us doing this?
BATTISTA: Well, Matthew, how far can the bar be lowered? Just when we think it's gone low...
FELLING: Well, thanks a lot for calling on me. I just wanted to mention that we were talking about the causal relationship, which I think very important line to draw and it's impossible to draw. What I find a tad bit responsible are the part of "Jackass," the episodes that I watched it, the host will really mess up his body, and they'll discuss that.
They won't just act like it's a video game, such as Helen mentioned, where there is no responsibility. We're playing video games and if you die or if you get shot up, you can just click start over. At least "Jackass" gives the benefit of showing that this stuff will hurt you, and I'm just -- I am very loathe to say that kids are not learning a lesson that this is a bad idea.
RUSHKOFF: I think it's also important to realize that this generation of adolescent boys one of first generations ever that hasn't been asked to go to war. You know, part of being an adolescent male has always traditionally been learning how to do things which, if you've seen the footage from Vietnam or World War II, are very "Jackass"-like things to other people. So, some boys do need either video games or ritualized violence or something to experience a little bit of that as we wean it out of our culture.
(CROSSTALK)
RUSHKOFF: Most importantly, though, and this is really for the kids watching this show, do not believe that watching something on television is going to magically or mysteriously make you do something. You are more powerful than that. You have your own autonomy, your own sense of what you want to do, and no matter what these people say, you are in charge of your life.
THOMPSON: Forgive me, but on behalf of the greatest generation and those men that put their lives on the line storming the beach at Normandy, I don't think that was "Jackass" behavior. That was other centered behavior, and to somehow draw a nexus between that and that jumping over the hood of a car is simply akin to putting your life on the line...
RUSHKOFF: Young men were expected to engage in violent acts. Yes, those violent acts were for causes that we can all generally agree upon, were good causes. But you can't suddenly take male culture, remove the violence and say now just go along about your business. It's...
THOMPSON: Well, the last time...
RUSHKOFF: ... hard growing up as man.
THOMPSON: Last time I checked, there were mothers and fathers. This is not a male culture. This is a culture, or at least it used to be, and I said earlier, you're have bunch of men who, by the way, at the MTV Web site, they said that they cater to, quote, "arrested development people," close quote. These are arrested development males and they're glorifying...
(CROSSTALK)
BATTISTA: I'm going to go -- I have to take a quick break here quickly, and then I'm going to go to the females again in the audience because there is quite a different reaction between the boys and the girls in our audience, too, to this show. We will be back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BATTISTA: All right, let me go to the audience here quickly -- and Tegan (ph), you have been standing by for a few minutes. TEGAN: Well, I think that everyone focuses on the bad things that students and teenagers and just adults do in general. I mean, what about the good things that people do? No one ever -- you hardly ever hear about the Big Help, you know, on Nickelodeon. I mean, what about that? Nobody focuses on the good things that people do anymore.
And like the e-mail said earlier, if you're going to take this show off TV, why don't you just take the rest of violence and crude humor off of TV?
THOMPSON: That's great idea.
BATTISTA: And down to Drew in the front row.
DREW: Where did the association of this stunt -- the car stunt -- and "Jackass" come from? It was originally run in a Reebok commercial promoting shoes. The parents and lawyers are just trying to find someone or something to blame it on. Evel Knievel has been doing stunts for years. Why don't they sue him?
FELLING: Jack, you were just saying that you thought it was a great idea if we removed all crude language and all crude behavior and all violence off of television. Well, you can tune in 24 hours a day. Little House on the Prairie had people on the back of a horse. I can fall off a horse and I can get mad and I can get injured. Almost anything can be isolated -- no, Jack, I'm sorry, but one second...
(CROSSTALK)
... conflict part of the show, so I want to conflict with you. I want to know one thing, we have been talking about all the money and the big industry, and we have to shake down all these people. I want to know, Jack, is this a pro bono case for you?
THOMPSON: What case is that?
(CROSSTALK)
I don't have any client in this situation. I'm here at request of CNN to talk about what other parents and other lawyers can do.
FELLING: The cases in the past?
MORRISON: You know, gentlemen, I think that we are getting caught again. We are saying that there's a gender-specific -- because you are male you are violent, because you're female you're nurturing. We are missing the entire point that if you don't help a child learn to judge, no matter what you have or don't have on television or in the media is going to make no difference at all.
BATTISTA: That has to be the last word. We're totally out of time. Helen Morrison, Doug Rushkoff, Matthew Felling, and Jack Thompson, thank you all very much. We'll see you again tomorrow. And thanks to my audience as well. You guys were great. We'll see you tomorrow.
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