The USA Network postponed Wednesday night’s scheduled season one finale of its hit series, “Mr. Robot," because the episode included a live shooting that was similar to the fatal shooting of two TV journalists that took place yesterday morning in Virginia.
That got us thinking about the broader issue of violence on television. There have been many studies that address not only the preponderance of violence on TV, but also how those images affect viewers. The studies typically find that people who watch violent entertainment become emotionally desensitized — and might even imitate the aggressive behavior they see.
There have been calls in the past to limit TV shows with violent content to those airing later at night. But thanks to technology and streaming services, people can watch TV whenever they want, so those limits don’t apply.
Where do things stand today with depictions of gun violence on television?
For more on this issue, we talked with Jim Steyer, the CEO of the watchdog group Common Sense Media, and Andy Greenwald, who covers TV for Grantland and the Hollywood Prospectus podcast.
Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media
What do you think the media's responsibility when it comes to depictions of violence?
Fundamentally, the media industry broadly defined and the entertainment industry in particular, need to be far more accountable to society when it comes to the depiction of violence, both in the content of the depictions and the ways in which they're distributed.
In the era of Netflix, Hulu, and streaming video, it's any place, any time, so the accountability industry is absolutely paramount, and while the "Mr. Robot" decision by USA Network is actually a heartening one and an example of industry accountability, we don't see a whole lot of that. The industry should be far more vigilant, but they aren't oftentimes because violence sells. That's the crux of the problem.
People who have been to your site, Common Sense Media, know that you do your own, very specific ratings about content. How does the TV industry's own ratings system work? Do you think it's effective, and can it be improved?
The TV ratings system is pretty pathetic and, in our experience, nobody uses it. It was largely designed back in the late 90s as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and in our experience it's very, very weak. It's far less effective than the MPAA system for movies.
That being said, it's tough to be a parent in a 24/7 media environment, so even if there are good ratings available to you, you have to be vigilant. That's also why the industry has to be far more accountable — the problem with violence in our society is very real.
You can't blame only the media for it, because that wouldn't be fair, but the research is also clear that there's a strong correlation between media violence and the epidemic of violence that we see in our society. So media is part of the problem, but it can also be part of the solution.
Your organization touts that it believes in "sanity, not censorship." So what does that actually mean?
We believe in free expression and we believe that producers, whether in Hollywood or any place in the world, have the right to create whatever content they want. The issues are when that is aired, how it's distributed, and to which audiences it's distributed. We believe that you need to give all viewers and all consumers as much information as possible at or before the point of decision. That is sanity, not censorship.
Censorship would be to simply say, "You can't make that kind of programming." Under the old systems of law, you were allowed to do time, place, and manner restrictions, but in a 24/7 streaming media environment that we have now, it's pretty tough. So sanity means, Give the consumer the information before they make their decision, as opposed to a heavy-handed government way to try to regulate it, which quite honestly is not going to happen in 2015 and beyond.
Andy Greenwald, writer for Grantland
We know that you're a big fan of "Mr. Robot" — in fact, you recommended it to us the last time you were on the show — so what did you make of USA's decision to postpone the airing of the finale last night?
I spent the first part of Wednesday actually writing a piece on the "Mr. Robot" finale, which I'd watched Tuesday night, and in it I'd noted that the show had this uncanny ability to tap into the zeitgeist. I was referring mostly to its references to things like hacking personal information that might be embarrassing to people, or unsettled foreign economies.
I also mentioned that there was an on-camera shooting in the finale, and of course that has real, tragic resonance now. I was surprised that USA pulled the episode when they did, but ultimately I think they did make the right decision.
Do you think that episode will be re-edited? Is it so close to the actual event that they'll have to come up with a new, reshot ending?
Well, it's important to note that the scene in question is not entirely central to the main A-Plot of the finale. There's absolutely a way where it could be lightly edited without losing its intent or its impact, but that said, I've received no official word from anyone. No one at USA's speaking on the record, but I've been given some indication that the preference is not to edit it at all. It'll air in the original version, just a week later.
A couple years ago, there was a movie called "Gangster Squad," and in a preliminary edit of that film there was a shooting inside a movie theater. After the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, they cut that scene and reshot it completely. In the TV world, is there another example that you can think of where a TV network pulled or edited an episode as a response to something that happened in real life?
There are actually two prominent examples of this happening in TV. In 1999, an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," which centered on violence at a school, was pulled due to the Columbine shooting.
And then, just two years ago in 2013, the fourth episode from the first season of "Hannibal" was pulled months after the Sandy Hook shooting at the request of the show's showrunner, Bryan Fuller. He felt that some of the themes of the episode, while not specifically related to anything like what happened at Sandy Hook, were too similar in tone.
You're somebody who watches television for a living, so you consume a lot of TV. Just anecdotally and personally, over the last five years have you noticed that the amount of violence has gone up? Stayed the same? Gone down? What's your personal take?
I would say there's always been a great deal of violence on television, often in some of the most surprising places. For example, CBS has a reputation for being the most old-fashioned network, but to watch it is to watch a pretty hideous orgy of murder and death on its endless parade of procedurals.
I think that what's changed over the past few years is the extremity of what's shown on television — violence has always been there, but the specificity and often the emotional baggage that comes along with it has certainly increased.
I think that's partly to do with the growing up of television's storytelling capabilities and what the audience has come to expect, but also from the fact that everything's time-shifted now, so that people feel a little bit free to broadcast things they might not otherwise do at the original broadcast time because they're honestly just assuming that everyone's going to watch it later.
From talking with showrunners and people who work in television, what kind of conversations are they having about violence on television? Or is it Wild Wild West, anything goes right now?
I think that each show and each showrunner determines their level of comfort on their own, within the conversations they have in their writers rooms and with their networks. I think it's worth noting that, for me, as much as the pulling of the episode of "Mr. Robot" was out of respect to those affected by the awful tragedy in Virginia, I also think that it was a reasonable and smart decision for the show itself.
Honestly, though the scene itself was quite different than what occurred in Virginia, there was almost no way for it not to be viewed as responsive if it had aired at its original time. I think it would be good to give a little distance, so that the reality and the art can each stand on their own.