('Twould appear that this is descending into a bit of verbal violence.)

McGrath observes: "And since it is Americans making the films and the programmes, the impression gets across that this must be how people in America like to see their country presented."

This is less a matter of how people in America like to see their country presented than it is a matter of what Hollywood producers and writers assume American audiences want to see. And, unfortunately, this feedback mechanism does seem to come into play, not so much with adults, but with adolescents, particularly younger adolescents. The latter seem to be the ones who fill the theaters where violent movies are playing (from my own observation and the observation of people I've talked with, often ten-, eleven-, and twelve-year-olds, despite a given movie's PG-13 rating). And although the argument goes on, it's difficult not to assume that this doesn't have something to do with recent violence in high schools.

However, not every American, by any means, is fond of this kind of fare. The movie industry would go bust if they depended on people like my wife and me (the last movie we saw in a theater was Jurassic Park, and although it wasn't human on human violence, it was more that sufficient violence for us!). And as far as television is concerned, apart from watching a couple of sit-comes (usually Brit-coms) we generally watch Masterpiece Theatre, which offers good drama by anybody's standards, and an occasional movie of similar quality, often videotapes from the public library. The nearest thing to crime dramas we watch is Mystery on our local PBS affiliate (currently showing a series of "Miss Marple" mysteries—not exactly "shoot 'em ups"). And I usually watch JAG, which, despite its military setting, is primarily a courtroom drama. It's a literate show with well-rounded characters. About the most violent things we watch on television are reruns of Star Trek in its various permutations. According to published ratings (in which they sample a couple thousand households and extrapolate from there), Barbara and I may be in a minority, but we are certainly not unique. In fact, we're actually pretty representative of a fairly substantial minority. Most of the people we know either don't watch television at all, or they watch pretty much the kind of shows we watch. We do not find violence—especially gratuitous violence—entertaining.

Some years ago, Cleveland Amory wrote a column for TV Guide, in which he said that the problem of violence on television was that it was not violent enough. Magnum gets punched in the mouth, at which point he falls down a flight of stairs and slams into a wall. He gets up, wipes a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth, dashes up the stairs and pounds the villain into insensibility (Cheers! By then, we know the bad guy had it coming!). All very heroic. But considering the apparent force of the punch that Magnum received followed by his spectacular tumble down the stairs, if this were the real world, the next scene would have shown him in a hospital bed, a few limbs in casts and in traction, his lips blue and swollen, in need of extensive reconstructive dental work, and with his jaw wired shut. Amory was suggesting that if the actual, realistic results of that kind of violence were shown, then all that rock 'em sock 'em "heroism" might not be quite so glamorous!

But when it comes to raw violence in entertainment, it would be hard to outdo Japanese comic books (manga) or the tsunami of martial arts movies from Hong Kong within recent decades. Compared to the depictions of violence that the populace of some other countries relish as entertainment, even the most violent American movies seem relatively mild.

Is violence the American way? I'm not quite sure what is meant by "the American way." If one were to try to lay out "the American way" as some sort of portrait of the average American (whoever that might be), to be fair, you would have to dilute your images of violence with a number of other images: such as those who contribute food, and volunteer to cook and serve at the noon lunches for the homeless given by five nearby churches; or the Lutheran Alliance for Affordable Housing and similar volunteer organizations, that seek out permanent or semi-permanent places for these same homeless; or those who get together on Saturday mornings to provide a gathering place for a group of developmentally delayed adults who would have no other opportunity for social interaction; or the people who make up an organization called "Alternatives to Violence," who conduct workshops in both the local prisons and in the community in an effort to demonstrate that there are other ways to solve problems than by violence. And let's not forget the millions of people nationwide who gather in groups of hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands every few days to protest the Bush Administration's bellicose foreign policy, and continue to do so week after week, whether the media chooses to cover them or not, because they feel strongly that they must do something to protest against the violence and indicate that they do not condone the actions of the government.

Statistics don't tell the whole story. Is violence that American way? To say "yes" on the basis of a page of statistics would be unfair to an awful lot of Americans. And it would certainly not give you a clear picture of what the vast majority of Americans are really like.

Don Firth