Guns, drugs and violence—coming to a Christmas tree near you - Viewpoint - Column

DSN Retailing Today, Dec 15, 2003 by Tim Craig

Every year about this time, a ground swell of holiday spirit begins to build inside me. So meet the urge, I consciously start doing my part to deck the halls and jingle the bells. But I'm having a little trouble this year wrapping my brain around one of the most glaring paradoxes I've witnessed at retail in many years--and frankly it's starting to bring out the Scrooge in me.

How is it that a teenager can walk into a store like Wal-Mart and buy a copy of the video game "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City," a fantasy world of urban debauchery and human degradation, where players--mostly Gen Y boys--are encouraged to rob, rape and kill, but that same teenager can't buy a copy of Maxim magazine? As comedian Chris Rock would say, What's up with that?

Come to think of it, what is up with that? If you didn't know any better, you might say our society is condoning games of death and destruction while condemning pictures of women in bikinis? (And in case you haven't read Maxim, women in bikinis is as risque as it gets.) Have we really reached that point in our "highly evolved" society where our Puritan-based morality has resurfaced to overtake any sense of modern reason?

Rhetorical as it may be, that question nonetheless touches a cultural nerve that we've been ignoring for all too long. And if we're ever to do anything about it--short of massive sessions of group psychotherapy--the first steps have to come from people in positions of power.

Traditionally, the role of regulating markets--and for that matter, content--has rested in the hands of the federal government. But when it comes to the distribution of consumer goods, let's face it, the power seat no longer resides in Washington. After well more than a decade of accelerated consolidation in the overall retail industry, the people deciding what magazines America reads, what video games America plays, what clothes America wears and so on, are the chief merchants of the nation's highest-volume retail companies.

That's a highly commendable achievement (from the point of view of a business accomplishment), but it's also an awesome responsibility. And we're not talking about weighing the difficult decisions over which bath towels, salad bowls, car batteries or pet food to carry.

Responsibility also means dealing with the thorny issues. Should pharmacists give advice on birth control? When does a sporting goods department manager have the authority to refuse a gun sale? Who's making sure high school kids aren't buying beer in the self-checkout lanes? And when a 14-year-old goes online with a credit card, who's making sure he's not buying video games that reward his urge to rape and kill?

These are the issues that define responsible retailing. And although it pains me to side with a group whose mission is to censor product in the name of religion, I have to agree with recent concerns raised by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR). This coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors is asking some of the largest retailers in the United States, including Best Buy, Circuit City, Hollywood Entertainment, Kmart, Target, Toys "R" Us, Wal-Mart, Blockbuster and KB Toys, as well as Hasbro, Mattel and Nintendo, to do a better job of enforcing restrictions on the sale of violent entertainment games.

This comes in the wake of a mystery-shopper study by the Federal Trade Commission, which discovered that nearly 70% of teenagers under 17 were able to purchase M-rated entertainment software (a rating for content "suitable for persons ages 17 and older").

Now, I can't blame you if a mission like that of the ICCR doesn't move you. Eleven-and-a-half months out of the year, I, too, cop an attitude of skepticism. But this is the season of holiday spirit, one of the few times of the year when kinder, gentler feelings prevail. Yet instead of visions of sugurplums, the only thing dancing through the heads of millions of teenage boys this Christmas will be guns, drugs and car-jackings.

Can someone please tell me what's responsible about that?