Early To Bed Or Late With The Serials?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 276, 6 October 1944, Page 6

Early To Bed Or Late With The Serials?

THE LISTENING HABITS OF CHILDREN THERE was a brief but animated discussion in the House of Representatives recently

' when the Government member for Lyttelton

T. H.

McCombs

. asked the Minister

of Broadcasting if steps could be taken to ensure that serials presented early in the evening would be such.as might reasonbly be listened to by children.’

} | ANY people, Mr. McCombs said, in the House, objected to children being allowed to listen to serials dealing with the lives of gangsters. He had turned on the tadio. at home, and the first thing he heard was a woman screaming that she was being knocked about by somebody. He had received a letter from a woman who said that children dropped their homework immediately to listen to serials, and when they returned from a tale of crime and gangsters they were full of nerves and could not settle down to work again. He believed that the broadcasting service weeded out the imported serials and selected the best. C. G. E. Harker (National, Waipawa) said the time of the evening selected for the broadcasting of what were in many instances unsavoury programmes was very bad. On the other hand, there were some parents who wanted serials of that type put on earlier in the evening- ‘ those parents apparently needed protection against themselves. He considered that a good deal of the increase in crime of a gangster nature arose from unsuitable serials and unsuitable films. C. Carr (Government, Timaru), who suggested that we could not afford to be too squeamish over these matters, asked members to recall the delight with which they read "penny dreadfuls" and stories of adventure in their young days. The Minister of Broadcasting (Mr. Jones) pointed out that Shakespeare’s play Macbeth’ was not printed for 20 years because it was thought to be demoralising. Every generation heard the cry that the youth of that day was deteriorating. "Penny dreadfuls," films, and now broadcasting had all been blamed in turn. He could assure the House that the object of the broadcasting service was to provide programmes of general appeal. He did not think that the programmes put over by advertisers would demoralise children, and if the licence figures were examined they would show an increasing desire to listen. The way in which the present generation had stood up to one of the greatest fights in history showed they were not deteriorating: é % * * ‘THIS was not a new complaint, but it ‘"’ seemed worth following up. The trouble, of course, is that although certain serials are considered to be undesirable by some authorities, there are many other authorities from the days of Plato to the present time who hold a very different opinion. Many authorities on the education of children maintain that such presentations have a valuable cathartic influence upon the emotional nature of the child by releasing the unhealthy repressions which develop in him due to the restricted and unadventurous character of his school and home life.

This vicarious experience which the child goes through in listening to fictitious stories inyolving violence has an educational value which is recognised by the schools and colleges of the world. Macbeth, for example, though it was under suspicion (as the Minister pointed out, for so many years) is now a school text-book. Yet it embraces treason, more than half-a-dozen murders (including the murder of chil-

dren by professional, thugs), the employment of witchcraft, the appearance of ghosts and visions, the sleep-walking of a woman suffering from a tragic neurosis, all within two hours, and the plav ends by the

gory head of a king being borne in triumph on the top of a pole. Certainly not many modern serials can be compared with Macbeth as literary productions, but Macbeth was regarded in Shakespeare’s day as a stage thriller, and not as literature; and if the civic authorities of London had had their way, none of Shakespeare’s plays would ever have been produced! So the question almost is: Should a mother ostrich educate her offspring by forcibly burying its head in the sand? * * * O discover what others think on the subject, we made inquiries from a few persons, whose opinions may be expected to carry some weight.

Training College Lecturer

HEN asked his opinion, a training college lecturer replied: "Serials, like the movies, tend to fix and

strengthen the behaviour patterns and types of attitudes which already exist among those who _- listen most frequently. And so the (maladjusted and unhappy child will become more maladiusted and

unhappy by continued listening. It’s like the toothache-aspirin will give you temporary relief, but the effect soon wears off, and the pain returns." "Do you think serials have any effect on child delinquency?" ‘Not a bad effect. Some children may pick up new methods of crime, but they’ll be the ones who are already maladjusted and disposed to it. Serials probably prevent a certain amount of delinquency by providing an interest and keeping children listening in the home who might be otherwise wandering round the streets. But they do have a

decided influence on children’s attitudes and tend to develop a habit of depending on sensations, and so encourage emotional precocity. "Reading about gangsters is different from listening to gangster serials. The radio provides extra stimuli for arousing the emotions, and that easy ‘tipping off’ of emotions is apt to be harmful. "It is true to say that the things that most entertain a child most educate him, therefore, these films and serials and comic papers will be powerful educative influences, developing his view of life and human nature and society. "The serial is an example of the standardising of taste at a level much below that which adults and. children are capable of reaching. The commercial aspect comes in there, too. The writer is aiming at the largest possible audience, and gets that by aiming his material at the mental age of 12 to 14. The result is mass production of fairy tales for everybody: on the reeeiving end is a vast audience of mental and emotional juveniles of all ages. "In a survey of about 4000 postprimary school children, we discovered that, on the whole, girls listen much more than boys, and that, at that time the favourite serial among boys and girls was Dad and Dave, which was listened to by one child in every five. On His Majesty’s Service was second with one in every six, and Phantom Drummer third with one in 11. Nineteen per cent of the children were listening to no serials, 40 per cent to one or two, and 41 per cent to three or four. One girl was listening to 14 at once, and quite a few to more than 10. The third and fourth forms listened mostly, and the numbers decreased in the upper classes." "Would you suggest that the serials should be put on after the children’s bedtime?" "Well, there’s always the problem that the \children will want to stay up to listen, though it is the parents’ responsibility. to fix a reasonable bedtime, serial or no serial. But it is important for children to be in a comfortable frame of mind when they go to bed, and the only solution that I can see is to discard the melodramatic and highly exciting serials altogether."

City Missioner

CITY MISSIONER whom we approached was not at all disturbed by the influence of serials. "Tt seems to me that there will always be people who must pick on the younger generation and cry out about how they have deteriorated. When I was a youngster, it was always the bad films that took the rap. But I noticed, even then, that the people who had the most to say about the harmful effect of films on (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) children never turned up at the Saturday matinees to see for themselves. Now it’s the radio. Well, I’m afraid I’m one of those people who don’t have much time to listen to serials, but I do come in contact with a lot of youngsters who listen in, and when I asked their opinions they were quite definite that none of them took the serials at all seriously. When I question some of the more intelligent, they seemed to think that the ole thing was soon forgotten or put till the next instalment, and that it had very little influence on them in any way. Of course we know that outside influences are important ina child’s growing-up process, but the "most important influence is its home and parents. I think if we got down a bit more and tried to educate the parents and made it possible for people to have decent homes, homes with plenty of room for the kids to play in, we’d be able to take radio serials and serial pictures in our stride. By the way, as far as the adult thrillers are concerned-

and I have listened to some of thesefor real blood-curdling kick I think the YA sub-stations have got the ZB’s licked."

Headmistress of Girls’ College

HEADMISTRESS of a girls’ college was more critical. "For convenience I would divide the serials into three. To start with, there’s the thriller. My opinion of this is that it is a waste of time and a very wrong thing to broadcast to children. It is wrong not only in that it might do harm to the morality of boys and girls, but also in that by its presence in the programme so much that is good has to be excluded. "The next type of serial is the Big Sister, Dr. Mac brand, serials that are specially written for radio. I think they’re bad because they have no real character value, no literary value. They just drift on aimlessly, growing more foolish as they go. They can act merely as food for the empty-minded, and we have enough empty-minded people as it is. "The last type is the better serial, consisting of dramatisations of the classics and of good modern material. I can think of John Halitax, Gentleman, Geoffrey Hamlyn, Pride and Prejudice, Emma and of How Green Was My Valley. I’ have asked the opinion of the girls, and they seem to enjoy this type of serial very much, For myself they are very good reminders of the things I’ve read, but I don’t remember much of the serials I haven’t read. Some of these serials are very well done and the voices very suitable. The broadcast often acts as a stimulus to read the book, and in that way we should encourage it. But again there are people who may hear one chapter of a book in this way, or who perhaps see a film’ version, and

they are quite content with these fragments, thinking they know the book. This encourages a snippity mind. It would be a pity if broadcasts replaced treading, because a broadcast can never produce the mental stimulus derived from reading a good book. "As far as serials on the whole go, three-quarters of the girls here listen to and like them. There is one thing I don’t understand. If the serials keep the children from bed, why can’t the parents switch off the wireless?"

Psychiatrist

"TT's not the fact that boys learn ways to do wrong that’s dangerous-they can pick up little tricks anywhere-but it’s the completely false picture they get of the world," said a psychiatrist, who has a good deal of experience with naughty boys-or child delinquents, as they are called nowadays, "IT have mainly boys to deal withnot girls, they are not so interestedand I am always finding that radio serials of a bad type are influencing their lives very much. There are boys who take them very, véry seriouslywho might miss a meal but would never miss a serial. And they get illusions about themselves: ‘If he can do that, so can I.’ All of us to some extent want something we can’t get. The modern child wants the fictitious power of his favourite serial hero." "Are you suggesting that this is a modern ill? Didn’t fairy tales serve something like the same purpose?" "A child up to 10-sometimes 12lives in a world of its own, in which a broomstick is a gun, or a doll talks. That is natural and healthy. But after that age, it’s a very different thing for a child to start getting ideas from the film or the radio which make him want to take a car and tear out to Lower Hutt at 60 miles an hour. Serials influence the child just at the time when he is beginning to get the shape of the real world and forget his own world, and they give him, as I say, a completely false picture of it. "It seems to me that. radio serials are never first-rate stuff. Done by true experts who really understand children they could be an enormous power for good-because, as I say, many children would rather miss a meal than a serial. If they were based on history or real life, they could be just as absorbing as they now are. And even if at first we seemed to be doing no good, at least we would be doing less harm."