Orson Welles then
and Opie & Anthony now: The decline of shocking entertainment
By C.T. Rossi
web
posted September 2, 2002
The true power of the modern mass media was revealed on October 30, 1938.
The specific medium in question was radio - more specifically, the CBS
radio network. The small group of men and women rammed through boundaries
heretofore unbroken. They were the members of the Mercury Radio Theater
- their leader, a brash (and rash) young genius, Orson Welles. What Welles
and company did that night was stage a radio drama, namely The War of
the Worlds, which launched a mass hysteria in a nation-wide listening
audience.

Welles |
The technique that made Welles' broadcast adaptation so terrifyingly
effective in paralyzing audiences with fear was a mock reality. Though
Welles provided a disclaimer in the prologue to the story, once the actors
began the story, it sounded like an actual news report and those who tuned
in late to the broadcast heard 40 minutes of "news" before the
next disclaimer was read.
In that first portion of the program, listeners thought that they had
tuned into the music of Ramon Raquello and his Orchestra from the Meridian
Room of the Park Plaza Hotel, but soon enough the dance music was interrupted
by an "emergency news report" from the most unlikely of places
- Grover's Mill, New Jersey. While many people in the New York/ New Jersey
metropolitan area had never heard of Grover's Mill, soon all of America
would "know" that this small town near Princeton was the staging
ground for a Martian invasion of the Earth.
What was described to the listening audience that night sounded as real
as the description of the Hindenburg crash, which coincidentally (or perhaps
not) occurred in New Jersey less than 18 months before the broadcast of
The War of the Worlds. By Halloween morning, the New York area newspapers
were filled with reports that thousands of people had placed calls to
newspapers and police seeking advice about protective measures that could
be taken against the poison gas used by the Martians. The New York
Times alone received close to 900 inquiries from concerned citizens.
But while most media outlets were content to report the aftermath of
Welles' product, most journalists did not have the perspective to stop
to realize that a seminal moment had been reached in the history of mankind.
One did, however.
Writing about Welles and his troupe in the New York Tribune, Dorothy
Thompson understood the full implications. She noted that "few effective
voices" convinced the general public of the "totally unreasonable."
She likewise realized that the effects of the broadcast "demonstrated
beyond a question of a doubt, the appalling dangers and enormous effectiveness
of popular and theatrical demagoguery...". Thompson rounded out her
brilliant analysis by comparing radio reports of Hitler's army, which
terrified Europe a month before, to Welles who "scared thousands
into demoralization with nothing at all."
The dangers of "popular and theatrical demagoguery" are still
present today though the techniques are used more for cheap carnival antics
by "shock jocks" than the skill displayed by Welles.
Recently, WNEW-FM in New York cancelled the Opie and Anthony Show when
it was learned that a Virginia couple, who had been arrested for having
sex in New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral, were enticed into the act in
order to win prizes from the radio show. The "world" created
by radio entertainment which Orson Welles used to terrify a nation for
an evening is now under the control of people base enough to use the medium
to suborn public sexual acts that are both illegal and sacrilegious. Given
today's "reality entertainment" culture, WNEW executives displayed
uncommon good judgment in holding the shapers of the media-created fantasy
world responsible for the actions of those they influence.
After the broadcast of The War of the Worlds, Orson Welles found himself
the center of great public controversy. CBS, hearing that an FCC investigation
might be forthcoming, even contemplated canceling the Mercury Theater.
The broadcast also raised the ire of censorship advocate U.S. Senator
Clyde Herring of Iowa, who saw radio as a demoralizing force on American
society and was advocating that all radio broadcasts be subject to government
review.
While Welles' critics overreacted to what was essentially a piece of
brilliant hoaxical theater, people at the time did have salutary fears
that any mass medium has inherent dangers in its application. As the "fourth
wall" between drama and the audience is slowly destroyed by "reality
television" and interactive shock jock contests, no longer does anyone
seem to see the danger in confusing what makes good entertainment and
what is real.
C.T. Rossi writes on contemporary culture and politics for the Free
Congress Foundation.

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