Do we really need the increasing reddening of our television and movie screens?

Many Americans are disturbed, perturbed and disgusted by the growing amount of “blood and guts” being featured in our television and film fare. The trouble is, too few media people covering “entertainment” are willing to step forth, condemn such offerings and call for something better.

One analyst who has done so is Ellen Gray, who covers the television scene for the Knight Ridder Newspapers. She recently discussed a particularly distasteful occurrence on the critically acclaimed “The Sopranos” of television infamy and wrote: “What I do know is that for once, ‘The Sopranos’ isn’t so much pushing the envelope as licking it, body parts being all the rage this season.”

Bear in mind, of course, how many are singing the praises of the Mafia-insight offering on HBO.

Gray then details a number of other TV shows that recently have spent unneeded coverage of such things as severed arms, decapitations and massive numbers of bleeding, twisted corpses. She is equally critical of films which feature “heroes” such as Hannibal the Cannibal.

Adds Gray: “What worries me : is that it’s getting easier and easier to look at this stuff. I may have missed Ralph’s head (a “Sopranos” victim), but I caught a lot more of Sunday’s carnage than I did of the last 15 minutes or so of ‘Braveheart’ years ago. And knowing that I’m a bit of a wimp ” as a mother of sons and as a former emergency-room volunteer I’ve always been better with real blood than fake ” I figure a lot of people are growing all too accustomed to the bloody bits and pieces.”

Is that what we want? How many others, particularly those among us with children and grandchildren, feel the same way? Yet the blood-and-guts beat goes on as one producer and director after another enters the grisly game of “can you top this?”

Ellen Gray wonders if, in the light of how the bloodiest shows seem to be getting higher ratings, the more benign offerings will steadily join the grisly chorus and redden our screens even more. You know, whatever the traffic will bear?

Periodically, producers of “fare for the masses” need to take into account that more often than not, the lowest-rated (R and below) films for all their critical acceptance make less money than the PG-rated-and-up productions. That’s simple. Families can, and do, given the chance, share the experience.

Yet we continue to get more and more tasteless murder, mayhem and slaughter because somebody somewhere in those front offices has concluded that is what we want.

Not!