Monday, Jun. 12, 1995

TOUGH TALK ON ENTERTAINMENT

By COMPILED BY ANDREA SACHS AND SUSANNE WASHBURN

De gustibus non est disputandum was the way the ancient Romans put it: there is no point arguing about matters of taste. But that was easy for the Romans to say; they -- and their children -- weren't awash in a tide of explicit films, TV programs and recorded music. We are. And the consequences of this condition -- even the question whether there are any consequences -- have spurred arguments that grow more intense as mass entertainment becomes more pervasive. In the aftermath of Bob Dole's latest attack on Hollywood, TIME asked some prominent people who produce or comment on the arts for their reactions:

LYNNE CHENEY FELLOW, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

In one scene of Oliver Stone's film Natural Born Killers the hero drowns his girlfriend's father in a fish tank and kills her mother by tying her down on her bed, pouring gasoline on her and burning her alive. Meanwhile, a raucous, laugh-filled sound track tells the audience to regard this slaughter as the funniest thing in the world. Is it any wonder that millions of Americans are concerned about kids growing up in a culture that sends such messages-or that someone who wants to be our President would talk about it?

A lot of the commentary about Bob Dole's remarks on Hollywood has focused on whether he has gained political advantage from them, and I think there is no question but that he has. Not so much because he has positioned himself better with the cultural right, but because, as Americans across the political spectrum realize, he is right -- just as President Clinton was right a few years ago when he castigated rap singer Sister Souljah for saying that blacks have killed one another long enough and that it was time for them to start killing whites. When you glamourize murder, as Natural Born Killers does; or glorify violence against women, as does 2 Live Crew; when lyrics are anti-Semitic, as Public Enemy's are, or advocate hatred of gays and immigrants, as those of Guns N' Roses do, it's not just conservatives who know something has gone wrong; any thinking liberal does too.

Those producing this garbage tell us we're naive. Natural Born Killers isn't an attempt to profit from murder and mayhem, says Oliver Stone. It's a send-up of the way the tabloid press exploits violence-a claim that would be a lot more convincing if Stone would contribute to charity the multimillion dollar profits the movie earned last year. Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin, whose company produced Natural Born Killers and has put out much of the most offensive music, says that rappers like Ice-T are misunderstood: when Ice-T chants "Die, die, die, pig, die," he is not really advocating cop killing, but trying to put us in touch with the "anguished" mind of someone who feels this way.

This is nonsense -- rationalization of the most obvious sort. What we need to do, each of us as individuals, is let those who are polluting the culture know that we are going to embarrass them and shame them until they stop, until they use their vast talents and resources to put us in touch with our best selves -- instead of with the worst parts of our nature.

JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN AUTHOR AND PROFESSOR

Which is more threatening to America -- the violence, obscenity, sexism and racism of movies and records, or the stark reality these movies and music reflect? If a messenger, even one who happens to be black and a rapper, arrives bearing news of a terrible disaster, what do we accomplish by killing the messenger?

I wasn't around when black people were barred from playing drums. But I know the objections to African drumming weren't aesthetic; Southern legislators feared the drums' power to signal a general slave revolt. I was around when finding black music on the radio was a problem. Growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the only way to hear the latest rhythm-and-blues sounds after dark was searching the scratchy hyperspace for Randy's Record Shack beaming up from Nashville, Tennessee.

Banning, ignoring, exploiting, damning black art has a long history. Protecting black freedom of expression and participation at all levels of society began just yesterday. So it's not accidental that politicians reaffirm the doublespeak and hypocrisy of America's pretensions to democracy. Let's deregulate everything; let the marketplace rule. Except when rap music captures a lion's share of the multi-billion dollar music market. Then, in the name of decency and family values, we're duty bound to regulate it. On the other hand, in areas of the economy where black people are appallingly underrepresented-the good jobs, for instance, that enable folks to maintain families -- we should abhor intervention because it's not fair.

The best art interrogates and explodes consensus. Recall how traditional African-American gospel music, transformed in the 1960s to freedom songs, the oratory of Martin Luther King and the essays of James Baldwin inspired and guided us. But we can't have the best art unless we are willing to risk living with the rest, the second rate and 15th rate, the stuff that eventually Xs itself because its worthlessness teaches us not to buy or listen.

We must not lose patience and stop paying attention. We must not mistake jingoism or propaganda or sensationalism for art. We must not fear change, fear the shock and disruption true art inflicts. We must not smother what we don't want to hear with the drone of morally bankrupt, politically self-serving Muzak.

DONNA BRITT SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

As a columnist who often writes about how American parents of every color, income and political stripe feel they're engaged in a losing war with cultural swill, I was glad to hear Bob Dole lambaste the entertainment industry. Every parent I know feels bombardment; who cares who thrusts it under the microscope?

Sure, it's hypocritical. Dole, who long ignored the issue, is playing politics by reducing a complex and unwieldy problem to too-easy sound bites. But who isn't? People who excoriate Dole for hypocrisy in blasting movies in which fictional characters use the same assault weapons he supports in real life ignore that his most passionate attackers make fortunes off the depravity they're protecting. Free speech invokers who say only parents are responsible for policing what their children hear and see overlook that even good parents -- who've never been busier or had a more pervasive pop culture to contend with -- are sometimes too overwhelmed to fight. Bad parents -- and there are millions -- aren't even trying. But we all must share the planet with the kids they're raising badly.

PAUL SCHRADER SCREENWRITER AND DIRECTOR

I don't know which is more appalling- the conservatives' hypocrisy or the entertainment industry's sanctimony.

There are solid arguments here, both Dole's and the libertarian response. You'll never know it from what you hear or read. That's because the debate, as framed by Dole and the entertainment industry, is not about values or freedom. It's about popularity. Hollywood calls popularity money; politicians call it votes.

The entertainment conglomerates are fond of invoking the First Amendment. That's because there's precious little excuse for what they've been up to the past 20 years. We've worked so long and hard at making audiences dumber, they have actually become dumber.

Is Dole up to anything different? Several years ago, I was involved in a public debate over a film I adapted from Nikos Kazantzakis' The Last Temptation of Christ. It was assailed as blasphemous by religious conservatives, most of whom had not seen the film. I realized at the time it didn't matter whether they had seen it. This was not a debate about the spiritual values of Last Temptation; this was a fight about who controls the culture. Last Temptation, like other cultural totems-flag burning, Robert Mapplethorpe, gun control, nea, abortion-had become a symbol of cultural hegemony.

Yes, the entertainment industry is an empty, soulless empire. I can't bring myself to defend many of the films now made; I can't even defend those Dole approves of. Hollywood must examine itself. Its greed is sickening. It must judge the social impact, not just the popularity impact, of what it does. So must politicians who seek to exploit cultural values.

KATHA POLLITT POET, WRITER AND SOCIAL CRITIC

People like pop culture -- that's what makes it popular. Movies drenched in sex and gore, gangsta rap, even outright pornography are not some sort of alien interstellar dust malevolently drifting down on us, but products actively sought out and beloved by millions. When fighting to abolish the NEA and other government support for the arts, conservatives are quick to condemn "cultural alitism" and exalt the majority tastes served by the marketplace. So how can they turn around and blame entertainment corporations for following the money and giving mass audiences what they want? Talk about alitism!

I too dislike many pop-culture products, although probably not the ones that bother Senator Dole. But the fact is, no system of regulation or voluntary restraint is going to have much effect on mass entertainment. And I'd like to hear how Dole squares his antiviolence stand with his ardent support for the n.r.a. and the overturning of the assault-weapons ban. Guns don't kill people; rap music kills people? Oliver Stone movies kill people? Please.

Ultimately, culture reflects society -- for a violent nation, violent amusements. But if Senator Dole and his fellow conservatives are serious about elevating American tastes, they'd do better to encourage greater variety in culture than to seek to homogenize it even further. Let them increase the NEA budget until it at least equals that for military bands. Let them restore to the public schools the art and music and performance programs that have been cut in the name of "getting back to basics." Let them support public radio and television -- or not complain when the kids watch Beavis and Butthead and their parents watch Married ... With Children, a show whose raw humor at the expense of family values enriches not some Hollywood liberal, by the way, but Newt Gingrich's publisher, Rupert Murdoch.

That Dole and other cultural conservatives claim to speak out of concern for women is particularly galling. What have they ever done for women? These are the same people who were silent when Republican Congressmen compared poor single mothers to mules and alligators, who want to ban abortion. If these men want to do something about entertainment that insults women, why not start with Rush Limbaugh and his references to pro-choice women as "feminazis"? Oh, but I forgot. Criticizing gangsta rap for demeaning women is defending "American values." Criticizing right-wing talk radio for doing the same is "politically correct."

DANYEL SMITH MUSIC EDITOR, VIBE MAGAZINE

Senator Bob Dole's recent attacks on hip-hop music and violent films are as ugly and transparent as some of the so-called gangsta rappers he wants to huff and puff and blow away. Like those of the worst rappers, Dole's views sound tinny and half-desperate. Like the lamest films, Dole goes for the spectacular (guns, violence, melodrama) rather than the substantive (love, sex, race, class). The main thing Dole, weak rappers and weak movies share is an ultimate goal: money. Staten Island hip-hoppers Wu-Tang Clan said it best with their 1994 hit single, C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me).

The mass of folks going to the movies and buying records are in their teens, 20s and early 30s. The optimism of Forrest Gump rang false for a lot of us. The Lion King offered moments of uplift that faded when the lights came up. But hip-hop songs such as KRS-One's Build & Destroy, Gang Starr's Just to Get a Rep and Tupac Shakur's Holler If Ya Hear Me sound fierce and true, reflecting in mood and content the real world around me and many hundreds of thousands of fans.

Yes, sexism runs rampant through hip-hop. But it, like the violence in the music, runs rampant through the world, and needs to be protested and dealt with -- not just silenced on the whim of an ambitious politician. The assumption that simply because the Notorious B.I.G. raps around gunfire in a song, people are going to run out and shoot stuff up is insulting and tired. We are trying to make sense of the world-just like every generation has had to do. Forgive us if our salve is your sandpaper, but we are not you-and we're not sure we want to be.

BILL BRADLEY DEMOCRATIC SENATOR FROM NEW JERSEY

I applaud Senator Dole. almost by any measure, the airwaves have become the pathways for too much trash. Violence without context and sex without attachment come into our homes too frequently in ways that we cannot control unless we are monitoring the television constantly.

Studies show that by the time a kid reaches 18, he's seen 26,000 murders on TV. That has implications. It creates a sense of unreality about the finality, pain, suffering and inhumanity of brutal violence. The question really is, What is government's role? The answer has got to be more citizenship in the boardroom, not censorship. The public has got to hold boards of directors, executives and corporations accountable for making money out of trash.

For example, if you see something that offends you, find out who the sponsor is, find out who's on its board of directors, find out where they live, who their neighbors are, their local clubs, churches and synagogues. Send a letter to the members of the board at their homes and ask whether they realize they are making huge profits from the brutal degradation of other human beings. Then send a copy of that letter to all of their neighbors and friends. You can also begin to put economic pressure on a corporation. Because the market that the economic conservative champions undermines the moral character that the social conservative desires, you have to try to introduce into the functioning of the market a moral sensibility that is usually absent.

DAVID MAMET PLAYWRIGHT

Politics seems to me much like the practice of stage magic. The magician is rewarded for appearing to perform that which we know to be impossible. We onlookers agree to endorse his claims and applaud his accomplishments if he can complete his performance before getting caught out. Similarly, we know, in our hearts, that politicians running for office are, in the main, mountebanks. They promise us an impossible future, or in the case of Senator Dole, a return to an imaginary pristine past.

It is in our nature to credit the ridiculous for the sake of the momentary enjoyment it affords. We do so at the magic show, at the car showroom and during the electoral process. It has long been the favored trick of the Republican Party to seek support through the creation of a villain. This imaginary being, whose presence stands between us and a Perfect World, this pornographer, this purveyor of filth, this destroyer of the family is he or she who used to be known by the name of communist, fellow traveler, labor agitator. Other historical names include nigger lover, papist, Yellow Peril, faggot and Jew.

It is the pleasure of the demagogue to turn otherwise sane people one against the other by this ancient trick, in order to further his or her own personal ends.

Yes, popular culture, in the main, is garbage. Perhaps it always has been, I don't know. I know we have a legitimate human desire for leadership, and Senator Dole's demagoguery corrupts this desire into a search for a victim and a longing for revenge. Whether as entertainment or politics, I find such actions objectionable.

STANLEY CROUCH CRITIC

Regardless of the political opportunism that may propel the rising attack on the entertainment industry, the attention is more than a good thing because our mass popular culture is the most influential in the world. But when questions are raised about that industry's irresponsible promotion of certain material, the industry's executives tell us it has no influence. Everyone has to know that is a steaming pile of shuck. At its best, popular art has been part of our ongoing redefinition of American life, moving us to question our prejudices and our political policies, our social fears and the ways in which we live our personal lives.

But what we are faced with now is the panting exploitation of all our worst inclinations. We see the cult of slut chic in which Madonna has been such an influence across all lines of race and style that video after video looks like a combination of film-school virtuosity and bimbo routines with a backbeat. We see films in which dramatic intensity is replaced by the shock of gore that takes place in a ruthless universe of amoral one-liners derived from James Bond.

Narcissism and anarchic resentment are promoted in such a calculated fashion that numskull pop stars pretend to be rebels while adhering to the most obvious trends. The executives who promote these performers say that the issue is one of "freedom of expression," while others claim that we are getting "reports from the streets." But the rapper Ice Cube told an interviewer that his work was for young people and that if his audience wanted something else he would give it to them. That is not the statement of a rebel.

These people are not about breaking taboos, they are about making money, and they know where to draw the line. A few years ago, there was an understandable controversy about the anti-Semitic statements of Professor Griff when he was a member of the rap group Public Enemy. He was soon gone from the group. That is a perfect example of how responsibly the industry can work. We will hear no "reports from the streets" that give voice to the mad ravings of Khalid Muhammad or Louis Farrakhan, regardless of the young black people who cheer them at rallies. We have no idea how often the words "nigger," "bitch" and "ho" have been recorded in gangsta rap, but we can be comfortably sure that no rap group will ever be signed and promoted if it uses the word "kike" as frequently. Nor should it be.

Why is this? Because the Third Reich proved beyond all reasonable doubt what the constant pumping of hate-filled images and inflammatory statements can do to a culture. I do not believe censorship is the answer. But I have no doubt good taste and responsibility will not limit the entertainment industry's ability to provide mature work that attacks our corruption, challenges our paranoia and pulls the covers off the shortcomings that Balkanize us. What we need is simply the same sense of responsibility and dire consequences that we bring to the issue of anti-Semitism.

--COMPILED BY ANDREA SACHS AND SUSANNE WASHBURN