|
 any
Americans are no doubt disturbed by the new Kaiser study showing
that three-quarters of prime-time television
shows include some type of sexual content, with 84 percent of sitcoms
taking up diddling and similar pursuits. The alarm is understandable,
especially among parents. Their sons watch sex on television, go
to school and make eyes at the girls, and get sent up on harassment
charges. The girls see flat-bellied guys on television, go to school
and notice there are far more chunks than hunks, and also suffer
profound disillusionment.
In the long run, however, this is a positive development. The sooner
The Children figure out that the television is one big box of lies,
the better off they'll be. The only real danger is that television
will eventually make sex boring, which is a subject for another
day. For now, there is cause for celebration, at least for those
of us who write for a living, and by extension those who benefit
from our good fortune, including families, mechanics, bartenders,
and various other patrons.
The reason is quite simple: The fact that sex dominates prime time
means that any dope with a keyboard has a chance of harvesting some
major Hollywood greenbacks. Even the lowest hack writer can crank
out sex scripts. This is hooch-show material directed at audiences
with a starting age of 12 years old. Viewers don't much care about
dialogue or plotting. They don't want no stinking insights into
the problems of existence. All they want is to see the drawers drop
and the bonking to commence.
To be sure, the people involved in this end of the T&A industry
don't admit that they're performing a job every bit as difficult
as ladling whisky to drunks. Instead, they want to be considered
artists, and perhaps great artists at that. Consider the words of
Roland Joffe, who directed The Killing Fields and is now
the mastermind behind an MTV ass-flasher called Undressed,
which is described by a Washington Post writer as "disgusting,
shocking, mesmerizing — may be the closest thing to soft-core
porn this side of an X rating."
"I wanted to create a forum where people had a sort of unrestricted
access to the politics of desire." Joffe created a world where "no
aspect of sexuality would be approached as either immoral or frightening"
and where sex would be held up as "a little bit like the Rosetta
Stone."
Some might accuse Joffe of taking himself far too seriously. Indeed,
there is very little that can be said to be creative
| “The
empowering effect of this study cannot be underestimated.” |
|
about Undressed, aside from the fact that it's creating a
bunch of loot for Joffe. But most of us tend to inflate our personal
value, and the value of our work. If self-flattery is required,
that can be arranged. Any dope can ramble on about pushing the envelope,
etc., when all that's involved is some variation of peeking up the
knickers.
The empowering effect of this study cannot be underestimated. Prior
to its release, many hacks had written off Hollywood as beyond our
grasp. Part of this was due to a residual respect for the town's
better days, but more recently there have been stories of how Ivy
Leaguers have moved to California en masse to take up television
and movie writing. Many of us assumed that these graduates of the
nation's premier humanities programs probably snored in iambic pentameter.
We had to content ourselves with books and magazines.
This isn't to complain. The opportunities for typing junk stories
are almost unlimited. I recall sitting in a "family friendly" hair
salon one day, leafing through a magazine and coming upon a story
about sex etiquette. Among the subjects was how to properly react
when a lovemaking partner breaks wind ("Guess someone better put
out the cat," seems to work well). This magazine, as it happens,
is called Glamour. Glamour indeed! Yet the problem with print
is that a writer generally has to attach his name to his work, and
that can cause some embarrassment, at least among those with a residual
sense of shame. Worse yet, you write a few of these things and you
end up on cable television as some type of expert.
Television writing offers anonymity — and lots more money.
And so there is joy in Hackville these days. One envelope-pushing
idea comes to mind: A script on the delicate yet powerfully universal
subject of erotic flatulence. I'm thinking of calling it The Roar
of Love. With the right casting and a supreme effort from the Special
Effects department, this could go places.
|
