Let's all go to the lobby
By Matt Worley

I've been trying to figure this one out for a while‹ever since the whole Dan Quayle-Murphy Brown thing. Since when were movies, network TV and music made for the public good? It's as if, when talking about the entertainment industry, we forget that we live in a country that believes in capitalism. While I would agree that many business practices in the entertainment industry differ from those in regular business, that doesn't mean the overall rules change. This stuff is being put out to make money. Bob Dole took his wife to see Independence Day on her birthday (apparently on his birthday‹a few weeks earlier‹the doctor's appointment/press conference was all that he had time for) and declared it to be good. Questions about Bob Dole being older than God aside, let's take a look at this. Dole doesn't want to be seen as out of touch with people younger than himself (i.e. most of the country) so he ruins his wife's birthday by attending a mediocre movie about killing aliens (and Houston‹but you knew that had to happen). ID4 has grossed over $250 million nationwide, so it is an example of capitalism at work. And America (not to mention the world‹but the movie didn't mention it much either, so no biggie) won the war. Big applause. The movie industry is finally making feel good movies for the entire family again.

Oh c'mon, like they've ever stopped. Hollywood has always been churning out pasty-faced coffee table versions of life since they realized they could contain a narrative on the screen. Some of them aren't bad, but if this is what we want all the time, there's something wrong with people in this country. What I really want to know is how low we have to aim on the banality scale before the politicians will stop complaining about something they can do nothing about (after all, free speech is still free speech...I think). And here's the thing that really rubs me the wrong way‹why are we worrying about what the kids see? Don't they have parents of their own?

When I was a kid (and this would be before I was 13‹a teenager is not a kid, they're teenagers) I didn't see very many movies. I didn't listen to the pop music on the radio. I didn't watch much TV. This was all my parents fault. To get to a movie theater (well, one that wasn't a porno theater at least), I had to be driven or walk a really really really long way. My dad only listened to talk radio, so I didn't realize there was anything on the radio other than Royal's games and NPR. And my parents controlled the TV. There wasn't any time that we watched TV alone without our parents. They seemed to be able to hear when the TV was on, so we couldn't even sneak.

By the time I was 13, this had all changed. We moved to a place where there was no talk radio (and rock n roll officially entered our lives), the only way to get good TV reception was to get cable TV and the town was small enough to walk everywhere‹although we weren't above accepting a ride every now and then. Right around the time I turned 13, we got the rating PG-13. This was a warning to parents‹unlike the R rating which had specific requirements. Now it is more desirable to have a PG-13 rating than a PG. G means the movie is for kids (and is mostly reserved for cartoons and boring animal dramas‹so unlike the Discovery Channel it's not even right). PG-13 means it's edgy, but there's no sexual nudity or sexual use of the word 'fuck.' PG means the movie is too lame to be real. And R movies are R movies.

What I'm trying to say here is that politics (especially lame politics that swap blind patriotism for significant statements) has no place in this game. Dole and Clinton can bitch and moan about the decline of morality in this country all they want, but they should realize that the problem has nothing to do with Pulp Fiction, Must See TV or (God help us) Ice-T. Maybe Dole should take a look at his economic plan as an example of good old fashioned American fantasy instead of worrying about what's playing at the movies. I can picture it now, the new science fiction movie from Paramount: The Deficit That Disappeared (For No Reason Whatsoever). And I thought Independence Day was improbable.

Matt Worley is editor of Lies Magazine.

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