Same as It Ever Was

Oct. 10 - The Walt Disney Co. didn’t know what to do with its new movie. The company hoped the drama would appeal to young teens, but a series of violent tragedies given broad media attention left the studio spending as much time defending its movie as selling it. Disney came to the inescapable conclusion that real life had simply overtaken escapist entertainment. So at no small cost, Disney pulled the movie from release and edited out the most troubling scene. Only then was the film returned to the multiplex.

WHAT SOUNDS LIKE a decision rendered in the last four weeks was actually made in late 1993 with the film “The Program.” In the incident eight years ago, Disney recalled more than 1,000 prints of the football film after one teenager died and two others were seriously injured apparently imitating a scene from the movie in which drunk college players lie down in the middle of a busy road. The sequence was snipped. But the James Caan-Halle Berry movie promptly faded from memory.

The forces that governed Disney’s judgment eight years ago are identical to those shaping Hollywood’s mindset today: when in doubt, play it safe. That’s partly why Sunday’s Emmy Awards were canceled and why even harmless romantic comedies that merely happen to be set in Manhattan like “Sidewalks of New York” are being shelved. But at the same time, the audience is sending a very different message. It wants everything to remain the same, embracing the most incautious programming.

In the days immediately following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, show business vowed to rethink its entire lineup, postponing some films and television shows, recutting a few others and altogether canceling a few more. The works most likely affected were violent projects involving terrorist plots, but even the lightweight Tim Allen comedy “Big Trouble,” which features two bumbling hoods sneaking a nuclear bomb onto a commuter plane, was yanked. Producers said they were told to pitch only three kinds of stories: “Comedies, comedies, and comedies.”

Yet just as the studios and networks retreated from brutality, moviegoers and television viewers rushed back toward it: they still craved difficult-to-watch diversions. The last two movies to open atop the box-office charts are frightening R-rated dramas, the Michael Douglas kidnapping thriller “Don’t Say a Word” and the Denzel Washington corrupt-cop story “Training Day.” Their popularity surprised even the most experienced prognosticators. On television, ratings for news programs have begun to slide while viewership of the spectacularly gory HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers” is delivering even better Sunday-night ratings than the cable network’s hits “Sex and the City” and “Six Feet Under.” So why is Hollywood still so careful?

It’s a matter of propriety—and profits. From Senate committees to PTA meetings, Hollywood has been denounced repeatedly over the last few years for not only the product it makes but also how the material is marketed. It’s been criticized especially for peddling violent fare, including music, movies and TV shows, to young teens. The condemnations grew even more spirited following the Columbine shootings. The last thing Hollywood wants to do is look like a bad corporate citizen, because after a certain point such callousness invites government regulation. And that kind of interference, as show-biz execs see it, will inevitably take a bite out of the bottom line. In that light, even a noble scheduling decision must be examined skeptically. The most-repeated explanation for canceling the Emmys was that a self-glorifying exercise in backslapping would look crass as America launched its air war against the Taliban. But the postponement was just as equally influenced by a rash of cancellations by nominated celebrities. Among the delegations reportedly abandoning the ceremony were the casts of “The West Wing” and “Will & Grace.” Who would watch an all-star gala with no stars?

The longer the audience expresses a contrary opinion by choosing to attend violent distractions, the shorter the studio and network executives will stick to their original feel-good declarations.

Which isn’t to say the studios are heartless conglomerates run by unfeeling millionaires. Many studios and television networks are managed by parents of young children who worry about the messages their entertainment communicates. But as former studio chief and movie producer Tom Pollock remarked at a New York Film Festival panel discussion Saturday: “We live in a capitalist society, and what motivates the studios is making money.” And the way to make money, judging from the audience’s behavior, is to not change a thing. When Universal Pictures considered postponing the November release of its CIA drama “Spy Game,” which includes an uncomfortably familiar flashback of an office building exploding, it commissioned a telephone survey of audience tastes, asking moviegoers what kinds of films they wanted. The results suggested nothing much had changed, but Universal wanted to test the results in person. So the studio held a special research screening of “Spy Game” on Sept. 25 in the middle-class Los Angeles suburb of Chatsworth. Did you find the film appropriate in the wake of the terrorist strikes, the studio asked?

About 80 percent of the audience said they had no problem with it. It was a huge relief for Universal and other studios. Hollywood has a hard enough time understanding what the world wants in times of relative peace. Nonetheless, nerves are still short—Miramax is considering changing the title of its Steven Soderbergh film from the catchy “How to Survive a Hotel Room Fire” to something as instantly forgettable as “The Art of Negotiating a Turn.” MGM decided to postpone the November release of its expensive World War II epic “Windtalkers,” but not because the studio was worried about its explicit violence. Rather, MGM feared that wall-to-wall news coverage of war would make advertising the film impossible.

Some studios are even stooping to use postattack handwringing as a convenient excuse for troubled films. Miramax has postponed the wide release of director Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York” until 2002 because, as the company explained in a release, the film’s story of 19th-century draft riots might be inappropriate “in light of ever-changing current events.” But Miramax’s desire “to err on the side of sensitivity” hasn’t stopped the studio from planning a limited release of “Gangs of New York” later this year to qualify it for Academy Awards.

All the same, the longer the audience expresses a contrary opinion by choosing to attend violent distractions, the shorter the studio and network executives will stick to their original feel-good declarations. Even as the cruise missiles started falling Sunday, some networks abandoned the breaking news in favor of NFL football, which attracted better ratings. What the audience wants, for better or worse, is what the audience gets.

© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.