VOLUME 20 - NUMBER 06 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1984

10 mg \"tar:' 0.7 mg nicotine avo per cigarette, FTC Report Mar: S4. Regular and Menthol. Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health.

•Sl•SSUe published bimonthly by the Film Society of Lincoln Center Volume 20, Number 6 November-December 1984 Black & White in Color. . . . . . . . . .. 7 Midsection: Sex & Censorship .....29 With blacks buying 20 per- SlOked by feminists and fundamentalists, the battle rages cem of movie tickets sold in on against images of sexual violence in films . In our last the U.S., how is it that there issue we published excerpts from the sc ript for Body Double are so few black films, and and an interview with direclOr Brian De Palma. Now a fewer still that speak £0 the dozen experts in film , politics, and the law debate the issue. varieties of black experi- David Denby, New York magazine film critic ......... 30 ence? Armond White sur- Alan M . Dershowitz, Harvard Law School professo r ... 33 veys the sorry history of Edw. Donnerstein & Daniel Linz, U. of Wisconsin ... 34 Hollywood's black films and AI Goldstein, Screw magazine edilOr & publisher ..... 35 finds hope in Prince's Purple Dorchen Leidholdt of Women Against Pornography ... 37 Rain (page 7). Carol NeilM. Malamuth&JanLindstrom, U.C.L.A.......39 Cooper has thoughts on the Janella Miller of the Pornography Reso urce Cemer ... .40 latest \"serious\" black Marica Pally, writer and essayist. ........ .. .... .... .42 movie, A Soldier's Story, now Thomas Radecki, M. D ., chairperson, NCTV ..... .. .43 a modest hit (page 17). Margo St. James, founder, COYOTE .... .. ..... . .. .45 a.,;;;~~;.;.;..;.;..~~~...;..~-----------=~ Lois P. Sheinfeld, atlOrney and N.Y.U. professor .... .46 Hollywood Chairs ................20 Ann SnilOw, Feminist Ami-Censorship Taskforce . ... .47 • ' Call it Executive Sweep, or t-~=----.;...!!!!!!\",---~~------------::~ Mogular Chairs, or a Diller a Always Gonna Dance ............51 Dollar: The hit-and-run Hollywood never sounded a game played by Hollywood's more seductive siren call studio bosses has never been than Got-ta dance! Marcia so frenetic, or so closely Pally has the goods on three monitored. Gregg Kilday generations of dance movies has charted the movement and a new compilation called of these New Tycoons at That's Dancing! (page 51) . Ya Paramount, 20th Century- got-ta read! And in an imer- Fox, and Disney, and specu- view with Ron Haver, lates on the effects the Gene Kelly reflects on his 40 shuffle bodes for the costs years as the all-American and the future of movies. hoofer. Also in this issue: Arthur C. Clarke.............60 Orbits: Burton & Clampett ....72 Before him, 2001 WilS just the first Daphne Merkin muses on the sad life Journals ......................2 year on next century's calendar. Will of Richard BurlOn , a great actor who No local heroes in Scotland this year; 2010 have the same metamovie im- fell £00 easily inlO movie sta rdom. Barbara Scharres went £0 Edinburgh pact? Joanna Lipari chats with the Kenneth C. Spence pa ys tribute £0 and found the Japanese had landed . wizard writer via computer. Bob Clampett, who brought Porky, Mitch Tuchman and Charlie Mc- Bugs, Beany, and Cecil £0 giddy life. Dougal take us on a Disney jungle New York Film Festival ......64 cruise in search of a baby dinosaur. A Sunday in the Country is either a mas- Books: Sartre & Huston.......78 terpiee or a • Three Crowns of the An imellectual giam wrote a movie Andrzej Wajda ...............24 Sailor is either s tultifying or \" the script about Freud for a rogue auteur. This film poet of Solidarity makes goods.\" Our dueling critics, Elliott Richmond Crinkley charts the tussle. news the way other people make Stein and Stephen Harvey, are back £0 movies. The indomitable Pole talks sharpen their sabers on these films Back Page: Quiz # 10.........80 with Dan Yakir about a turbulent ca- and a score of other New York Film reer and his A Love in Germany. Festival entries. Cover photo: MGM. Ediwr: Richard Corliss. Senior Ediwr: HarianJacobso n. Business Manager: Sayre Maxfield. Advertising and Circulation Manager: Tony Impav ido. Art Direcwr: Elliot Schulman. Cover Design : Mike Uris. West Coast Ediwr: Anne Thompson (on leave). European Correspondent: H arlan Kennedy. Research Consultant: Mary Corliss. Circulation Assistant: Deborah Freedman . Back Iss ues: Marian Masone. Accountant: Domingo Hornilla , Jr. , Ediwrial Interns: Marlaine Glicksman, Chris Tripoulas. Executive Direcwr, Film Society of Lincoln Center: Joa nn e Koch . Second class postage pa id at New York and additional mailing offices. Copyright © 1984 by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. All rights reserved . The op ini ons exp ressed in FILM COMMENT do not represent Film Society of Lincoln Center policy. This publication is fully protected by domestic and international copy ri ght. FILM COMMENT (ISSNOOI5-119X), 140 West 65th Street, New York , N.Y. 10023. U.S.A., is made poss ible in part by support from the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Subscription rates in the United States: $12 for six numbers, $22 for twelve numbers. Elsewhere: $18 for six number, $34 for twelve numbers, payable in U.S. funds only. New subscribers should include their occupations and zip codes. Postmaster: send address changes to FILM COMMENT, 140 West Sixty-fifth Street, New York, N.Y. 10023 U.S.A.

Women , made for TV by Ben Bolt, leaves its castration, torture, and may- hem to the imagination. It's an oddly distasteful attempt at grafting more overt Eighties sexual fears onto the For- ties, and posits male imaginations on the rampage during wartime in a remote Edinburgh's Cutting Edge; Disney's Baby Lincolnshire village. It conjures up dan- ger from witches, female spies, and menstrual blood-all of the messier items offscreen this time. • Edinburgh Film Festival director Jim Hickey seems a bit mild-mannered to be a slasher groupie. After four years on the job, however, Hickey is carefully chart- ing out a piece of programming territory calculated to put the festival back on the map after several seasons of unsatisfac- tory over-diversification. The wave of the future was signaled last year by a epIc, Nakajima's The Shogun As- broadly smiling Nagisa Oshima kicking Year ofthe Wee sassins, tastefully avoided repellent real- off a major retrospective of his work in Severed Limb ism by cutting from an arm being patent leather shoes and a flashy tuxedo hacked off to a plaster mannequin's arm reminiscent of flocked wallpaper. He Like Chinese years, film festi vals falling out of the same sleeve and hitting looked less like a serious director and ought to have designations that help you the floor with a bounce. The film also more like his other self, the Tokyo talk- apply a certain thematic order to what featured an airborne Osaka Castle, a show host. there is to be seen, like \"year of the pig,\" close facsimile of the alien spaceship in Oshima's retrospective led to this for instance, or \"year of the frontal male Close Encounters. Thus flying bodies year's \"Eiga\" series, programmed by nude,\" or 1983's \"year of the dog,\" seemed like an appropriate touch. Tony Rayns. The event was disowned which had reared its head at the Edin- The other extreme in examining in advance by the BFI, which denied burgh Film Festival with British pre- whether the whole is more than the sum grant money due to a mistaken convic- mieres of White Dog and Cujo. They of its parts was harrowingly depicted by tion that the massive project, including a triggered rounds of inappropriate hilarity Noboru Tanaka's The True Story of Abe well-researched and profusely illus- and subsequent stage whispers of Sada (1975), of the romantic porn genre. trated catalogue, would never get off the \"Cujo!\" at everything from innocuous Based on the same story of the obsessive ground. \"Eiga\" turned out to have a lot background dogs to the sly and naughty affair of a housemaid and her employer in common with the spirit of Oshima's animated puppies in the Starewicz retro- on which Nagisa Oshima based In The tuxedo jacket, as it set out to \"shatter spective. Realm of the Senses a year later, Sada our cherished myth of Japanese cinema This line of thinking leads to viewing depicts the destructive love story with as an exotic alien flower,\" as the cata- each film with complete confidence, less emotional and poetic power than logue declares. From James Bond spin- knowing that the key to interpretation Oshima's rendition, but with more offs to soft-porn and science fiction, lies in discovering the visual clue that graphic detail , particularly in Abe Sada's from suicidal students to licentious nuns makes it neatly fit into the current mas- ghastly posthumous castration of her wringing the necks of chickens, there ter plan. This could well be called \"year lover. was hardly a flower to be seen, let alone of the severed limb\" at Edinburgh. De- This cutting theme was not confined an exotic one. Hickey later expressed spite the unseasonably glorious weather to Japanese films the British cinema, peevish disappointment that quite a few that brought a resort-like air to the flinty among others, was holding its own. The members of the press, festival guests, northern beauty of the city's streets and Company of Wolves, the second feature and delegates did more viewing through rose-filled public gardens, there was by Irish director Neil Jordan, is a maca- the bottom~ of beer glasses elsewhere. plenty to keep one busy indoors looking bre, multi-level, special-effects fairy tale The projectionists swore they had never for grand themes, what with arms, legs, about werewolves that is balanced be- seen so many slit throats on the screen; heads, and penises being slashed off tween terror and comedy. While advanc- even the booth apprentice took to wear- right and left far into the night. ing its premise that there are some men ing a T-shirt urging the banning of blood The festival's major event, \"Eiga- who can't be trusted in the woods with sports. • 25 Years of Japanese Cinema,\" a wildly young girls, Wolves does nothing for the eclectic selection of more than 30 fea- visage of actor Stephen Rea, whose Those, however, who wrote off a tures and dozens of shorts representing handsome head , or rubber replica there- press preview titled simply \"Films by the widest possible range of filmmaking of, ends up floating in a pail of milk. It Naoto Yamakawa\" (figuring it for snores) activity in Japan, also represented the hath magically returned, however, to were soon scrambling for tickets to the highest count, hands down (if you'll relative normality after what could be public program. The 28 year-old Yama- pardon the expression), of bodily dis- the goriest werewolf transformation in kawa, represented by a feature and two memberment. The comic strip-like film history. By contrast, Rainy Day shorts, and his friend Shunichi Naga- 2

Why is this massive volume different from every other film reference? For two major reasons: 1. 2,420 Biographies. As with any Who's Who, the 2. 1,663 Photographs. No book of this kind ever had biographies are the heart of the book. Here the nearly so many photos. We actually get pictures of coverage is awesome. From pre-Griffith silents to more than two-thirds of the people profIled in the today's SF spectaculars. From Hollywood, Britain book! and France to Japan, Poland and India. Stars and And what photos! Even the smaller ones are a supporting players . . . directors and producers ... decent size. And ALL of them are clear, nicely composers and choreographers . .. writers and reproduced on good paper. You don't just get stuntmen ... technicians and designers . .. cam- giants like Newman and Garbo and DeMille. You eramen and animators . . .even critics. Yes, get Paul Kelly .. . Lee Strasberg .. . Felicia Farr ... EVERYONE! Larry Semon . . .Geraldine Chaplin . .. Monte The profIles themselves? Concise masterpieces of Blue. Monte Blue! fact enlivened by fascinating detail. Birth and death dates. Birthplace and real name. Career highlights. But we've saved the best tiUlast. You may have Critical appraisals. Anecdotes. Major films, by year. Awards. Marriages and divorces. In quick, trouble believing this ... 762 of the photos are in deft strokes (the average entry runs about half of one long column) you get the essence of each career. rich, beautiful FULL COLOR! - What an achievement! -480 gla1lt 81/'l. S 11 page! How to get this $65 giant for ONLY $14.98 (------ - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------'-----------~ How the Club Works .8YI~/~li~miAII.~li Every 4 weeks (13 times a year) you get a free copy of the Club bulletin, M8let.1 PREVIEWS, which offers the Featured Selection plus a nice choice of Alternates: 15 Oakland Avenue • Harrison, NY 10528 *books on fihns, TV, music, occasionally records and videotapes. If you want the *Featured Selection, do nothing. It will come automatically. If you don't want the Featured Selection or you do want an Alternate, indicate your wishes on the handy I enclose $14.98. Please accept my membership in the MovieiEntertain- ment Book Club and send me, postpaid and at no further cost, the $65 *card enclosed and return it by the deadline date. The majority of Oub books are //Iustrated Who's Who of the Cinema by Ann Lloyd, Graham Fuller & *offered at ~30\"'o discounts, plus a charge for shipping and handling. As soon as Arnold Dresser. I agree to buy 4 additional Club books, records or videotapes at regular Club prices over the next 2 years. I also agree to the you buy and pay for 4 books, records or videotapes at regular Club prices, your Club rules speUed out in this coupon. *membership may be ended at any time, either by you or by the Oub. If you ever Fe - 3 2 *receive a Featured Selection without having had 10 days to decide if you want it, you may return it at regular Oub price for full credit. For every book or record you buy at regular Oub price, you receive one or more Bonus Book Certificates. These Name,_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ entitle you to buy Oub books at deep discounts, usually ~-&l\"'o off. These Bonus *Books do not count toward fulfilling your Oub obligation but do enable you to buy Address ____________________ I line books at giveaway prices. PREVIEWS also includes news about members I and their hobbies. You are welcome to send in similar items. The Oub will publish I *any such item it deems suitable, FREE. This is a real Club! Good service. No * I__.c.o_m_pu_te_rs!___O_nl_y_OD_e_m_em_b_er_sh_ip_p_er_h_ou_se_h_old_._______________________Ci_ty_____________________________S_ta_te_;______________Z_ip_,____________.J

saki, with two features, one in super-8, test went like this: \"Do you speak En- glish?\" \"Yes.\" \"Where did you learn?\" were the finds of the festival. Yamaka- JUNGLE BOOK \"Yes.\" Our driver, Mark, long out of wa's shorts, Attack on a Bakery and A work and desperately eager to please, replied, \"Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, OK, Girl, She Is 100%, are playful manipula- We went to the Ivory Coast to watch boss,\" to every question. We never knew if he knew what we were talking tions of form that make up not so much Disney shoot Baby, a comedy-adventure about. stories as narrative propositions. In At- about a family of dinosaurs-Mama, The emphasis on language was trou- blesome ultimately. The Ivoiriens tack, two hungry students attempt to rob Papa, and Baby-the quarry of a very speak French and Bambara. The immi- grant Ghanaians and Liberians speak a bakery but are frustrated when the good scientist (Sean Young) and a very English. The construction crew, which did its own hiring, was largely British, Communist owner wants to give them evil one (Patrick McGoohan). Disney and frankly favored Anglophones until the government insisted that hiring be the bread; in A Girl, a you ng man pass- publicist Howard Green called it a cross handled more diplomatically: Ivoiriens and interpreters. Taplin and other ing a young woman on the street is between Dumbo and Raiders of the Lost Americans in the company were unset- tled by the autocratic attitude of the \"tea dumbstruck with the conviction she was Ark. We thought there were hints of bags\" to their boys. meant for him. Goldilocks as well. We were taken to see two locations. The first was a bamboo jungle north of Nagasaki's films have a consistently Producer Jonathan Taplin chose the Abidjan. Bamboo grows in great clumps, perhaps 20 feet in diameter. The leafy darker tone than even Yamakawa's fea- Ivory Coast location over three other Af- stalks arch above the jungle floor, radiat- ing like the ribs of a vaulted cathedral ture, Another Side, which portrays the rican nations he scouted. He found Ga- ceiling. It is dark in the jungle and cool. last months of a student who walks into bon, a petroleum exporter, too expen- The second location was a simulated bush village, constructed near Grand the front of a train, but he is equally sive, with no roads to speak of and no Bassam, the former colonial capital, dec- imated by a cholera epidemic in the experimental when it comes to form. direct-dial telephones. The corruption Twenties, now poignant and almost ag- gressively picturesque. The set was Both The Summer Yuki Gave Up Rock in Cameroon was daunting. Kenya's known as Destruction Village. It was used for a scene in which Mama, un- Music and Heart, Beating in the Dark plains are not right physically for jungle bound, pursues McGoohan and kills him . Mama is a 60-foot model with mov- deal with violent death, male and fe- movies. The Ivory Coast, though appro- able head, neck, and tail sections. Her rampage would be filmed in quarter- male role reversal, and reconstructing priate, is not without its drawbacks: hy- scale months later in Burbank. memory. Nagasaki progresses from a droelectric power diminished by years of Destruction Village was not dark and cool. It was bright and blisteringly hot fairly conventional narrative structure drought, an infrastructure ill-equipped and damp. Actors between takes hud- dled for shade; a single copy of William centering around sexually ambiguous for the mechanical needs of filmmakers, Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade passed from hand to hand. Cine- characters in Yuki, to having a man and a populace ignorant or innocent of film- matographer John Alcott surveyed the set, snapping Polaroids, his way of mea- woman exchange roles intermittently in making, and diseases long forgotten by suring illumination (he never uses a light meter). The remainder of the crew con- Heart, as they act out circumstances the First World. By the time we arrived, ferred, set up special effects, practiced stunts, reloaded cameras, powdered leading up to murdering their baby. One two months into the shoot, the crew had noses, fetched and carried. There, as here, filmmaking is horrendously dull. of the few light moments in the Yuki already witnessed almost a dozen fatal Howard, an amiable host, was never- showing involved Tony Rayns becom- auto crashes. theless determined that ours was a work- ing holiday. He wanted to see pencils ing so caught up in his simultaneous The economy of the Ivory Coast, we fly. We had our time with Taplin and Alcott, with actors Young and translation that he began singing the were told, is strong, though un- McGoohan and Bill Katt, with director Bill Norton. The Italian who designed theme song, \"Hey, Hey Max, Won'cha doubtedly strongest for the tens of thou- and built the dinosaurs, Izzy Raponi, Be My Love?\" sands of Europeans and Lebanese re- (continued on page 77) Other Edinburgh '84 revelations in- maining after or arriving since cluded the \"other\" films by Yoji independence from France in 1960. Yamada, director of a zillion Tora-san Many native Ivoiriens in the capital city, comedies, Japan's nearest equivalent to Abidjan, and immigrants from neighbor- the British \"Carry On . ..\" films. In ing nations-Ghana, Upper Volta, Mali, Gambler's Luck, a period comedy, and Guinea, and Liberia-are unemployed The Yellow Handkerchief, a road movie, for years at a time. Yamada injects the extreme physical An open call for extras turned, not buffoonery of the Tora-san films into surprisingly, into a riot. Two thousand plots with more serious underlying in- Africans showed up outside a hotel in tentions and considerable black humor. the hurly-burly Treichville suburb, re- Gambler's Luck reaches its peak of outra- fusing to line up because they thought geousness when its characters embark jobs were being offered on a first-come, on a do-it-yourself cremation project. first-served basis. The decision was After levitating castles, all the dec·api- made to distribute forms requesting tation one could watch through closed name, native language, skills, and a fingers, and even a murderer posing as a photo, but these were torn to shreds by living sofa (in Tanaka's The Stroller in the the crowd and handed around, Attic), the real Edinburgh could hardly snatched, or sold; people thought that hope to compete, despite the huge an- anyone holding so much as a scrap nual arts festival in progress all around. would be hired. A second turbulent ses- Toward the end, the justifiably re- sion, from which 200 were eventually nowned festival fireworks poured over hired , was terminated by police. Taplin, the castle walls above Princes Street in a tall, fair, very noticeable blond, was homage to hot lead, or whatever, from trailed for days by job seekers. the past; it all seemed like a rehearsal for The company had need of chauf- 1985, \"year of the roman candle.\" feurs. Applicants had to be able to drive - BARBARA SCHARRES and speak English. The typical English 4

Close all the windows. Warn the neighbors. Send motion and freeze frame. Variable search and invariably the baby to Grandma's for the weekend . precise digital synthesized tuning that brings in 117 cable Then, if your speakers are up to it,Toshiba's newest stereo VCR will treat your ears to hi fi specs that until channels. now were unheard of except in recording studios. Plus convenient front-loading and a wireless remote With an astounding dynamic range of 80 dB, the V-S46 accommodates virtually everything from a pin that lets your fingers do the walking for 20 functions. drop to a cataclysmic explosion. And best of all, the V-S46 is so advanced, it won't Harmonic distortion is almost too small to mea- sure. And with a signal-to-noise ratio of 75 dB, back- be obsolete before you even take it out of the box. ground hiss has vanished. Because it's ready right now for stereo programming of Of course, there's more to the system than meets the ear. Such as four video heads for snow-free slow the very near future. So upgrade your stereo system with the finest in video. The Toshiba V-S46 stereo VCR. But be careful. The speakers you blow InTouchwithTomorrow TOSHIBA may be your own . Toshiba Amenca, lnc .. 82 Totowa Road, Wayne. NJ 07470



sex, race IS pro most nce Penn spoke in '68, Vietnam and the women's movement have taken powerful and confusing issue an Ameri- precedence over racial issues as social and cultural preoccupations. The trepi- can movie can deal with. Some of the dation Penn expressed doesn't even oc- cur to most filmmakers today. It can't I'm working on {afilmj about an Ameri- best known and most representative simply be that demographics put black can Indian. Again it's a comic story, but people in the background of most Holly- we'll hilve scenes thilt will be as terrible as American films combine sex and race. wood movies; race is pushed to the the lot of the American Indian really is- background of most filmmakers' con- and really was-in Custer's time. Of The two create the central friction of The sciousness. The problem is satirized in course, the analogy is to the American Fast Times at Ridgemont High: a little Negro, but at the moment I don't know Birth ofa Nation. Race is, of course, part kid, amazed at seeing the school's black how to do afilm about the American Negro football star in the local mall, says in- thilt wouldn't be a distortion or a ro- of Gone with the Wind and The Searchers. credulously, \"He lives here! I thought mance, or too limited in its views . ... I he only flew in for games.\" hilve to hilve perspective. I don' t hilve a Between Travis Bickle's wild reveries view sufficiently complete to be able to The life and history depicted in ktww how to make afilm about the Ameri- over blonds in Taxi Driver are his dazed, American movies is largely a matter of can Negro. I can tell lots of incidents that fantasy. Contemporary films are less a would be terrible and unpleasant and unsettling confrontations with blacks; direct reflection of the world than a reifi- show injustice, but they wouldn't be saying cation of current ideas and feelings. anything because I don ' t know the end. the combination of sexual and racial ten- Movies reveal what the filmmakers Making afilm about the Indians might help think but might not express. From the me to understand thilt. sion precipitating his violent climax. -Arthur Penn. 1968 And the unspoken racial dynamics of the Rocky films are their only real force and account for their popular success. But how race became the gainsaid element in contemporary American movies- the element conspicuous by its absence, and currently by its emphasis-is a story of the complaisance, fear and rigidity in the industry's practical and aesthetic conventions. 7

Breakjn's blackfaces. Individuals or historical symbols? Sixties because, in essence, society hasn' t either. There's hardly an Ameri- race-shy reviews of Taxi Driver and Mos- tic American struggle . Places in the can movie in the past ten years that does cow on the Hudson , from the Punch and Heart might be the grand apologia for not evidence a certain moral lethargy in Judy show of harmlessly flung epithets Hollywood 's largest scale di sregard for this respect: Bad Boys builds its racial in 48 HRS (known as \"Phony-eight racial matters in the past dozen years. consciousness upside-down; Manhnttan Hours\" in my neighborhood) , to the cu- Unfortunately, it's a Sixties To Kill a and Kramer vs. Kramer describe a bi- riously astute moment in 1941 when Mockingbird-Lilies of the Field apology. zarrely homogenous society; The Right Dan Aykroyd gives an anti-Japanese Because Benton doesn't make the nec- Stuff reviews history myopically; Arthur speech on Hollywood Bouleva rd and di- essary, long overdue imaginative leap constructs an indeterminate fantasy rector Steven Spielberg reveals an into Moze (Danny Glover), the black world. anomalous Japanese-American in the itinerant who helps widow Edna (Sally crowd, listening, it's obvious that race is Field) farm her cotton fields, the black • strangely muted in our films and that no characters seem recessed , abstract fig- one is talking about it in movie culture. ments-a human problem the white Sidney Poi tier's march through Fifties characters (and the film 's author) stare at and Sixties Hollywood left not a Until now. The recent string of mov- without comprehending. mammy or Uncle Tom in sight, but he ies that stand out for the prominence of didn't stamp out the problem of stereo- black faces in them-Breakin' , Beat In Places' social awareness, Benton type. Poitier only (some only!) punched Street, Purple Rain, The Brotherfrom An- may be paces ahead of hi s contemporar- a hole in the screen's superstitious segre- other Planet, Cotton Club, A Soldier's ies: the shocking events th at open the gation. His image on screen denied le- Story, Places in the Heart-provides an film are played in a kind of psychological gitimacy to easy preconceptions about instructive measure of the reticent ac- dumb show using, without addressing, black people and black characters-the ceptance of blacks and racial themes. assumptions about the social interaction ones A Soldier's Story identifies as shift- None is a great or daringly honest pic- of blacks and whites. Yet Benton's ellip- less, lazy Negroes. But most radically, ture (this isn't the era for daring), and all sis also seems the inevitable retardation Poi tier's image refused invisibility and are unresolved about whether blacks offilms and filmmakers ignoring race for disregard. His figure was perhaps a natu- should be portrayed in movies as indi- so long. Places attempts an early-movie ral indication of the black man's Other viduals or historical symbols. At best, simplicity in action and expression; that status in the white world, but a reminder the films are cultural documents, empir- the themes of the sketchy beginning are of the Other's dignity. Poi tier provided a ical evidence of the society's values and so easily understood is frightening, prov- color and temperamental contrast that tensions. ing that Benton knows there's much suggested a black character could never about social-racial complexity and its again appear on screen negligibly or Even so meek a film as Robert Ben- typical use in popular fiction that we without indicating the schisms and anxi- ton's Places in the Heart is propelled by accept without openly acknowledging. ety that control and structure his place in tension. The threat of racial hostility is Hi s sophistication is based in conde- society. braided through a filigreed enactment of scension, another facet of the low aware- this country's kindliest platitudes and ness and timid admittance of race in Poitier's diminished profile since sentiments. Benton distills them into a movies. Perhaps, in racial matters Holly- 1967-the year In the Heat of the Night, tale of the Great Depression, used here wood hasn' t moved forward since the Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and To as a distanced represe ntation of authen- Sir with Love made him the country's top boxoffice attraction-can be viewed by the cynical as the inevitable suppression of the industry's racism; by the naive as just one-good-black man's self-effacing decision; and by the foolish as fair ex- change for his contribution as a director. Unarguably, his passing from promi- nence has seen his advances subsumed, normalized, and almost forgotten. The black man in today's movies is Sidney Poi tier's carelessly employed, indis- tinctly perceived poor relation: seated at the table, yes, but at the far end and in a short-legged chair. These would be the tokens. Seen in government or service-industry roles but never central to the plot, black peo- ple occupy peripheral positions on screen. In high school, just before the blaxploitation surge of the Seventies, we used to watch the screen intently for black faces . If we saw just one, that somehow legitimized the film as accept- able, forward-thinking, and not indiffer- ent or altogether disdainful of our kind. After blaxploitation the habit of those 8

pathetic stake-outs had become unnec- Places in the Heart. essary, but today one can keep as busy at it as before and still for a reason that sincere attempts to create a wide , en- plexities. Hal Ashby's comparably idyl- aches: to substantiate a deficient art compassing view of American life all fal- lic Boundfor Glory featured the rigorous form you can't seem to do without. ter on racial matters. Yet these films contrasts of characters cracking under openly confront facts of social division the psychic stress of the period. The The rewards can be depressing. Even (though to different ends) that every man complaining of newsreels in his favorite recent films come up short: film either attempts or else deliberately head and the truculent black hobo Blow Out had none; Pennies from dodges. In the generalized view of seemed stunned and haunted-their Heaven, one; Excalibur, none (of American life that we see most often, pain made poignant the film's nostalgic course); Reds, none; E.T., one; Shoot the and most repeatedly, social discord is yearning. When.Benton's filmmaking is Moon, none; Diva, one; The Right Stuff, discouraged and social unity is stressed not obviously sentimental, it is ex- none; Repo Man, two. And in such pop- -to the exclusion, if necessary, of pos- tremely canny, rather accurately em- ular films as Tootsie, I counted two; sibly dissident factors or people. The bodying current problems and dissatis- Terms ofEndearment, none; Return ofthe beguiling but questionable wishfulness factions regarding race relations, female Jedi, one; Indiana Jones and the Temple of Places in the Heart relays, of course, assertiveness, and economic stress- of Doom, none; Gremlins, one. One white middle-class charitable complai- without, of course, even coming close to plays this game and learns that the side- sance. Its idealism may be central to solutions anyone might imagine. line position given to blacks in film, mainstream filmmaking, which always while insufficient, is yet significant. (if only by implication) conveys the Though set in the past, Places' incon- socio-economic interests of the people c1usiveness is certainly of today; it is an Our art, like our journalism, is dis- involved . But this is not idealism or film- acknowledgment of social frustration eased by the assumption that every le- making that calls for change. Moze con- that achieves only a limited catharsis. gitimate, visible person is white. As veniently disappears into the night, as Places proves that you can be shaken by movies represent a conceptualized, or- do the Ku Klux Klansmen who beat him archetypes and still long for deeper satis- dered reality it becomes apparent that and threaten his life, to be replaced on faction and personal transformation. there are world concepts (belonging to screen by lyrical sap. Those stealthy ex- Benton does a lot but never really gets so those media-employed many) that do its (with Moze, like Paul Muni in I Am a close to his characters-the way Vittorio not include minorities. The resulting Fugitive from a Chain Gang, provoking DeSica did in Shoeshine, or Luchino Vis- films indicate a racism that can be vari- the questions \"Where will you go, how conti in La Terra Trema, or Satyajit Ray ously traced and argued, perhaps even will you live?\" ) are easy, evasive, and in Pather Panchali-that you sense their back to the Euro-immigrant ancestors ideologically contradictory. emotions in your own. PLaces creates a who started this business (but who even type of emotion, an idea of patriotism, then preferred scrubbed-up, bleached- The film's pretense of understanding that we can recognize and approve out dream images rather than real pic- its characters and milieu is undercut by without feeling. Benton's reticence is tures of what they themselves were). the neat avoidance of character compli- too humble, too conciliatory either to cations or further exposition of either make a real advance or to express a pro- Updating that tradition, Places in the Moze or the Texas Klansmen. Benton's found mood. When Edna bids farewell Heart ends with a Griffith-like idealized effort to deal in simple portraiture and to M6ze, praising his work in her cotton tableau of an America with all wounds communicate on a basic level is booby- fields and admonishing \"Don't you for- healed by love. The wish itself is power- trapped by fear of the characters' com- get that,\" the picture's maudlin obvious- fully moving, although the film doesn't seem to earn that effect. Places' \"hon- esty\" (emblemized in the contrasts of Lindsay Crouse's stern eyeballing and Sally Field's generous apology when they both first speak to Moze through the screen door) admits and finds suc- cinct visual correlatives to the problems of racial division, neglect, and obscure- ness. But the film also commits those errors. The irritation of providing Moze with only the tiniest interior life and history makes sense only in relation to his equals in the household: a blind vet- eran, two children, and a widow. The band of struggling misfits suggests lib- eral solicitation, figures in a bleeding- heart campaign poster. The bit of a black man that Benton wrote and Danny Glover plays so solidly has less personal- ity than Robert Doqui in the few scenes in Nashville that Robert Altman says he regretted cutting and at one time hoped to restore in a five-hour TV version. From The Birth ofa Nation to Nashville to Places in the Heart, the grandest, most 9

Robin Williams and Clevant Derricks: brothers under the skin. pIe who live here and how society shapes their thought and behavior. ness does it in . How could Moze-cal- logic in Hollywood's avoidance of racial loused, beaten, tired, and bloody-not issues: they invite chaos by a screwy Those noble intentions imbue Paul forget? Shouldn't Edna have said \"I affirmation of ethnicity (wholly prefera- Mazursky's Moscow on the Hudson with won't forget\" as a more generous tribute ble to the soda cracker optimism of, say, enormous good will, but its Family of and as Benton's instruction to the audi- The Natural). Most filmmakers deny Man brotherhood is annoyingly quaint. ence rather than, again, condescension ethnicity to preserve a synthetic social Mazursky confuses cuteness with to blacks (and to history)? fabric and so deny appearance and di- depth, and (hard to believe in the yearof mension to blacks-immediately the the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration bill • most visually contrasting and most mili- and the Statue of Liberty's dilapidation) tant group-as a way of maintaining he insists on the most jejune, demo- \"My sympathies are with the dispos- their own composure and illusions. cratic platitudes about that wacky melt- sessed-unabashedly,\" Martin Ritt has ing pot, the U.S.A. Unlike his best film, said. That interest may explain the hu- Blacks, more than other ethnic Next Stop Greenwich Village. Mazursky manist shape of his work (Sounder, Con- groups, have served as an objective cor- simplifies these characters' complexes. rack, Norma Rae, The Molly Maguires) relative for some Jewish filmmakers (\"I His funny jokes and sweet anecdotes that has come the closest yet in Ameri- thought of my own parents' immigrant hardly admit the characters' struggles for can movies to DeSica and Ray's concern experience and related that way,\" Ritt recognition; it submerges them all in a for low-caste people's best' qualities. said of Sounder) and as a primary focus sea of homiletic banality in which every Ritt's attitude of proud Jewish liberalism for their political consciousness. The ethnic trait is seemingly cashed in as a (as American filmmaking it shows a scarcity of black screen figures indicates joke. If not for its rah-rah Americanism, rather socialist patriotism) might explain not only the absence of true political Moscow on the Hudson would seem a American films' success and failure in consciousness, but curiosity and con- gross, insensitive comedy of xenopho- addressing minorities. Only the motiva- cern. A cultural form based on altruism bia; the film has the unctuousness of tion to question popular assumptions is, of course, suspect. It is in the highest Don Rickles' \"Just kidding folks, we're about American experience can make artistic interest that such insults as the all brothers under the skin\" wrap-up. filmmakers characterize minorities more 1982 Kiss Me Goodbye (Jeff Bridges Clevant Derricks' raucous stereotype as imaginatively-crossing the Ideal Color learns a lesson in love from a tap dancing a Bloomingdale's security guard, whose bar. Otherwise movies will continue black janitor) and the 1983 WarGames (a Harlem family eats Cocoa Puffs, is their soporific reassurance that every- black Air Force officer conducts a weap- shockingly regressive. His black car- thing is OK, and Tom Cruise, Elizabeth ons demonstration in arch ghettoese) toon, like the picture's gay, Italian, and McGovern, and Robert Redford will don't happen again. And certainly not, Cuban cartoons, conveys an at-least-we- function ceaselessly as the representa- as in those cases, as cute well-intended aren't-communist complacency-and tive American citizens, joining the WaI- sets a trap. ter Brennan, Jeanne Crain, and Fay liberal sop. Bainter Hall of Fame. Stupid as it is for filmmakers to ex- Moscow on the Hudson's strange uto- pia, free of ethnic antagonism and ag- Filmmaking that projects lily-white clude blacks from depictions of our soci- gression (in New York City!) strikes a resoundingly false note. The picture is ideal national images, admitting ethnic- ety and its ideals, how much stupider It\" not so naive as mindless. Superficially ity only as a problem, is an insidious perceived, Mazursky's ethnics (foreign- practice. Complexes of self-hate hide in is to include blacks suspiciously, stereo- ers to him and us) have superficial differ- the white image's self- and ethnic-de- ences, superficial essences. They're nial. When James Toback and Paul Sch- typically, or inanely. It is not just the slight, and slighted. The film is, after rader romanticize and embellish black all, about an easily assimilated type; by characters as an ultimate purgation or socially conscious epics like Places in the making Robin Williams' Russian Jew libidinal fulfillment, they reverse the Heart that need a broadened sense of non-specific, it supports the racist myths national character. In the effort to give of easy assimilation, and promotes the cinematic life to America, filmmakers tradition of white movie hero as well as need to become smarter about the peo- the high visibility and larger dimension of only the white American. The distor- tion of liberal impulses that Moscow on the Hudson represents makes the appear- ance of a one-dimensional black charac- ter more clearly offensive as the product of short, insincere thinking and a narrow world view. Usually present onscreen only as stereotype or efficient caricature, a black character is often hard to react to. Is the gang of punks in Dressed to Kill threat- ening-apart from being black? Is the film's screaming cleaning lady a comical, black hysteric or just simply frightened? 10

In King of Comedy, is Diahann Abbott a Now Showing thief beca use she is black or beca use New 1985 Edition! some othe r motivation was left on the cutting room floo r? Are th e killings of by F rank Mc Rae in Red Dawn and Scatman C rothers in The Shining plot necessities Movies Unlimited We're or racist co nve nie nces? T he stunte d his- Only $5.0 tory of bl ack presentation in movies con- ORDER WITH CONFIDENCE fu ses mos t inte rpre tati ons w he n th e FROM ONE OF AMERICA'S characte rizations are sketchy or incid e n- tal. T he past conditions us to h ave prej u- OLDEST AND MOST RELIABLE d iced responses that disrupt a film and make suspicious so me filmm ake r's in- HOME VIDEO SERVICES tentions. A characte r like Madge Sin- cla ir's se lf-d e lud e d sc hoo lteache r in Like adult movies? Enclose an addition Conrack transcend s libe ral acco unting of whe the r a bl ack characte rization is pos i- $3.50 for our huge Adult Video Catalog. ti ve or de meaning because the re are dif- fe ring aspects of the characte r that in- ------------------------------ volve your sense of humani ty. Achi eving ~::%l]::r::a:IIID%r::u:~® that on film takes a miracle of unde r- sta nding, but th at's what I tho ught mov- MOVIES UNLIMITED6736 castor Ave.- Phila., PA 19149 - 215-722-8298 ies we re all about. o Enclosed is 55 caSh , check or money order (510 outside USA-in US lunds only). Send me your new • o video catalog , plus periodiC updates 01 new releases and sale items . Louis Gossett Jr. 's Oscar-winning pe r- Enclosed is S8.50 . Please include your adult video catalog. I am over 18 years old . fo rmance in An Officer and a Gentleman created one of the most confounding Name ____________~_____________________________________ e nigmas in movie history: an e thnic ci- phe r, he had no particulari ty exce pt skin Address ________________________________________________ color. Although we hear about Gere's \"Mayo the wop\" and Winge r's \"Paula City ____________--:-_________________ State ____ Zip _ __ the polack,\" Gosse tt's e thnicity is never me ntioned. Ye t the movie - especially the hi gh-co ntras t-p rone cine matogra- phe r Donald T horin- gets lots of mile- age out of Gossett's fl y-in-butte rmilk circumstance. Yo u can practica lly hea r Tay lor Hackford , the director, revvi ng his e ngine whe n Ge re calls Gossett a \" mothe rfuc ke r\" - a reve rsa l of roles sick e nough for a Fass binde r movie but ple nty provocative and shrewdly manip- ulative of applause (almost a decade af- te r Mandingo) for the get-whitey tactic of Gossett's kicking Gere in the groin. Gos- sett's pe rformance as a pure d isciplinar- ian see med less an act of suppressed instincts than erasure: he re was Roots' O ld Fiddle r without roots. Among other archaic notions, An Offi- cer and a Gentleman res urrected the idea of a military with no use for racial e n- mi ty. That lie may be key to its popul ar- ity; certainly the unmistakable fac t of race in Robe rt Altman's Streamers did nothing to increase its boxoffi ce life . Race may have been too promine nt by be ing so powerfully dramatized. David Rabe's play expressed a uni ty of social changes-political , sexual, and racial - that haven't yet converged in our mov- ies: sexual revoluti on , Vie tn am , and black concerns are kept separate (except Phone ( © 1964 Movies Unlimited Inc. 11

Mitchell Lichtenstein and Michael Wright in Robert Altman's Streamers. distinction might be best understood as similar to that between the figures of now in the genteel Places in the Heart). for black manhood and dignity. John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart.) Rabe's combustible interaction ex- The play is a consideration of behav- Movie culture, and the nation, has yet to presses a fearfulness of these changes (as get over the phenomenon of Sidney does David Mamet's neglected Ed- ioral modes and philosophies, including Poitier, because nothing since has mond) , ye t Streamers (maybe the most Waters' spartan segregationism , the sol- equaled his achievement, his ambassa- powerful American play written in the diers' lai ssez-faire-to-militant reaction- dorship. Seventies) really does clear the air, or ism , and Davenport's self-conscious in- else puts an unsettling charge into it. Norman Jewison parallels A Soldier's Last fall Streamers was almost embarras- tegrationism. In 1984, these don ' t count Story to his 1967 In the Heat a/the Night singly gauche. Its race concern was one (the opening-up scenes touring the sur- that was not talked about in polite soci- as major revelations. The destruction rounding parish, the tense-yet-tangen- ety anymore. Altman's daring in bring- that their conflict engenders isn't appar- tial foot chases), understanding very ing this play to the screen went unno- ent in the film's tame revelations. The well the chronological distance between ticed, even as the play's exacerbation parts of himself that Davenport recog- the films and the racial gap that has not brought the artistic pretenses of the nizes in either Waters or the soldiers been closed. Despite Jewison's efforts, New York Film Festival up short: two don't collide; he doesn't suffer the disin- Story can't ameliorate Fuller's script. months later Streamers' dem ys tification tegration of his race (the torment of a The WW II setting restricts the picture's of the military was proved anachronistic black man restricted in his social role) impact, encasing the film and its charac- by the surprise success of the war fantasy that he witnesses. Davenport is sup- ters in amber (the Vietnam-era setting of Uncommon Valor. posed to represe nt the new breed of Streamers had an opposite, intensifying recently evolved middle-class black man effect). Fuller fails to use the past to This year, A Soldier's Story combines brought back in touch with the persist- spring thoughts about any of the charac- the microcosmic theatrics of Streamers ent struggle for respect by other black ters' future. The movie seems set in the with An Officer and a Gentleman's ethnic men , and reminded that the struggle has past because, like Places in the Heart , we riddle . It's a psychological mystery in- not finished for himself either. (\"Any can't or won't understand or think about vestigating the 1944 murder of a black man uncertain about where he belongs the issues dealt with in contemporary technical sergeant at a Tynin, Louisi- got to be in a whole lot of pain.\") terms , and A Soldier's Story's issues are ana, army base. This minority interest inescapably contemporary-one can seems so much more possible (or at least More parochial in its concern than any think nostalgically about anything except frequent) in theater; it sticks out at the other major film about blacks, A Sol- identity and suffering. Unless the pur- movies. Charles Fuller, adapting his dier's Story expresses the state of aware- pose is to uncover schizophrenia, the own Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and di- ness current in contemporary black thea- conflicts Davenport experiences (un- rector Norman Jewison take a distress- ter. A Soldier's Play speaks one kind of derstanding Waters' harshness, sympa- ingly conventional approach. Howard E. rhetoric, a colloquy on social values and thizing with the soldiers' resentment) is Rollins, J r. , is Captain Davenport, a black American ethics. But now it both too neatly drawn and unclear. black officer from Washington, D.C., speaks another: since the dearth of sig- Fuller is stymied by the situation he assigned to investigate the controversial nificant black cultural figures in the past means to define: the self-consciousness, case and quell potential friction between decade, the play takes on meaning as a the rectitude, the heroic cunning of a the black platoon and area whites. Dav- contest of role models-with Daven- modern black man's survival in white- en port's investigation reveals that the dominated circumstances-the situa- dead sergeant, Vernon Waters (Adolph port at the pivot. In essence, this movie tion Sidney Poitier brought to light at the Caesar), was a harsh martinet held in peaks of his career both onscreen and place by white officers. He is widely reacts to the figure of Sidney Poitier, the existentially. (\"I represent millions of disliked by his black platoon, which he last major black cultural figure that com- people,\" Poitier once said. \"I'll never do scolds and ridicules for lack of pride and municated to the world with the minori- anything to embarrass any of them.\") ambition and slackness in the struggle ty's general approval and assent. The Shaft and Super-Fly heroes were bogus To have brought off this coup Jewison folk-art heroes without an authentic po- needed to see the parallel to In the Heat litical, or useful , social profile. Self-cen- o/the Night all the way through and beg tered opportunists, Shaft and Super-Fly Sidney Poitier to take the role of Daven- had no revolutionary principles. (The port, even with age. Movie history cries out for Poitier's return to acting in a role that would clarify and explore his Su- pernegro image and expose the pru- dence Fuller perceives but that none of Poitier's previous screenwriters could imagine or dare. The personality conflicts Fuller dramatizes reflect Poi tier's own debate in fashioning black characters for main- stream audiences written by white screenwriters in a scarcely established tradition of non-comic, black screen por- traiture. Poi tier must have known Dav- 12

ROBERT BREER STRIKING! ABSTRACT FORMS ON A FIELD OF BRILLIANT YELLOW. THE TWENTY- SECOND NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL POST- ER SPECIALLY DESIGNED BY ROBERT BREER AND REPRODUCED IN A 30x40 FORMAT BEAUTIFULLY SILK-SCREENED ON FINE QUALITY PAPER. INDIVIDUALLY SIGNED POSTERS $50; UNSIGNED $25 . 22 nd NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL presented by THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER SEPTEMBER 28 - OCTOBER 14 1984 ALICE TULLY HALL THE 22Itd NfW rotK RIAl fESl'JVAL IS MADE I'OSSIIU, IN \"\"\"' wrrH PtJIUC RINDS fIOM JHf NEW YOM STATE COUNCIL ON JHf.un AND THf NATIOHAt fNOOWMDn' Fe» THE .un Add $5 for postage and handling . Allow six weeks for delivery I enclose $ for signed unsigned Twenty-second New York Film Festival Poster Name Address City / State Zip Daytime Phone Mail coupon, check or m.o. payable to: The Film Society of Lincoln Center, 140 West 65th Street, New York, NY 10023 or use postage paid envelope in this magazine

The principal performers in Sparkle, the first black cultfilm . trich 's campy glamour and self-allure, genuine musicianship, and a singing and enport's mental vacillation. The great and an achievement that ca n' t be ig- performance style to match all the musi- cal legends. Morris Day and Jerome good fortune of Poi tier's talent is that he nored. It knocks silly the belief that Benton resurrect and refine an ethnic performing style (a Cab Calloway-Les- smoothly expressed the tensions of his black pictures don't cross over to white ter Young hipsterism) that signifies so- audiences and therefore have a predicta- roles and his career: in A Raisin in the Sun ble performance ceiling. That Purple cial change as much as it amuses. In Rain is more a musical event than a and In the Heat of the Night his hand movie becomes less significant in the their way, these men and the German- face of the film's boxoffice success ($62 Hispanic Apollonia Kotero, as the gestures and body stance possess ex- million grossed by its third month) and sought-after woman, bring to the screen the pleasure it affords. The movie suc- the ga udiest, most provocative sexual traordinary grace and nuanced psyc hol- ceeds, unlike such popular record set- melodrama in memory. The brazen sala- ters as Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? ciousness of Prince's music pushes ogy. Hopped-up or fluid, Poitier moved and To Sir with Love, without benefit of movie candidness forward. racial exploitation. This exception with his emotions, cadencing them (as should influence industry thinking re- As The Kid , Prince enacts a showbiz- garding the r:narketability of black pro- bio that takes generously from the stock- Bette Davis did), and becoming, along tagonists and, more importantly, the ra- pile of backstage cliches but transforms cial mixture of the films we see from it with his music and renews it with his with Paul Newman, one of the two best now on. infusion of spirit and ethnic inflection and signification. The macho chauvinist American film actors of the Sixties. The Purple Rain inspires the question tradition of rock is also a part of Prince's whether American movies can continue blend of funk, rock, gospel, and soul Davenport of H owa rd E. Rollins , J r.-a interestingly without a black contrib~­ music. While rock seems perfect for tion . What filmmaker can pretend to film , few pictures use it well; Purple good actor but not a commanding screen American authenticity without using fig- Rain percolates with the music's inten- ures as native and as entertaining as sity and thrill , using that as its subject. presence-isn't variegated enough. Prince, Morris Day, and Jerome Ben- There is a new perspective on sex and ton? Sex is palpably at issue in Purple on music. (Diana Ross and Lady Sings Poi tier's was a well-developed resilient Rain, but race is not; it is accepted and the Blues missed it by a mile; with the natural. The characters are observed at routine use of generic and musical com- acting style to which all other black the personality level-not profoundly, monplaces , no faith was put in the es- but arrestingly-with the way these sence of that music.) Prince has brought screen performers draw inevitable com- people talk and interact as just another rock and soul to the center of movies aspect of American society to be re- when, after Elvis Presley, Sgt. Pepper's parison . In A Soldier's Story, Denzel garded and understood. They are not Lonely Hearts Club Band, Grease, drawn in depth but embody history and Xanadu, The Blues Brothers, Hard to Washington, Art Evans, and Larry Riley cultural associations that have particular Hold and One Trick Pony, it looked like it fascination and seem a slap to the staid- would never happen. have a believable naturalism. Adolph ness and homogeneity of recent films. Once again music, before movies, has Caesar, as Waters, is disastrously stage- Strutting across a spectrum of femi- proved the breakthrough medium for nine coquettishness and masculine dy- minority artists with everybody benefit- bound: though a snarling, roaring carica- namism, Prince is as incendiary an icon ing: Purple Rain is the first convincing as ever existed on film . He has Die- movie about the lifestyle rock culture ture that denies the humanity of the has afforded young people. Its rise-to- stardom storyline focuses on how The tortured sergeant. Caesar's too rhetorical Kid, now able to make his wildest sex- ual, financial, and musical dreams possi- style (favored by writers of the contem- ble, has to struggle to make them-and himself-bearable. The script (by di- porary black theater and better suited rector-editor Albert Magnoli and Wil- liam Blinn) sketches this, and the music for comedy) negates what he says amplifies and gives the idea feeling. Those who can appreciate the meaning onscreen. Unfortunately, he speaks of Barbra Streisand's torch song at the end ofFunny Girl but not Prince's tough- Fuller's most pointed lines. He's what airy, ecstatic guitar solo during this film's title number may not understand the Lou Gossett might have been with real significance of Purple Rain working on its own terms, but that is the picture's dialogue in An Officer and a Gentleman: a greatest value. black cartoon. • Produced for $7 million, Purple Rain is an object lesson for the method The real shock of Purple Rain is not needed to achieve black expression and Prince's ejaculating guitar, but that the trashy atmosphere, crude dialogue, and tawdry plot are exciting, enjoyable, and not a racial affront. Race is the novelty that makes Purple Rain special. This is the most financially successful movie without a white principal playe r ever 14

visibility in American movies. Financed funny travesties are all we ever get. As Fellowships outside the industry, concerned with its entertainers they must know about sys- available own sphere of activity (quick: name an- tematic exploitation and the psychology to study other film set in Minneapolis), it pro- behind using your talent as a means to film at ceeds without ever qualifying or excus- success; it is the market value of racial New York ing its characters or story first. The film exploitation. They shouldn't deny it, is also rather electrically mounted, dis- because their audience knows it. The University's proving the technical wretchedness that facts of exploitation are an authentic Tisch School seemed part and parcel of the blaxploita- American experience and the kind of of the Arts tion films and even John Sayles' well- story people cherish. Richard Pryor has meant but muffled and murkily lit The not had a fiction film to match the appeal Each year the WLllard T. C. Brotherfrom Another Planet. of his concert movies (Live in Concert Johnson Foundation awards two shows him at the peak of his art and $10,000 fellowships to emerging PurpLe Rain doesn't avoid the white audience contact), in which the drama of filmmakers for study at New world; it is included without self-imped- exploitation is out front. York University's TIsch School ing awareness and recalls Lorraine of the Arts. One is available to Hansberry's \"I don't go around thinking • undergraduate students, the about being black 24 hours a day\" as other to graduate students. The much as it fulfills Prince's utopian mani- Beyond doubt, the most significantly fellowships cover the full cost of festo. The black characters here are lib- communicative black film in recent tuition and include a stipend for erated from the hegemony of white years, SparkLe. dramatizes the dialectics living expenses. movie creativity responsible for the de- of exploitation and ambition. Directed piction of black characters as strange and by Sam O'Steen and written by Joel We are now conducting a different-not because of their social Schumacher, with music by Curtis May- national sear:ch for filmmaking oppression, but out of the Invisible Man field, SparkLe featured Irene Cara and students of exceptional talent conventions in which blacks don't really Lonette McKee as sisters in a late-Fif- and promise. Candidates will be belong in the picture, so if they appear at ties pop singing group. It has a historical judged on the basis of creative all it is with diminished character and for significance that even the films of Oscar work, academic standing, and unstated purposes. After PurpLe Rain, Micheaux cannot claim: it is the first leadership potential. one can imagine movies where race adds black cult movie. In the eight years to characterization rather than defines it. since its release, the film has played with For more information and an unusual frequency in neighborhood application, contact Dean Elena Isolated yet ambitious, Prince has playhouses and inner-city theaters across Pinto Simon, TIsch School of vaulted over the morass in which black the country. Only this year, after the the Arts, New York University, people interested in their movie image success of the similarly themed Broad- 725 Broadway, 7th Floor, usually flounder, stuck in limbo be- way show DreamgirLs (Mike Nichols New York, N.Y. 10003; tween character and stereotype. Despite congratulated Schumacher on the simi- (212) 598-2816. their exclusive studio contracts, Richard larities taken), has Sparkle seen reper- (Be sure to indicate undergradu- Pryor (in The Toy and Superman 11/) and tory bookings in New York City. But ate or graduate level.) Eddie Murphy (in anything to date) among black moviegoers it's a well- seem unable to simply appear in movies known, well-liked picture. I program- Applications must be received no later without first paying for it with a joke. med a film series at the Henry Street than January IS, 1985 . Stan Lathan, the director of Beat Street. Settlement last summer and attendance says, \"It's been easy ... for movies more than tripled at the SparkLe show- NtwYORK about blacks to be entertainment films , ing. The crowd anticipated the dialogue because that is their first area of accept- and sang the lyrics as fanatically as audi- ~~l§l1Y ance and success.\" What Pryor and Mur- ences at the Regency act along with ALL phy have yet to achieve is a film per- About Eve . New York University is an affinnative formance that makes good on the action/equal opportunity institution. privilege they already have-to oppose SparkLe's success having taken root or outwit the system of production that and PurpLe Rain's more recently ablaze means to control or contain them. The success ascribe a near aesthetic by which horror of watching Pryor in Superman II/ blacks, just now, can most effectively and Murphy in Best Defense is not the work in film . PurpLe Rain's success unfunny lines and ridiculous stunts but makes the crucial point that the work the apparent ease with which they sub- blacks do in movies needn't have a su- mit to their exploitation, cooperating perficial air of worthiness or seriousness; with the Hollywood processes that make the disgrace of blaxploitation was not the every black a specialty act, a monkey on trash formats but the lack ofauthenticity a string. and expressiveness. (The best films of that period were the fast, funny, and The problem is not Pryor's or Mur- unpretentious The LandLord and Cotton phy's failure to become role models (in Comes to HarLem.) The showbiz milieux America , every millionaire is a role of SparkLe and PurpLe Rain establish a model) but the loss of dignity that results forum in which black social and spiritual when they traduce the social history we aspirations receive natural expression as intuit looking at them. Their funny, well as evoke a generally recognizable 15

history. The objectification of perform- ness, and self-consciousness with which ance in this setting seizes and van- black people move through white soci- ety, and De Palma missed none of the In the concert scenesquishes the aesthetic problem of beauty and appearance-the last frontier of attendant rage. He showed how the ab- surdity of a social structure, in which of Purple Rain,movie acceptance. racist behavior exists but is transformed Sparkle' s most powerful moment Prince plays out the into a polite sophisticated routine, re- quired quickened means to expose and arrives when Lonette McKee takes the lead on \"What Can I Do with This Feel- complexities of his ing?\" The stage lights warm her flesh, explain it. The actors and screenwriters found the means in Sounder and The character onstage,and the camera basks in her sultry radi- ance. Though McKee is not dark-skin- Landlord, where the uneven parallels of black consciousness and social roles are standing uniquely butned, her apparent ethnicity mixes with her light complexion and transfixes the made clear. The showbiz institutions in Sparkle and Purple Rain make the dual- completely human.audience. The scene creates waves of awe not just from the force of new talent Here he expresses ity especially vivid. but from once-secure standards of There are exceptions. Patti LaBelle's himself as great bluesbeauty and sex melting down. First eagerness to perform and awesome time viewers of Sparkle wonder that voice are turned against her by the one- dimensional role she's given in A Sol- McKee did not become a major screen artists did-without presence; Which Way Is Up and Cuba dier's Story; and Taylor Hackford's stag- ing of Kid Creole and the Coconuts in letting the seams of hiswere her only follow-ups until The Cot- ton Club. Apparently, filmmakers could Against All Odds wasted a great opportu- nity, catching none of their politics and junk-movie bio show.not use a challenging, sexy, non-white woman as easily as young, black male camp irony. The summer's breakdanc- clowns. themes, extends the musical motifs ing movies also lacked the nerve and Sparkle itself uses McKee and show heard throughout, and sums up various scandal of punkish street art. \"If art is a business as metaphors for the plight of plot conflicts with a coherent, expressive crime may God forgive me\" appears on a minority existence in racist institutions, magnitude not seen in any movie since wall in Beat Street. but the exploiters with very handy parallels to the movie the multi-level performance scenes in who produced the breakdance movies business and to the costuming, manner- Nashville. The title number's vision of proved innocent of art. They came up isms, and idioms black performers adopt racial and sexual harmony-in which with classic howlers (the mother in Beat to both succeed and fulfill their artistic Prince captures the audience's emotions Street tells breakers the value of school, and emotional needs. Like Jean Genet's and literally sways it as one-surpasses saying, \"Get something to fall back on\") self-reflexive stage play The Blacks (a Benton's coda in Places in the Heart. It but not a story or character congruent legendary New York production in 1961 shows how a performer on stage controls with or capable of the anger and political introduced James Earl Jones, Cicely Ty- his projection as either character or consciousness of rap music. Movies son, Lou Gossett, Raymond St. Jac- stereotype. In this way, Prince, Richard promised rappers a chance to show the ques, Maya Angelou , Godfrey Cam- Pryor in Live in Concert, and the singers world a vision and to celebrate their art bridge, Charles Gordone, and Roscoe in Sparkle, more than any blacks on film (Charlie Ahearn came closest in the bas- Lee Browne), Sparkle and Purple Rain in the past decade, achieve full dimen- ketball improvisation of Wild Style), but make the showbiz genre as viable as it is sionality. • the filmmakers couldn't translate the ironic. Browne's speech in The Blacks music's point, and the didactic songs was prophetic: \"They tell us we're Perhaps the only black film artists discouraged further dramatic exposition grown-up children. In that case, what's possible now will be those willing to risk or humanizing. left for us? The theater! We'll play at and exploit notions of performance-as The art of the performance in Purple being reflected in it, and we'll see our- Genet intuited in The Blacks. but per- Rain is in Prince: playing out the com- selves- big black narcissists-slowly haps also like Godard and Fassbinder, plexities of his character on stage, ex- disappearing into its waters.\" though not nearly so didactically. In the pressing personal thoughts without pri- There's an undercurrent of dread in perversely homogenous universe of vate mutterings, standing uniquely but these films, unlike such faux-naif, min- American movies, blacks appear awk- completely human. Black performance strel-plantation shows as Cabin in the Sky wardly and apologetically, as outsiders. art is uninterested in formalistic struc- and Stormy Weather, that allows uninhib- This enforced restriction on character ture, and Prince expresses himself in ited and very rich expression. Purple (with its real-world similarity) creates an Purple Rain as great blues artists did: Rain might be the kind of movie that can extended theater-a heightened exis- without letting the seams or construct of only happen once in a generation. With tentialism-for blacks to inhabit. his junk-movie bio show. This is not a Prince dancing upon layers of musical reprise of the deceptive caricature some history and style, and Albert Magnoli Only when blacks are seen on stage claim as the true militancy of Stepin consciously evoking the show-within-a- can movies accommodate the irony Fetchit and Butterfly McQueen- show staging ofCabaret and the kinetics within black characters. The \"Be Black working on someone else's terms, ani- of Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Purple Baby\"sequence of Brian De Palma's Hi. mating false conceptions. It is instead an Rain is like a whirling cultural vortex Mom! satirized the complications ofsuch active demonstration of where black siphoning bits from assorted areas of pop role-playing even, most remarkably, its people stand in American society and in culture. Prince's title-song performance patronizing acceptance by whites. Hi, American movies: performing, but for combines the picture'S filial and sexual Mom! was probably the first movie to their lives. ~ recognize the calculation, deliberate- 16

'Soldiers Story'SaIute by Carol Cooper .The first se rious drama about Ame ri- Adolph Caesar in Norman l ewison's A Soldi e r's Story. can blacks re leased by Hollywood in close to a decade is a pe riod piece. Now tagonists, no one believes that many difficult to put across on film th an on I'm going to te ll you why that's a prob- whites will achieve we lcome catharsis stage , but this ~as t , many of whom are le m. Or rathe r, I'm going to explain why watching black actors-not as they did ve te ran s of the stage production, are Canadian director Norm an Jewison's A with Stre isa nd 's Fanny Brice or with convincing pe rforme rs. Soldier's Story, adapted from C harl es Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice. Fuller's Pulitze r Prize-winning pl ay, is C harl es Fulle r, w ho translated his the right ste p in th e wrong direction. • own play into the film script, says that Jewison me re ly aided him in transpos ing The re is a catch-22 toA Soldier's Story As the first proj ect Jew iso n has com- the pl ay's dynamics to the wide screen. and everything like it. H ow do yo u get pleted in a seven-picture deal with Co- The play was told th ro ugh flas hbacks, a blacks or whites who go to the mov ies for lumbia Pictures, A Soldier's Story is a dev ice Jewiso n ke pt-no matte r what diversion to sit still for a history or civics brave und e rtaking. Jewison has sa id that havoc it might play with pacing-in the lesson? We ll , for blacks, still suffe ring in the late Sixti es he wa nted to film screenplay. Fulle r appreciated th e cam- from insufficie nt media visibili ty, the William Styron's The Confessions of Nat e ra's abili ty to wide n the e nvironme nt chance to see a bl ack cas t in all our Turner, about the 19th-ce ntu ry slave and expand the co ntextu al background res ple ndent va riety of shapes and colors who kills his maste rs, but that he was of his story, but he subordinated all other may be ample induce me nt. WASPs, disco uraged by blacks who found fault conside rations to the progress of a cohe r- ove rwhelmed as they are with mythic with the white novelist's approach. In- e nt murder mystery. \"The stoty was al- Doppelgange rs, or Jews, who to a large stead , 15 years late r, Jewison chose a ways told in a certain manne r,\" says exte nt are able to script the ir psychologi- film abo ut black-on-bl ac k crim e. In Fulle r, \"and the inte rre lationships be- ca l doubles into mass e nte rtainm e nt 1944 the black sergeant of a segrega ted twee n those players, those soldie rs, is an even whe n Jew ish actors cannot play the troop is found murde red nea r his Fort integral part of that story which was roles, will never und e rstand the tragic Neal , L ouisiana, barracks. One of the the re long be fore the film was eve r con- depth of Ralph E lli so n's \" in visibl e arm y's few black captains is sent south ce ived .\" man. \" from Washington , D. C. to investigate the crime only to di scove r that e nraged The only \" name\" actor connec ted to Robert Warshow once praised C lif- blacks killed T echnical Sergea nt Vernon the project is Howard E. Rollins, Jr. , ford Odets as the poet of the lower mid- C . Wate rs, not hate-filled whites. The re me mbered as the star of M ilos For- die class New York Jew. For Warshow, issue is intra-group prejudice, a sensiti ve man's Ragtime and M ichael Schultz's even though many Jews had forgotten or topic among all minorities because it For Us , The Living (PBS). As ked if he wanted to forget humble origin s, the erod es such broad distinctions as color mo urn ed A Soldier' s Story's abse nce linchpin of this minori ty's sociological and class . Its visceral impact is more of \" bankable\" black movie stars like ges talt was cultural id e ntification with a first-gen e ration urban wo rkin g cl ass. Blacks also have a co mmun al \" point of origin\" as Ame rican citizens, and like it or not, it leads to th e segregated South . Cathartic re minde rs of that shared ar- chetypal expe ri e nce, with its special codes of be hav io r and language, are equally necessary to re inforce cohesion in the black community. Funny Girl, with its Yiddish humor and thinl y ve iled pride in its upwa rdly mobile Zi egfe ld Follies starle t, is a se lf-affirming freeze frame of Jewish cultural history. Unfortunate ly, most black analogs, from Lady Sings the Blues to A Soldier's Story, are affirm ations of tragedy. This is why black historica l drama is so prob- lematic for Hollywood . The re aren ' t many triumphant stories to te ll , and e i- ther way the outcome ali enates a white public. Although it's accepted that black audie nces will identify with white pro- 17

Pop trash like Purple Rain is the Ghostbusters of black-oriented film. A Soldier's Story is what America desperately needs but seldom likes -emotionally accurate descriptions of institutionalized pathology. Richard Pryor, Lou Gossett, J r., or wun- di stressingly close to symbolic castra- tance, alienation without disaffection. derkind Eddie Murphy, Fuller ex- tion. More than half of Morton's appeal Under the synergistic scrutiny of Sayles pressed a clear preference for using un- is that he cannot incriminate-or de- and Dickerson, every performance known faces to embody his characters. fine-himself by word or accent. How in Brother becomes a star perform- \"These days film actors play them- far away is Morton's suffering in si - ance, giving this black fantasy vehicle selves,\" he says. \"They never seem to lence from the conservative view that depth , substance, and across-the-board transcend their own identity and delve good blacks are blacks that shut up and accessibility. into the nature of their role any more. di sa p p e a r ? • \"Fo r instance, in Purple Rain , it's In vivid counterpoint to his silence, Prince making people go to the movie, As with Sayles' film , the ensemble not the character he plays. The story everyone Morton meets in Harlem- contribution of Fuller's is of greater doesn't mean anything, the characteri- from a Latina pinball wizard to a nervous value than any individual performance. zation doesn't mean anything. Nowa- white cop-gab with revealing elo- A Soldier's Story offers so black a dne- days people go to a flick to see Tim quence. These conversations function matic environment, with so many points Hutton or Mel Gibson, and who cares as soliloquies to emphasize the desper- of view, that one is soon able to forget what the story is about? And that, I ate dreams and humane spirits hidden in ethnicity and concentrate on the story. think, may be the ultimate failure of American ghettos. Certain vignettes are This is not the racelessness of a gelded film. Because more and more you have unmistakably taken from life: the cabin black character blended into the plot ofa to load a movie up with charismatic fever of a white mother with a black television sitcom but an immersion into 'stars' instead of real actors to get any child, whose self-deprecating wit is a parallel universe that forces abandon- attention for it at all.\" shaped by isolation and irony; the ment of contemporary certainties. For Puerto Rican laborer who enthuses in white viewers sufficiently imaginative, • Spanish that Morton must also be from sufficiently secure to let this film divest Boricua. Morton spends much of his them of white privilege for two hours, A The concurrent release of John time observing and listening to others, Soldier's Story will make them feel what Sayles' \" black\" film , The Brother from being used as a mirror. Those who help it was to be black and male in the segre- Another Planet, puts forth the same argu- him get much in return , either in self or gated South. ment. Filmed on location in Harlem us- material satisfaction. These are the re- ing a wealth of lesser-known black talent wards of career liberals, and Sayles pro- For the rest-for the hope that a from the local Frank Silvera Drama jects enough of himself into Morton's white Canadian director and a black Workshop, this quirky gamble may be benefactors so that they reflect both a screenwriter might team up and blow the su rprise ethnic hit neither Fuller nor tentative liberal altruism and the more apart the mincing American status quo Hollywood believe possible. Convinc- natural \"s triver's row\" camaraderie. which says to black entertainers, \"You ing and brilliant in its handling of pat- can stand up, but don't rock the boat\"- ently fantastic elements (subtle lam- At the end, when pursued down al- uhn uhh. That's not what A Soldier's poons of the lily-white E.T. or The Man leys by white slave catchers (Sayles is Story was designed to do, though Holly- one), a tiny army of mute black faces wood remains unwilling to allow black Who Fell To Earth vindicate setting a tale comes out of the mist to Morton's res- writers and filmmakers to generate a of contemporary Harlem in a science- cue. For these, Sayles does not presume mainstream film that could be the Star fiction context), Brother is everything to speak, for they are the black masses of Wars or, more to the point, the Thriller of A Soldier's Story is not. Theoretically an unrevealed destiny and timetable black movies. Percentage-wise, in order a comedy, Brother touches on the who are Morton's fellow escapees, his for black cinema to be as varied as white dilemma of ethnic plurality, racism , brothers; they deliver the saving grace cinema, you'd need ten percent like and moral decay just as Story does, but Diva, ten percent like Purple Rain, 30 employs an excitingly novel mode of beyond the power of any liberal. In a percent like Cooley High , 20 percent exposition. like Sweet Sweetback's Baadasss Song, way, Sayles has turned old stereotypes and 30 percent like A Soldier's Story. There are several frightening assump- to new advantage in this space-age, so- tions in Brother,used to flesh out its sci- cial fable. Through weakness and dy- This breakdown delineates where ence-fiction premise but doubling as al- namic patience, Joe Morton emerges on Hollywood goes wrong in neglecting legories of black impotence. Joe Morton top. And on the way to that individual black material; any of the above formu- plays a black alien deprived of speech. triumph , a great deal of truth is told las prepared and promoted as skillfully Crashlanding near Ellis Island in a stolen about black, brown, and white relations. as their prototypes should make money. spaceship, Morton immediately demon- Pop trash like Purple Rain is the Ghost- strates miraculous powers of self-regen- Black cinematographer Ernest Dick- busters of black-oriented film. Pop flash eration by swimming away from the erson's camera is acutely sensitive to the like Diva is the French Connection with flaming wreck and growing back a sev- beauty beneath Harlem's creeping . mystery and elegance. Cooley High is ered foot. Sayles' romantic equation of squalor. Confident and unsentimental, The Big Chill for realists. And Sweet black man to salamander is poetic Dickerson achieves for Sayles-and Sweetback is Apocalypse Now for the lit- enough, but the convenient conceit of a for the film's mute protagonist-many eral-minded. A Soldier's Story is more mute stranger in a strange land comes necessary qualities: candor without romanticism, reportage without dis- 18

difficult because it is what America des- Several times Rollins' Davenport ie's most rewarding moments when perately needs but seldom likes-his- starts to camp up his role with Poi tier- torically based, emotionally accurate de- isms-an understandable temptation Davenport confronts some incriminat- scriptions of institu tionalized pathology. for a career actor with a sense of tradi- And yet Hollywood could never do tion, but inadvisable here. His obvious ing evidence he had ignored because of enough to offset the cumulative effect of pleasure at being onscreen again trans- its sins of social bias. lates into an eagerness to please that an unprofessional bias in favor of his own perhaps played into Jewison's own • directorial enthusiasm for an earlier cre- kind. . ation. The cinematography recalled an- One complaint against A Soldier's other symbolic trick from Heat: purpose- More disturbing is the film's portrayal Story is how much the relationship be- ful juxtaposition of oppressive day and tween Captain Davenport (Rollins), the ominous night scenes. This moody con- ofthe killer. Pfc. Melvin Peterson (Den- black investigating officer, and Captain trast of light and darkness is so sharp that Taylor (Dennis Lipscomb), the white the interpersonal conflict expands to be- zel Washington) comes onscreen with commanding officer, resembles the con- come environmental. Flashback scenes tentious partnership of Sidney Poi tier of Sgt. Waters and his men, setting the small wire-rimmed glasses, a thin-lipped and Rod Steiger in Jewison's In the Heat events in motion that would cause his of the Night. But it was the ease and death , are devoid of all subtlety. Waters sneer, and a regal bearing clearly remi- realism with which Jewison examined is immediately thrown at us in the most potential rapprochement between niscent of Malcolm X in his most mili- southern whites and blacks that made tant phase. (Washington played Malcolm recently on stage.) Those who admired Malcolm-and these are still legion-may resent the visual and ideo- logical polemic set up between the mod- erate pose of Davenport (a Martin Luther King figure) and Peterson-X. Fuller denies structuring his plot to point up this polarity, but the subtext is inescapable even if accidental to anyone with a passing familiarity with Sixties politics. It's no secret to the white world that the majority of American blacks didn't subscribe to the wholesale vigilantism championed by less complacent sectors of the black community, but by the time both Malcolm and King were dead, they'd begun to wish they had. And it is this sense of seething, second-chance rebellion that is missing in Story. A scene of Davenport's tearful introspection and subsequent cocky exit-leaving behind a barracksful of unresolved frustration which we're supposed to believe will expend itself on' the battlefield-is not my idea of denouement. A contempo- rary black film, period piece or no, should be as honest and irreverent as Purple Rain, whose black protagonist symbolically urinates-ejaculates over a Howard E. Rollins, Jr. as investigator Davenport. mixed crowd of non pi used fans. No collective unconscious in the Fuller want to work with him. \"Of all unflattering stages of self-hate so that we world has been as comprehensively shat Jewison's movies, In the Heat ofthe Night are forced to study every possible outlet is the project that impressed me most in for his rampant sado-masochism. upon as that of the black American . So if his handling of black-white relations,\" says Fuller. As Davenport interrogates each black anyone is allowed to take fiendish de- soldier about Waters, it becomes too Writer and director understood that to clear too soon that the sergeant was uni- light in getting back some of their own, get any cooperation at all out of southern versally disliked. Yet by making Waters' whites during the broad time frame own men immediately suspect, the film it should be a creative black mind with a these movies bracket (Heat was set in uncovers an interesting facet of Daven- the Sixties, while Story is set in the For- port's personality-his increasingly ur- captive audience. Black directors like ties), blacks employed a combination of gent desire to find a white killer. This is a trickery and conciliation. A period piece refreshing character flaw when com- Mark Warren (Come Back, Charleston will reveal the transparency of such pared to Rollins' climactic scene in Rag- ploys, which can be embarrassing for time when the militant throws himself Blue), Gordon Parks (Shaft), or Michael those used to more sophisticated means on the mercy of his oppressors and is of persuasion. But the dialectical colli- blown away for his trouble. Davenport Schultz (Car Wash) might have given sions between Davenport and Taylor- does not ever assume the good will of his inelegant and gratuitous though they white peers, but by the same token con- Story the mordant edge that Jewison may seem-are utterly faithful to the siders himself a more-than-fair (read: realities of their time and place. Super) man. Thus it is one of the mov- seems too timid to deliver. His other works-... AndJusticefor All and The Rus- sians Are Coming, The Russians Are Com- ing-suggest that his comedic sensibility is more absurdist than prop- erly satiric. This is why the quips and subtle slapstick that dot Story don't fly. Jewison is not quite cognizant of what feels and looks funniest to blacks under (continued on page 76) 19

chunk of stock, the directors feared an Within hours, though, the explana- tion was obvious. Davis had managed to by Gregg Kilday instant replay. Or so it was reported. At lure Barry Diller away from Paramount Pictures, where for ten years Diller had A tycoon of industry dies of a heart least as much a factor was the long- reigned as chairman with an increasing attack on his private jet while en route Midas touch. The well-documented from the Dominican Republic, and his standing enmity between Miller, Walt's Paramount success story had, of course, death unleashes an executive-suite ri- been the movie-business news of 1984. valry that holds implications for three son-in-law, and Roy E. Disney, the From column items through the news- major companies. An oil billionaire sum- weeklies to the business mags and, ulti- mons the chairman of his privately founder's cousin. As head of the studio, mately, the celebrity glossies, Diller and owned movie studio to Denver to tell his cohort, Paramount president Mi- him he is being summarily replaced. Miller had relegated Roy Disney to chael Eisner, had been lionized for their The son-in-law and cousin of a legend- knack at turning High Concept tricks: ary folk hero lock horns at a critical board turning out nature films, and Roy ran- sentimental family dramas (Ordinary meeting, thereby allowing a group of People and Terms of Endearment), hard- Texas investors to seize controlling in- kled. He chose to side with another edge urban gunplay (48 HRS) , splashy terest in the family empire. adventure movies (Raiders of the Lost block of investors, the Bass brothers of Ark), and sentimental, hard-edge, The bare plot lines read like capsule splashy musicals (Grease and summaries of Falcon Crest and Dynasty Fort Worth, in an effort to rid the com- Flashdance, if their mention is still nec- and Dallas, overheated melodramas essary). The Paramount team was on a about ambition, greed, and sibling com- pany of both Jacobs' threat and Miller's roll. Informed insiders expected the dy- petitions that would seem too feverishly namic duo to strike a hard bargain when overripe to reflect the mundane dynam- tenure. their contracts came up for renewal in ics of corporate America. And yet, in the the fall-after all, Diller was already wake of the executive shell game that The Disney family squabble had no pulling down a reputed $2.5 million, hypnotized Hollywood this fall- wreaking havoc with industry rolodexes sooner gone public than it was eclipsed in the process-the overwrought writers of the evening soaps suddenly seem to the following week by Alan Hirsch- be masters of verisimilitude. Not since the glory days of the underrated Brack- field's abrupt departure from 20th Cen- en's World (a television series that cries out for revival) have Hollywood lives tury-Fox, where he served as chairman proved so entertaining and comman- deered the nation's business pages with at the pleasure of the studio's owner, tales of ruptured egos, fabulous salaries, and family feuds. Denver oil wildcatter Marvin Davis. The first tremors of what was to build With the exception of the Star Wars se- into a seismic shock registered in early September as Ronald Miller led off the quels (from which George Lucas si- passing parade with his resignation- forced by his board of directors-as phoned off most of the profits) and the president of Walt Disney Productions. Ironically, after several fumbling years of low-brow Porky's, Davis had seen very trying to strike a hipper note at Disney through such misguided efforts as Some- little money since buying the studio for thing Wicked This Way Comes and Tron, Miller had just fallen into the studio's $750 million in 1980, and his complaints first tough-talking hit, the mermaid ro- mance Splash. about Hirschfield's stewardship had On the corporate front, though, grown vocal. Still, the timing of Hirsch- Miller was drowning. The board criti- cized him for buying off hostile stock field's dismissal caught by raider Saul Steinberg with $325 million in controversial \"greenmail,\" and with surpnse. Minneapolis investor Irwin Jacobs lurk- ing in the shadows with another big 20

and Eisner was close behind-but no mount back to its Manhattan operatives, one of the seven major Hollywood stu- one expected them to walk. Davis passed over Eisner to make Frank dios has suffered high-level executive Mancuso, the studio's head of distribu- turnover in its executive suites, as chair- • tion, the new chairman of the studio, men, chief executive officers, presi- leaving Eisner no choice but to leave. dents, chief operating officers, and pro- There were, perhaps, some old studio But then Eisner already had his eye on duction heads·revolve through the doors Disney, and with a little lobbying help with predictable regularity. hands who remembered the derogatory from friends like Steven Spielberg and comments that Martin S. Davis, a Gulf George Lucas, he was able to win the The list reads like a Movie Industry keys to the magic kingdom from Roy Who's Who-or, more accurately, a + Western executive in ew York, Disney and the Basses, who bought out Who's Where. In 1983, deciding that Irwin Jacobs in the bargain. things no longer went better with Coke, would make behind Diller's back when Frank Price checked out of Columbia the two men were competing for the Within three weeks, the entire story Pictures, a Coca-Cola subsidiary, and re- seemed to come full circle. Although the turned to his old stomping grounds, attention ofG + W's founding chairman, resulting aftershocks would reverberate Universal, with many of his executive for weeks as the mid-level executives team. Price bumped off Robert Rehme, Charles Bluhdorn. When Bluhdorn died cast their individual lots with the surviv- who resigned as Universal's studio chief of a heart attack in February of 1983 and ing parties (within the month Para- to head New World Pictures. Mean- mount's head of production, Jeffrey Kat- while, at Warner Bros., the Ladd Com- Davis succeeded him as chairman, there zen berg, had joined Eisner at Disney, pany's lease ran out (foreclosed in part were those who predicted that Diller's while production vice president Laur- because The Right Stuff crashlanded), ance Mark faithfully followed Diller to and Jay Kanter, a Ladd executive, lit out days were numbered; but Davis Fox), virtually all the major players had for MGM/UA, where he replaced Fred- promptly confounded expectations by relocated in record time. Only the unfor- die Fields as that studio's head of pro- tunate Ron Miller remained benched on duction . Fields, in turn, joined the long promoting Diller to the corporate post as the sidelines. Alan Hirschfield , hardly list of studio executives who have given hurting for cash, had returned to invest- up their managerial jobs-some volun- head of G + W's entertainment and ment banking, whence he came. Busi- tarily, others involuntarily-to go back ness , as close as possible to usual ; was to producing movies. It's a li st that also communications division. The truce, if a about to resume. includes Sherry Lansing (formerly of truce it was, proved to be short-lived. As Fox), Thom Mount (late of Universal), • Don Simpson (a Paramount alumnus), pundits groped for explanations in the and Robert Shapiro (recently of Warner days following Diller's decision to for- While the high drama of the Septem- Bros.). ber Sweeps had been undeniable, it was sake Martin Davis for Marvin Davis-as by no means a temporary aberration. The revolving door swings both ways. if Marvin's willingness to reward Diller Within the t two years, in fact, every with an ownership position in Fox weren't enough-it was suggested that Martin D. had simply been peeved by a recent New York magazine cover that lauded Diller and Eisner at the expense of the company's New York marketing team. But the rivalries at Gulf + West- ern stemmed from deeper, more long- standing sources than tMt. Determined to deliver bicoastal Para- - 21

Ned Tanen stepped down as head of sette rentals should generate $1.75 bil- onstrated, however, that canny manage- Universal Pictures, claiming exhaustion lion in revenues. ment can enable a studio to ride out the with the executive role, to try his hand at dry spells between blockbusters. While making movies. But no sooner had he To be sure, all that money doesn't Paramount has had more than its share of finished 16 Candles and begun produc- flow directly back into the studios' cof- megahits , the Diller/Eisner team also tion on the currently filming St . Elmo's fers. Increased boxoffice has led to in- protected its bottom line by keeping a Fire than he accepted Frank Mancuso's creased film production; and with more tight rein on film budgets while other offer to return to the executive front line films competing for space on the na- smdios were often spending rashly in as Eisner's replacement as president of tion's movie screens, the studios have hopes of stumbling upon a hit. In addi- Paramount. had to accept a lower share of each ticket tion, Diller moved aggressively into an- dollar. And, the wealth is not equally cillary markets. Battling HBO, Para- Boasting more entrances and exits divided. Although Warner Bros. can mount struck an exclusive rights deal than a good French farce , the current claim the biggest share of the summer with Showtime for the pay-TV market; movie industry might, at first glance, boxoffice take (23 percent), and Para- the company slashed the industry's pur- appear to be flailing about desperately, mount leads in terms of year-to-date chase price for a feature cassette from falling all over itself in an incestuous boxoffice share (20.9 percent) for the $79.95 to $39.95; and it forged into the tangle of ego and greed. But, actually, first three quarters, a number of studios television syndication market with En- business is humming along quite nicely. have been left with a markedly smaller tertainment Tonight and Solid Gold. By According to Variety. the movie business share of the pie. Behind Paramount, doing so, it established profit centers closed the books on its most successful Warners, and Columbia, Fox trails with that would allow the company to s ummer in histor y. Ticket sales 11.5 percen t of the domestic boxoffice weather any dry spells at the boxoffice. amounted to $1.58 billion (even though share, followed by Universal (7.5), attendance was down slightly from last MGM/UA (6.5), and Disney (4.8). • summer's record level), with ticket sales for all of 1984 projected to edge above • In The Last Tycoon . F. Scott the $4 billion mark for the first time. In Fitzgerald romanticized his hero, Mon- addition, the growth of the videocas- One studio's success story can be just roe Stahr (a stand-in for MGM's Irving sette market, bubbling along even as as unsettling as another's relative failure Thalberg), as the last of a dying breed , pay-TV growth levels off, is providing when it comes to the question of execu- one of the few men with the ability to Hollywood with a new, lucrative source tive stability, though. While Miller's in- understand all the equations involved in of income. By 1985, it is estimated, cas- ability to chart a forceful course for Dis- making movies. As the studios one by ney ultimately cost him his job, Diller's one capitulated to corporate ownership deft handling of Paramount's fortunes in the Sixties and Seventies, as agents, lawyers, and television executives took did not guarantee his future with Gulf + over the top executive posts, Fitzgerald's romanticized movie execu- Western. Diller simply priced himself tive was displaced by what, at first, looked like a corps of faceless corporate out of Martin Davis' good graces and managers. But, in fact , a new sort of into Marvin Davis' pocket. tycoon has emerged in recent years. Movie companies are willing to bet on The New Tycoon may be less con- such high-priced manpower, because, in cerned with the equations involved in effect, shrewd management is a studio's individual movies than was the Stahr major asset in a high-risk business where prototype, but ifhe is to succeed, he has success is dependent on predicting to be no less adept at mastering all the fickle audience tastes. Explains Richard equations of the new technologies that Goodman, associate professor of man- have given the movie business renewed agement at UCLA, \"The choice ofchief life. For the New Tycoon , questions of executive is critical in the movie busi- limited partnerships, distribution and ness. The movie industry itself is much marketing strategies, pay-TV windows, more short-term oriented than other and the first-sale doctrine are as critical American industries. There is little as the old concerns over plot, character, long-term investment-unlike the auto and dramatic conflict. This fall's Dar- industry, they don't have to build facto- winian struggles within the film indus- ries in hopes that they are profitable five try's executive suites reflect the compe- years down the line. Other high-volume tition for the services of the few who industries like automobiles and food are have mastered the evolving territory. interested in marginal increases in prof- itability and market shares. They tend For all the corporate trappings, the to be ruled by a series of carefully entrepreneurial spirit still thrives in Hol- planned, highly articulated decisions. lywood. In fact, the executive exodus of But the movie industry is more like the the past two years can be read as a move- fashion business; it seems to shoot for ment away from those companies most blockbusters rather than mere profitabil- firmly under the thumb of their corpo- ity. It depends on fads and fashions. And rate parents to those companies where the chief executives playa critical role in the chief executive officer still com- making such decisions.\" mands some clout. In dismissing Diller Diller's ten-year regime at Paramount (an extremely stable and long rule by Hollywood's mercurial standards) dem- 22

et aI., G + W's Martin Davis went right miliar. Five United Artists executives though . \"The same film s will get made to the point. \"We want to turn Gulf + -they'll just cost more,\" sa id one stud io rail at the controls exercised by Transa- executive-in-exile. Already, the script Western into a marketing-driven com- migration s have begun. As soon as Un iv- pany, in terms of more market share and merica, UA's corporate owner, and form ersal rejected Paul Mazursky's Jerry more product,\" he told the Los Angeles Saved from Drowning, a reworkin g of Times . Specifically, Davis was annoyed Orion (composed offive stars, see). Alan Jean Renoir's 1932 Boudu Saved from that the Paramount boys hadn't foreseen Drowning, Mazursky's agent, Sam the success of Flashdance earlier, so that Ladd Jr. and his crew decamp from 20th Cohn, took the property to Disney, where it was snapped up. James L. all of G +W's various divisions could Century-Fox, annoyed by then-chair- Brooks, still riding high from the success of Terms of Endearment, was about to have gotten into the act: paperbacks man Dennis Stanfill's scrupulous cost sign a long-term pact with Paramount from Simon & Schuster, sweatshirts when he began to sense the ground was from Cole of California, maybe even a controls, to go into business for them- shaky; wisely, he postponed signing un- Flashdance night at Madison Square til the dust settled , and ultimately took Garden. On the other hand , if you selves. Price bids Coke adieu and leaves his production company to 20th Cen- launch a thousand marketing tie-ins for tury-Fox instead. \"I think all you're go- every ersatz Flashdance that comes Columbia for Universal. Diller quits ing to see is the sp read of the Paramount along, you're going to have an awful lot virus,\" warned one ranking agent. The of unread paperbacks and unworn Paramount for Fox, where he becomes a Diller-Eisner formula-make 'em taut sweatshirts sitting around when the and make 'em cheap-is expected to movies bomb. partial owner. And Eisner leaves for Dis- take root at Fox and Disney, while Man- cuso and Tanen struggle to maintain This, then, reveals a tnIth: the con- ney, where he's assured he can shape standards at Paramount. Already, Diller glomerate managers haven't a clue and his production aide, Lawrence Gor- about what their Hollywood charges are Walt's legacy to his own specifications. don, are contemplating Alien II at Fox, up to. Roberto C. Goizueta, chairman of the perfect High Concept sequel. Coca-Cola, Columbia Pictures' corpo- In the midst of all the corporate exer- rate parent, admitted: \"It's really mysti- Amid all the uproar of the past few fying to me that there is this mystique cises, the entrepreneurial spirit reasserts months, one executive's demise almost about how to deal with creative talent. .. went unnoticed. While all the studio A good Coca-Cola commercial is pretty itself. heads were busy changing seats, Time much of a creative endeavor, yet it's Inc. stepped in and re-asserted control been handled by management of the Of course, unfettered by corporate over its pay-TV operation, HBO, send- company year in and year out.\" ing its leader, Frank Biondi , packing. In considerations, movie executives don't quieter times, Hollywood would have That's the problem, in a nutshell: celebrated. Biondi's concerted efforts to Coca-Cola sees Columbia's pictures as always fare all that well. The Orion buy up pay-TV rights to Hollywood pro~ nothing but big promotional opportuni- ducts, at what many claimed were anti- ties for its softdrink line. The sodas group has yet to recapture the success it competitive prices, had infuriated the aren't used to sell the pictures; the pic- moguls. While some companies, most tures are used to sell the sodas. Execu- enjoyed at UA; Ladd, free to pursue his notably Columbia, had struck deals with tives at Coke's Atlanta headquarters im- the HBO devil, others (particularly Para- mediately saw the potential in A own tastes, sunk so much money into mount) resisted. But as HBO's growth Soldier's Story: Coke doesn' t appeal all began to level off, Biondi's spendthrift that much to black tastes, so here was a expensive auteurist escapades like practices began to look increasingly film that might help remedy the situa- onerous to the bookkeepers at Time tion. Similarly, the phenomenally Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff, Ridley Inc. , who decided to apply the brakes. successful Ghostbusters is to become the The studio captains might have sympa- launching pad for a worldwide market- Scott's Bladerunner, and Sergio Leone's thized with Biondi's plight-represent- ing campaign for Coke's liquid products. ative of the familiar contest between Once Upon a Time in America that he conglomerate caution and independent The conglomerates haven't yet be- risk-taking, it was not unlike their own gun to meddle with the movies them- blew his bankroll. Arguably, Diller and - but they were too busy saving their selves. If anything, inconsistency is the own skins. only nIle that prevails. Coke, for exam- Eisner have their work cut out for them ple, footed the bills for Brian De Palma's For the moment, the New Tycoons Body Double, while across town , the in their new fiefdoms. Eisner has ambi- are just settling into their new suites. fledgling Tri-Star Pictures, in which Co- The movers are transferring files; the lumbia is a partner, backed out of pro- tious plans for a Disney revival , but he interior decorators are outfitting offices. ducing Adrian Lyne's 9112 Weeks when And then , the show once again goes on. the project began to look too racy. But will have to generate income-either by So much for quality will out. Out here even though the conglomerates cur- everyone is out. Obviously, the way to rently take a hands-off attitude toward raiding the film library that has been make money consistently in Hollywood production, reserving their undivided is to own a truck. @ attention only for the bottom line, Hol- kept under lock-and-key or by selling off lywood's executives have begun to bri- dle under their corporate overseers. some of the real-estate properties-be- The pattern, by now, has become fa- fore he can inaugurate his grand schemes. And Diller must still placate Marvin Davis, whose personal taste in movies is dangerously cornpone, if he is to recast Fox along the sleeker lines he engineered at Paramount. On the street in Hollywood , the dis- tinction between the entrepreneurial studios and the corporate companies ap- pears academic. Testifies one well- placed insider: ''I'd have to say that Ned Tanen is one of the most entrepreneur- ial bosses in Hollywood, even if he's now at Paramount, while Jeff Katzen- berg is one of the most corporate crea- tures, despite the fact that he's gone to Disney.\" • There is, however, elation at talent agencies. With Disney pledged to in- crease production, and Fox promising to forego cheap pick-ups for more in-house development, Hollywood stands to make more movies. With all the re-ener- gized studios now talking more product, film starts for '85 could climb to 130 movies, an annual increase of more than 50 percent over recent years. Seasoned observers are less ecstatic, 23

Andrzej Wajda Interviewed by Dan Yakir Over the past three decades, Andrzej Wajda has left his imprint not only on the collective consciousness of his fellow Poles, but on the nation's current history as well. His best-known film, Man of Iron (1981), was a fevered tribute to the emergent Solidarity movement. Rarely has a film carried such a double impact, as a document of Solidarity's past and a rallying cry for its brief, desperate future. But if history will remember that pic- ture as his most important, film lovers may well prefer his 1958 masterpiece, Ashes and Diamonds, which starred Po- land's answer to James Dean, Zbigniew Cybulski, as a confused young man who fights against the nascent Communist regime after the war. The same dazzling balance becween subject and style is evi- dent in at least cwo later Wajda films: Everything for SaLe (1968) , an explora- tion of the Warsaw film scene in which a Cybulski-like character (played by his heir to the angst-and-fire throne , Daniel Olbrychski) disappears, causing the opening of a celluloid Pandora's box; and the 1977 Man ofMarble , about film and politics in post-Stalinist Poland. Of his more recent films, Danton (1982) and the current A Love in Germany, from the Rolf Hochhuth novel about a forbidden love affair becween a German shop- keeper (Hanna Schygulla) and a Polish POW (Pyotr Lysak) in Nazi Germany, certainly have the literary weight they mean to convey. Not only does Wajda continue to up- hold poetic realism-the term he uses for his cinematic style even today, when the baroque landscapes of his early films have been replaced by flatter, more epic terrain-but, unlike his fellow Poles Roman Polanski, Jerzy Skolimowski, Krzysztof Zanussi, and Andrzej Zu- lawski, he still prefers to work in Poland. He is not at all embarrassed to declare that his duty is political and that some- times visual considerations come sec- ond. His upcoming project, about Janusz Korczak, the Polish educator who gave a home to a group of orphan chil- dren, many of them Jews, in the Nazi era, continues his preoccupation with the war -another subject he doesn't try to white- wash. The man has a conscience. If current events rather than film crit- ics have made Wajda, at 58, a cineaste celebrity, so much the better. Even as he works abroad he remains the hope Andrzej Wajda.

-perhaps the sole hope-of Poli sh In a country like Poland , a film- became a goal in itse lf. maker has to find ways to express these How do you see the prospects of Soli- cmema. • -0. Y. things subtly and indirectly-even though Man of Iron was remarkably straightfor- darity these days? In A Love in Germany, unlike your ward. Do you consider this a challenge? The situation in Poland now is very other films , you depict the other side of Yes, but it also co mpli ca tes th e life of hard to defi ne. We're in a state of flu x. the arti st a nd makes art he rm e tic. We We' re waiting to see what will happe n. fascism-its emergence in the lives of av- communi ca te with each othe r in a lan- The key to the Polish question li es o ut- guage th at is und e rstand able o nl y to our- sid e of us; o nl y exte rn al c hanges co uld erage people, as opposed to its systemic se lves . Art is a uni versal lang uage, so bring about changes in Poland . thi s is obviously unh ea lth y. But th e n , manifestations. we don ' t exactl y find o urselves in a What response do your films get in the healthy situ atio n. We , Polish filmma- Soviet Union? Yes. In order to ex ist, a totalitarian kers, fee l that it's o ur vocation to make film s that nobody e lse co uld make for The las t few weren't s how n th e re, but system has to be totally unified and uni- us. To have the m sho\\ovn e lsew he re is I know I have m any adm ire rs there , and I think my pictures also spoke to the form- every e le me nt, every indi vidu al A Love in Germany. people th e re. second ary. mu st submit to it. The syste m has to be • In this case, perhaps then Danton and able to loo k into the kitche n and bed- A Love in Germany, in spite of their non- What do you work with ? What inspires Polish identity, were meant for Polish au- you? room of the individu al in order to be diences, who were expected tofind in them specific references to their country? A director has only two options: to e ffecti ve. Without an e ne my to mobilize make films about what he sees arou nd Danton more so than A Love in Ger- him or to focus on hi s own c rea ti vity and the people against, the sys tem can't cre- many, and it was received in this way in deal incessantl y with him se lf. I ma ke Pol and. It was shown everywhe re and film s for a reaso n , about some thing that ate unity. So it creates the enemy. Here , the people understood what it wanted to people are preoccupied with , so methin g say. People ask me if D anto n represe nts of import. When I have something to it's the Polish POW, who obviously can't Walesa and Robes pi e rre th e regime. It's say, I try to say it using differe nt kind s of more complicated than th at. The public mate ri al-be it The Birch Wood or Land- threaten th e sys te m-all he does is saw a machine th at destro yed its people scape After Battle or Man of Marble or out of fea r of the future. They saw a Danton . It does n't start with me, but sleep with a German woman!-who situati on where the struggle for powe r with what goes o n out the re . serves th e purpose. Still, your sensibility is highly personal. When do you feel you came closest to Befo re, I co uld onl y examine the im- expressing yourself through the material? pact of totalitarianism on th e victims. I'd say in Everything for Sale and Without Anesthesia, even if th ey don't Now I wa nted to show it from th e Ger- see m my mos t impo rtant film s. I find myse lf at my most perso nal when there's man side , whi ch I find inte resting. I a situation I want to escape from . That's w he n I start afresh , from scratch . wa nted to show evil , so it doesn't hap- What were you trying to escape from in pe n aga in . I think it's as impo rtant and as these cases? re leva nt as eve r, because totalitarianism I made Everything for Sale because I was in a very diffic ult situ ation at the keeps be in g rebo rn in different forms. time. After the success of my first three pictures, which m ade me well-known, I ilic/uding, perhaps. in Poland itself, as made several film s th at were setbacks for m e. Innocent Sorcerers, Samson , you showed in l\\ lan of Iron ? Siberian Lady Macbeth , The Gates ofPar- adise ... They didn ' t do well , and I Yes , mostl y durin g th e Stalinist pe- decid ed th at in seeking to start afres h, I needed to draw upon myself. It was nat- riod . I be lieve o ne has to fi ght aga in st ural for me to make a film abo ut film- making-about my own proble ms, a n y co n straints, a nyw h e re-eve ry- about who I am, what I speak about, and to whom. whe re the state tries to rei gn ove r the Without Anesthesia was a different indi vidual. matte r. I made it at a time w hen th e regime reali zed that othe r autho rities - Do you see any hope for personal and s uc h as th e a uthority of a rt- we re threa te ning it, so it had to und e rmine artistic freedom in Eastern Europe- the m all in o rder to assert its own . S ud- de nl y, there was no lon ge r a social life in especially Poland-given the existing sit- the department of th e unive rsity where I taught. I had to react against it. uation there? It's m y co untry and I try to earn the possibili ty to work th e re with the free- dom th at I absolute ly have to have. Doesn' t it entail constant struggle against the system , which isn' t necessarily sympathetic, given the critical nature of many ofyourfilms? Of course, but thi s is also m y duty. After all, freedom , no less than con- straint, depe nds on the people-on how much they are willing to live with. From your own experience, has any of your films affected the people in a real political way, and maybe expanded free- dom a little bit? I have to say yes, because if I didn ' t believe that this was true , I wouldn't have the strength and the courage to make such films . I think the most obvi- ous impact was achieved by Man of/ron . The essence of a political film is in speaking about what is unspoken ; in ex- posing what is concealed; in unveiling the realities behind the events. 25

But some times I like to sta rt from In what way were films like Innocent the m was just as good. scratch simply to keep up with th e audi- Sorce re rs and Sa mson a decline in your H e re prese nte d a ge ne rati o n fo r e nce. I've been maki ng film s fo r 30 creativity ? years, and a lot has changed in th e wo rld whom life was a gift, a miracle. 01- since the n, es pecially the mov iegoing Innocent Sorcerers could have been a b rychski , on the othe r hand , belongs to a pu blic. A director making film s in littl e- much more inte resting film , give n the generation that sports a complex about known languages in small co untri es, fac t that the mate rial was new- at the not hav ing li ved throu gh the wa r - who needs recognition from abroad in tim e, nobody had made a film about the about miss in g the most important event orde r to survive, is especially vulne rable new generation. But I didn ' t have good in mode rn Poli sh histo ry. H e was born in in thi s res pect. actors. T hose I knew we re a ge ne rati on a cellar in Warsaw durin g a bombard- too old . So me body like Cy bulski or me nt and was two yea rs old whe n th e How do you keep up to date with the even Skolimowski should have played war e nded . Afte r the war, the other ma- audience? the lead. It cou ld have rea ll y bee n a jor eve nt was Stalinism; but his gene ra- surpnse. tion lived in the shadow of the prev ious I think about the audi e nce as I think one. abo ut myself. It is ne ith e r more nor less Afte r I fini shed th e film , it was inte lli gent than I am , ne ithe r bette r nor she lved for a yea r and re leased only afte r What came after Stalinism as a subject wo rse. T his is how I can see myself as a many changes we re made in it. It's in PoLish cinema? de legate of the pu bl ic. amazing to what exte nt the authoriti es found th e film shocking: I had to cut a Solidarity. O f course, it's only been a O f co urse, the re are a lot of coinci- shot in which the hero turn s on a ste reo short pe riod and not too many film s de nces-both lucky and unlucky. I was with his foot. It was totally unacce pta- could be made about it, but it will con'- pre paring Danton for seve ral yea rs, but ble: in a socialist country, whe re such a had I made it, as I wa nted to, fi ve or six luxury ite m was th e very purpose of life, tinue to inspire. Krzystof Kies lowski 's yea rs ago, the F re nch public wouldn ' t you simply co uldn 't show such noncha- new film , which is yet to be released , is have acce pted it at all. Fo rtunate ly, it lance! It was inte rpreted as a critiq ue of a about it- it's titled Happy Elld. was re leased whe n F rance became so- view of th e wo rld , of the future itself. cialist and F rench soc iety beca me d i- How do your projects come into being? vided ove r the infiltration of sociali sm The two actors I associate most closely For examp Le, Ma n of larble. in to da il y li fe-so a fi lm abo ut th e with your work are Zbigniew Cybulski and F re nch Revolution proved provoca ti ve; Daniel Olbrychski. Let's talk about them . After I re turn ed fro m Yu gos lavia, it trigge red disc uss ions. T he film itse lf whe re I made such fa ilures as Gates of became a participating vo ice in the d is- Cybulski , more than any othe r actor, Paradise, I decid ed to start from scratch cuss ion. It aroused rea l pass ions. re prese nted hi s gene ration. H e created - yet again . O nce aga in , it was a film himself in such a prec ise manne r that about filmm aking, take n from a true •Your earlyfilms helped create the Polish yo u co uldn ' t di stingui sh betwee n his story. I hea rd about a brickl ayer who was film work and hi s rea l self. H e wore his a hero in Stalin's days, but was late r School. How was it born and how is it own skin all the time. It was impossible une mployed and couldn ' t find work . manifested through thesefilms? to have him wear a d iffe re nt costume T hu s the subject began to e me rge. Ac- and make him play so mebody e lse. But tu all y, it ca me up before Everything fo r It had a natural birth , fo r two reasons. these were exte rn al characte ristics. In- Sale, b ut I was n' t allowed to shoot it for O ne was that th e d irecto rs coul dn' t he lp side, what was bea utiful was his sense of e leven years, so I made the othe r one but ma ke film s about the ir sole expe ri - res ponsibili ty to th e public, which I instead . e nce- the war. T he oth e r was Polish never saw an)\".vhe re e lse. I wo rked with lite rature, which also focused on th e wa r him twice in the th ea te r-we did A Hat- What went wrong with Gates of Para- and th e re by beca me our all y. T he wa r Jul ofRain and Two for the Seesaw, and I was not only the mos t im portant event mus t say, he was born for thi s mate rial. in th e li ves of peo ple like myse lf or An- In one pe rform ance of A Hatfiil ofRain in d rzej M unk b ut also fo r write rs like Jerzy C racow, in a th ea te r whe re he once had walk-on pa rts, he we nt on the stage and Andrzejewski [Ashes and Diamonds1and sta rte d ac ti ng. T he n he s udd e nl y stopped and said , \"Excuse me, I made a Borows ki . Eve n if we did n' t ac tu ally mista ke.\" And he bega n th e play once draw upon Polish lite rature, it provided aga in. No othe r actor would dare do such us with a helpful backgro und. a thing, but he fe lt he had a right to it. H e had a fa ntas tic im agination. T he war was so te rrib le th at I fe lt it co uld be bes t desc ribed through doc u- You kn ow, he was practically blind , so me ntari es. T he fac ts were so te rri b le his eyes we re express ionless. T his is that to fi ctionalize the m was difficult. why a close- up of his face wo uld revea l H oweve r, since our artistic and lite rary very little. H e atte mpted to compe nsate trad iti ons are ro mantic, the doc ume n- for this by move me nt, by using his sil- tary ele me nt appea ring in our film s soo n houe tte. In Ashes and Diamonds, th e re was ble nded with fi ction. T he baroq ue are scenes whe re his legs are th e mos t images, th e bitte r iro ni es, th e ro manti- important thing in the frame-as seen cism of m y fil ms we re all crea ted by th e in hi s silhoue tte . Directors who didn 't Polish Schoo l. unde rstand all that wo uld not be abl e to convey what was special about him in But the Polish Schoo l ca me to an e nd, the ir fil m, eve n though his wo rk for beca use it neve r found a new subj ect th ro ugh which it co uld evo lve and trans- form itsel f furth e r. T he nex t subj ect for Polish cine ma was Stalini sm . 26

dise? su rpri sing. It's on ly natural. Cinema It's always difficult to make a film Don't you believe in transcending Studies: with fore ign acto rs in a strange co untry. cultural differences? Look at Milos For- An education The acto rs we re British, we shot in for our tiIne Yugoslavia-anCl on top of th at, th e man . ... script was extreme ly poetic, with blurry That's different. I like what Form an Film is the art fonn that defines our contours. It just didn't wo rk . time. Films by Eisenstein, Bergman, contributed to Ame rican cinema. One and Fassbinder, for instance, offer pen- You've worked in France, Germany Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest couldn 't etrating insights into human behavior, ... How do you like working abroad? have existed without him . And Wim cultural change, life as we live it and Wenders' Paris, Texas co uldn ' t have perceive it At New York University's I work abroad only whe n I have to. I been made by any America n director. Tisch School of the Arts, we believe don't do it glad ly, because I know how the study of film develops analytic difficult it is to make something th at Perhaps Danton couldn 't have been skills, hones critical thinking, and makes sense. Actors, espec iall y, ca n de- made by anybody else in France. broadens perspectives. It offers under- stroya film that's made abroad. A bunch graduates superb preparation for many ofacto rs manifes tin g diffe rent styles pre- I think you' re right [laughs]. French of life's callings. vent a director from unifyin g th e project, directors don' t believe that film should and the resu lt is ofte n so mething artifi- say some thing serious-they think a se- Our program in cinema studies cial. Then you dub th em to ge t one rious subj ect makes a film pretentious. allows undergraduates to study film language, which takes half the ir sou l They we re baffied by me. with the same distinguished scholars who teach our graduate students. The What's new with your Janusz Korczak department's film archives, variety of project? courses , and viewing facilities are exceptional. And, students have access I' ve wa nted to make it for two yea rs to all the film screenings that make now, and I hope to start before th e yea r New York City the richest film center is ove r. I hope I'll get th e go-ahead. I'd in the world. like to make an entirely Polish film . Because film is a truly interdisciplin- Agni eszka Holl and wrote a very good ary art fonn, the program includes the . script abou t the las t period of hi s life. study of related subjects: art, history, The film begins in the summ e r of 1939, psychology, and even film production. when he and the children are on vaca- As a result, our students get a broadly tion, unawa re of th e horrors yet to come. based education as they undertake a When they are take n to the ghetto , he serious study of cinema fi ghts to keep th em ali ve. But he has a dil emma: he has always taught th em to For more infonnation, return the be dece nt, hones t, and not steal-but coupon below or call (212) 598-7777. sudd e nl y they find th emselves in a A scene from Man ofIron. world whe re cheating and stea ling are prerequisites for surviva l. What is he to away. • do: save their so ul s or th eir bodies? Sin ce he can't save th e ir li ves anyway, he You' re the only major Polish filmmaker chooses th eir so ul s. He cemen ts the wi ndows faci ng the ghetto, to isolate who prefers to stay at home: Polanski, them from it. And he refuses to save his own life, which is offered to him , and Skolimowski, Zanussi, alld Zulawski ha ve prefers to die with his pupils. What kind of a teacher would he be had he left all left. them at such a moment? Polanski is a case apa rt. From the very Since we don' t kn ow exactl y how TIsch School of the Arts Admissions they died -the re we re no witnesses- beginning, he neve r intend ed to re main the film will end with a poetic image, New York University I which would change it almos t into a leg- P.O. Box 909, Cooper Station in Poland . He onl y made hi s first film end. We'll see the kids on a train, when New York, N.Y. 10276 I sudd enl y the las t car is sepa rated from there so as to use it as a sp ringboa rd th e rest until it slow ly stops. It's a sunny I day, and the kid s find th emselves in a I toward making film s abroad. wheat field with Korczak. They start Please send information on the cinema studies I wa lking into it until they simply disso lve program . As forthe others, I don't think they've into the fi eld. o undergraduate 0 graduate made better film s abroad th an they did Maybe there's more inspiration in look- ing backfor subject matter than in looking I in Poland . This is tru e aboll t Zanussi at the present? IName and definite ly abo ut Zulawski. With It's difficult to make something today that is rea ll y ... I keep lookin g for sub- Skolimowski, it depends. Deep End is jects I could make in Poland , but I also I have others th at I intend to shoot else- wonderful, but I prefer Bariera and whe re. For example, I'd like to do The I Possessed in France, with Ge rard De- Hands Up! to th e oth ers made else- I ICity/StatclZip where. I think th ese filmm akers are I INew York Univenity i. an offinnative lCIionIoquaJ oppor1IInity awa re of this th emselves - and it's not _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _L~~ ..!.c~~ 27

pardieu . What influences on your work do you that have to be said and things that can What was it like working with actors acknowledge? You once mentioned ELia be shown. I also try to look at as many Kazan , Orson Welles, and even FrQ/u;ois documentary materials as I can-photo- such as Gerard Depardieu and Hanna Truffaut . graphs, documents, from which I go on Schygulla ? to reconstruct the story's reality. I can't There were many . .. . Early on in stress enough how important this is. Easy. They're both great-they only my career, I was influenced by Italian The scene in which Hanna Schygulla is need to be accepted. There's no better neo-realism, by people like De Sica, made to carry a sign saying \"Pole Lover\" way to work with them than through Giuseppe De Santis. I think that Ashes is based on a true life photo, as is the one discu ssion and friendship. They need to and Diamonds was influenced mostly by in which a child licks a lollipop with a play for somebody who acce pts them. I the American noir films such as Scarface swastika. When I show that the hang- do. They both have an immense vital- and The Asphalt Jungle . They were man of Stani is to be another Pole, and ity; they give all of themselves, creating beautiful film s. I think thatMan ofMar- that his reward for the execution is to be the most minute details . Since the sc ript bLe also bears the influence of American three cigarettes-it's all tnle. I found is never completely rea dy-some cinema. plenty of documents , mostly type- scenes and bits of dialogue always have written SS orders, which confirmed ev- to be changed- there's a struggle with Man of Marble was very strong vi- erything that Hochhuth wrote. the material , and we do it together. suaLLy, with flamboyant camera move- ments, while in Man ofIron, the camera is On A Love in Germany, I decided to • much Less important-perhaps because make the film in the place where the story actually took place. I then went You keep mentioning the need of actors r there in person and discovered a beauti- to be accepted. Maybe that's why they • ful , tranquil place that contrasted with become actors. Is there a parallel here? its mildness the dramatic content of the Did you become a director in order to be -P\\ olenI - film . I wanted that effect. accepted? Hanna SchyguLLa in A Love in Germany. What about camera movements? I don ' t think so. A director has to we are watching history in the making . I tried to move it only when it was believe in himself, since he's in charge, absolutely necessary. In Danton, too, I and not expect the acceptance ofothers. Right. It was something so close to us needed a cool camera which will observe that my role was simply to note what had the fervor of the revolution that imbued Yes, but the reason for wanting to make happened. It seemed more important the people. The frame had to be very films . .. than the notion of cinema. tranquil in order to show the abruptness of the protagonists. I tried to have the I want to make those movies that no- To styLize the subject would have been to camera always at eye level and to use bod y ca n make for me. I like going to trivialize it? one lens, without jumping from long movies , but there are some films nobody shots to close-ups, so as not to add any else can make. So I do that .... Exactly. I couldn't have made it if I expressions of any kind, so as to leave it were to consider stylistic elements . I When did you realize that you wanted to think one should make many films in objective. The jolting had to come from direct? And why films? one's life-and there are subjects that the acting alone. . demand immediacy. IfI had stopped to Lack of character, maybe. I wanted think it over, I would have lost my cour- As opposed to Everything for Sale. very much to be a painter, but it requires age. Man ofIron should have been made At that time , they started using the an extraordinary faith in oneself, while rega rdless of its cinematic merit. zoom lens for features. The long lens, imposing great loneline ss . . . . You the fuzz y colors ... all these were have to be invincible, and I wasn't that How do you reconcile such literary quite original then, so I played with strong. So I became a director-I still properties as Danton and A Love in Ger- them. Claude Lelouch was the first to could deal with images, and it was much man y with visual decisions? use all this in A Man and A Woman. He easier. And there were people around played with the camera like a child. me . There are obstacles, of course, so I try to divide the material into things Are you an optimist? Or maybe it's im- the sea rch to lend something the mean- possible to be both Polish and optimistic at ing it should have does involve anguish. the same time ? But it's nothing compared with the lone- I must admit that I do feel optimistic liness of a poet or a writer or a painter. on the basis ofthe events that took place two years ago: Solidarity marked such an What kind ofchildhood did you have? awa kening of Polish society after so My childhood resembles the nine- many years of apathy that ... I believe teenth century. I was rai sed in a hu ge that these magnificent people, with garrison that housed a cavalry brigade, to their new self-awareness, will prevail. which my father belonged. In the win- Do I hear echoes ofthe same romantic, ter, we could ski-it all looked like a heroic tradition ofPolish literature in your scene from a John Ford movie. In 1939, words? this whole Chekhovian image of a slow I think so. The tradition is still alive. existence that is remote from the rest of Outside of the reality of our country, we the world simply dissolved. still retain the image of the country we'd You said once that you made films to like to have: it's a better system, a better compensatefor experiences that you didn't country. ~ have in real life . Yes. My war experience was limited . I was in a concentration camp , so I couldn't take part in the Warsaw ghetto uprising, so it was natural for me to want to see it on the screen . 28



David Denby is David Denby it according to a tactic developed by Andrea Dworkin, film critic for author of Pornography: Men Possessing Women, and New York maga- Over the yea rs , I've seen and enjoyed my share of Catherine A. MacKinnon, a visiting law professor at zine. pornography, but I ca n' t say that I've spe nt much time the University of Minnesota. On December 30. 1983, thinking about it as a legal iss ue or a social phenome- the Minneapolis city council passed an anti-pornogra- non. I know that a few people-women , mostl y- phy amendment to an already-existing civil-rights or- have written thou ghtfully about porn , but I sus pect dinance; it was vetoed by Mayor Donald Fraser on that a great man y other participants in the pornogra- January 8, but in Indianapolis a similar ordinance was phy \"debate\" (which seems to have gone on for about passed in April and signed into law. So far the law two hundred yea rs) have overstated the importance of has been successfully challenged by the ACLU, et. their subject as a way of justifying an obsession . I al. in federal district court, after Judge Sarah Evans adhe re to the movie critic's consensus, which , I be- Barker found it unconstitutional. Appeals are ex- lieve, goes something like this: The camera's inti- pected all the way to the Supreme Court. macy with its subject makes movies the most glori- ously sensual of all art forms ; the filmmaker may not In a paper presented to the Minneapolis city coun- be capable of creating the psychology of sex with the cil and reprinted , in an edited version, in the Spring/ same detail as the novelist, but he can certainly dram- Summer issue (Vol. VI, No. 1) of Women Against atize better than anyone the dynamics of attraction Pornograph y's Newsreport, Dworkin and MacKinnon and lust, the lure of fantasy, the tactile splendor of layo ut the ideological underpinnings. A few excerpts: flesh. \"The influence of pornography on men who rule Movies need eroticism the way grass needs rain. societies, and thus on the development of misogynist Movie directors should be free to go as far into sex as social institutions, can be traced back through feudal- they want, even though there's no way of protecting ism , but it is only through relativel y recent technology the legal rights of artists without also protecting the th at the social environment has been glutted with rights of pornographers. The ending of restrictions on pornography so that it hurts women openly, publicly, free erotic expression in the Sixties had to be wel- and with social legitimacy... . Pornography promotes comed as a gain for movies. Without it, Belle de Jour, environmental terrori sm and private abuse of women Frenzy, Last Tango in Paris, Dressed to Kill, and First and girls. Society's efforts toward the civil and sexual Name: Carmen would have been impossible. The equality of women and men are severely hampered- overwhelming mass of dreck that plays in big-city frankl y, nearl y destroyed-by the success of pornog- tenderloins everywhere (and increasingly, thanks to raphy. Most frequently, pornography promotes pain , video-cassettes, in our homes) would have been im- rape, humiliation., and inferiority as experiences that possible too, but that was an inevitable part of the are sexually pleasing to all women because we are bargain. If you want Belle de Jour to play freel y, then women....\" you have to put up with Thc//\" She Blows playing freely. Now, look to the text of the ordinance (page 31 ). Dworkin and MacKinnon have defined pornography Thus the high-minded critical view. But recentl y in such a way as to leave men out of it altogether my complacency on the subject of porn has been except as producers and consumers. Are we to as- shaken, first by the insistence of large numbers of sume, for instance , that only the female performer in a women (and not just lesbian separatists and anti-porn live sex show is degraded ? Some of the \"scenarios\" of feminists) that the mere existence of pornography pornograph y are not so clear on the question of who is frightens and oppresses them , and second by the dominating whom. Is it unimaginable that men might potential transformation of that mood into laws that be exploited in pornographic films or debased by the could wipe away all the freedom s that we take exhibition of the films-or are men already so vicious, for granted in the arts. The work of Lenn y Bruce, animalistic, and cruel that any further degradation is Charles Rembar, and many others wiped out in a few by definition impossible? What do the anti-porn femi- yea rs! It's possible. In a second Reagan Administra- ni sts make of gay male pornography, which is now tion, a broad coalition of anti-porn feminists and almost as plentiful as the straight variety? Dworkin Moral Majoritarians could turn out to be tremen- and MacKinnon are far more patronizing than the dously powerful. That coalition has already achieved Christian missionaries of the 19th century: Appar- success in Indianapolis and is on the verge of success ently, men are so savage that they have no souls to in Suffolk County, New York; comparable legi slation save. is pending in about ten more major urban areas. And the image of women implied by some of these Can a mood, a metaphor, a feeling serve as the basis phrases is a little confusing. \"Inviting penetration,\" in of law ?That is the issue rai sed by the new approach to normal English, is called asking a man to make love to pornography developed by the anti-porn feminists. you. So consensual sex, as well as rape, is porn. Sexual (For the record, I do not mean to cast \" feminists \" as intercourse itself seems to be the enemy here. the fall girls here-only certain feminists . The anti- anti-porn position-what else can one call it?-has Dworkin and MacKinnon have seized on the most been argued with great brilliance by the radical femi- violent types of pornography and pretended that all nist Ellen Willis in her essay \"Feminism , Moralism, pornograph y is ofthatcharacter. They generalize from and Pornography,\" reprinted in Willis' book, Begin- the extreme case-the films in which women are tied ning to See the Light.) The anti-porn forces , tired of up and beaten or worse. What of the ordinary dirty fighting the First Amendment, decided to circumvent movie, the straight, non-violent, organ-grinding pro- grammer? The orgy films? The oral-love festivals? For that matter, what about the genre of pseudo-lesbian 30

AN ORDINANCE ofthe CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS The City Council ofthe City of Minneapo- shown as filth y or inferi or, bl eeding, been th ought to have had, sexual rela- lis do ordain asfollows: bruised , or hurt in a context that makes tions with anyo ne, including anyone in- Special findin gs on pornography : The these conditions sexual. volved in or related to the making of th e Council finds that pornography is central (2) The use of me n, childre n, or trans- pornograph y; or in creating and maintaining the civil ineq- sexuals in the pl ace of wome n is pornog- • that th e pe rso n has prev iously posed uality of the sexes. Pornography is a sys- raphy. . .. for sexuall y explicit pictures for or with tematic practice of exploitation alld subor- {The ordinance defines its violation as:] anyone, including anyone in vo lved in or dination based on sex which differentially re lated to the making of the pornogra- harms women . The bigotry and contempt Discrimination by trafficking in por- ph y at iss ue; or it promotes. with the acts of aggression it nography. The production, sale, exhibi- • that anyone else, including a spouse or f osters . harm women's opportunities f or tion , or distribution of pornography is oth e r re lati ve, has given permi ssion on equality of rights in employment. educa- discrimination against women by means the pe rson's be half; or tion . property rights. public accommoda- of trafficking in pornography: • that the pe rson actually conse nted to a tions and public services; create public • C ity, state, and fede rally fund ed pub- use of th e pe rformance that is changed harassment and private denigration; pro- lic libraries or pri vate and public univer- into pornograph y; or mote injury and degradation such as rape. sity and co ll ege librari es in which por- barrery alld prostitution and inhibit just no g ra ph y is ava il a bl e fo r s tud y, • that th e pe rson knew that the purpose enforcement of laws against these acts; including on ope n she lves, shall not be of the acts or events in ques tion was to contribute significantly to restricting construed to be traffi cking in pornogra- make pornograph y; or women from full exercise of citizenship phy but special displ ay presentations of and participation in public life. including pornography in said pl aces is sex di s- • th at the pe rson showed no res istance in neighborhoods; damage relations be- crimination. or appeare d to cooperate acti ve ly in th e tween the sexes; and undermine women' s • The form ation of private clubs or asso- photographic sess ion s or in the sexual equal exercise of rights to speech and ciation s for purposes of traffickin g in events that produced the pornography; action guaranteed to all citizens under the pornograph y is illega l and will be consid- or constitutions and laws ofthe United States e red a conspiracy to violate the civil and the state of Minnesota . rights of women . • that the pe rson signed th e contract, or made state me nts affirmin g a willingness (The ordinance further delineates what • Any woman has a cause of acti on he re- to coope rate in the production of pm- falls within its definition. as f ollows:] unde r as a wo man acting aga inst the nography; or subordination of wome n. Any man or • th at no ph ys ica l force , threa ts, o r (1 ) Pornograph y is the sexually expli- transsexual who alleges inju ry by por- weapons we re used in the makin g of the cit subordination of women, graphically nography in the way women are injured pornography; or d e picted, wh e ther in pictures or in by it will also have a ca use of action. word s, that also includ es one or more of • that th e pe rson was paid or othe rwise the followin g: Coercion into pornographic peiform- compe nsated . ances . Any pe rson , including transsex- • wom e n are presented dehumanized as ual, who is coerce d , intimid ated , or Forcing pornography on a person . Any sexual obj ects, things or commoditi es; or fraudulentl y indu ced (he reafte r, \"co- woman, man, child, or transsexual who e rced\" ) into pe rforming for pornography has pornograph y forced on him/he r in • wome n are presented as sex ual objects shall have a ca use of action aga in st the any place of e mployme nt, in education, who e njoy pain or humili ation; or make r(s), selle r(s), exhibitor(s) or di s- in a home, or in any public pl ace has a • women are presented as sex ual objects tributor(s) of said pornography for dam- ca use of action aga in st th e pe rpe trator who ex peri ence sexual pleasure in be ing ages and for th e e limination of the pro- and/or institution. raped ; or ducts of the pe rform ance(s) from the public view. {A ctionable f or fi ve years Assault or physical arrack due to por- • women are presented as sexual objects after last sale or peiformance .j nography. Any wo man, man, child , or tied up or cut up or mutilated or bruised {The follo wing conditions do not negate a transsexual who is assaulted , ph ysically or physica ll y hurt; or findin g ofcoercion:} attacked or injured in a way th at is di- • that the pe rson is a woman; or rectl y ca used by specific pornography • women are presented in postures of • that the pe rson is or has bee n a prosti- has a cl aim for d amages aga inst the pe r- sexual s ubmi ss ion ; or tute; or pe trator, th e make r(s), distributor(s), • wome n's body parts-including but seller(s ), and/o r exhibitor(s) , and for an not limited to vaginas, breasts, and but- • that the pe rson has attained th e age of injunction aga inst the specific pornogra- tocks-are exhibited , such that wome n maJonty; or phy's furth e r exhibition , di stribution, o r are reduced to those parts; or • that the person is connected by blood sale ... . [Not applicable to material ante- • women are presented as whores by or marriage to anyo ne involved in or re- dating the ordinance ]. nature; or lated to the making of the pornography; or D ef enses . .. It shall not be a de- • women are presented be ing pe ne - fe nse that the defendant did not trated by objects or animal s; or • th at the pe rson has prev iously had , or know or intend that th e materials • women are presented in scen arios of were pornograph y or sex discrimina- degradation , injury, abasement, torture, tion. 31

porn for straight men? Since women in such film s are and in any other city that adopts a similar ordinance, a masterpiece like Bunuel's Belle de Jour could be shown not longing to be dominated by men but only banned . Here is a movie about a woman who fanta- sizes violation and bondage and beatings and who as longing to make love to other women, are they stiil then works in a brothel. It's not graphic in the same way as a hardcore movie, but it certainly shows a \" prese nted dehumanized as sexual objects\"? woman who, in the terms of Dworkin-MacKinnon, \"is presented as a sexual object who enjoys pain or Impli cit in this whole approach is the uneq ui voca l humiliation.\" Needless to say, De Palma's Dressed to Kill, in which a woman fantasizes violation in a shower assumption that pornography causes sexual assaults. to keep her interest alive when her husband makes love to her, could also be banned. I've made no study of th e researc h literature, but of No law can possibly take account of the complex those studies I've heard about the most damning strategies of representation, the ambiguities ofsympa- thy and malice, the subversive wit and sheer physical suggest that violent pornograph y causes an increased beauty that make these two films , in different ways, so intensely pleasurable as art. As far as this law is willingness to commit violence in some men who have concerned, they both violate the civil rights of all women by showing two individual women as crea- a predisposition to violence. Such men have been tures of perverse sexual temperament. At the same time , of course, while Dressed to Kill and Belle de Jour shown dirty movies in test conditions, but who knows became aesthetic desaparecidos, another theater could show gay S-M movies (fistfucking, whips, what else might set them off? In any case, the ordi- chains, the works) with impunity. This ordinance could have consequences for Indianapolis that the city nance, based on fear and loathing,can only lead to a council never imagined. legal miasma. How is a human rights commission or But enough of Dworkin and MacKinnon. People who know a little law a'ssure me that the ordinance court supposed to prove that an act ofsexual violence doesn't have a chance of standing up against a serious court challenge. Let us hope. In the meantime, a few has been \"directly caused by a specific piece of por- concluding points: nography\"? A rapist may keep piles ofdirty magazines 1) I don ' t think pornography is entirely harmless. Even if a clear-cut connection between pornography by his bed. But is rape an act so hard to imagine that a and sexual crimes can never be proved, one can object to pornography simply because the sheer amount man would need to be inspired by a representation of it of it mucks up the already squalid landscape of our cities. Here the problem is not books or even movies , in order to think of committing it? but magazines and newspapers, which flow over the front and sides of every newsstand and cover the The medieval peasants who thought it their hus- counters of local candy stores. A 10 year-old girl enter- ing a store to buy a chocolate bar is confronted by a bandly right to beat their wives never saw Debbie Does magazine cover with a picture ofa woman sticking her ass out and the headline, \"The Joys of Anal Sex.\" I Dallas; the young men of the Red Army who raped would say that the cover, encountered in a candy store, is a violation not of the girl's civil rights but of women in almost incredible numbers while \"liberat- her privacy. She didn' t seek it out, and she may be a little barned or frightened-not damaged for life, but ing\" Eastern and Central Europe in 1944-45 probably just a little frightened by what she sees. But what should we do? Pass a law banning sex magazines from saw little or no pornography when growing up in the candy stores? No, certainly not, for if we do, what is to stop the store owner from removing The Village Voice puritanical Soviet Union. Obviously the whole struc- (for instance) the week it does a cover on a recent sex murder? The only thing to do is picket the store: We ture of a given society as well as specific situations of don't buy your chocolate bars until you put Screw somewhere in the back. stress or license create the willingness to commit an 2) Apart from urban pollution, pornography has assault on women. Pornography cannot be the other bad effects. Those who become addicted to it suffer a graying of the soul, and perhaps even a blunt- \"cause\" of sexual violence. Indeed, it is just as credi- ing of the sexual drive that makes us fully human. In one respect, pornography is like the occult: It has ble to think of porn as a catharsis, as a social pressure some power, and you probably sl)ouldn't muck around with it. People can easily become obsessed, valve. • and porn is a stupid thing to become obsessed with. The anti-porn feminists have indeed been degraded One could argue with almost every aspect of the new approach to anti-porn legislation, but instead I would like to call attention to the assumptions behind the laws-the odd mixture of paranoia, illogic, and sheer obsession by which pornography becomes not merely ugly, not merely the cause of sexual assault, but the linchpin in an entire system of oppression. The thinking, somewhat circular, goes like this: 1) We live in a patriarchy in which men hold all the cards and women are second-class citizens; 2) pornography, which consists entirely of images degrading to women, is produced by men for an audience of men ; 3) the men who consume pornography control women in the office, at home, and everywhere else; 4) por- nography either creates or reinforces an image of women as creatures demanding to be sexually domi- nated by men; 5) men convey these attitudes to other men and pass them down to their sons; 6) men use their pornography-derived attitudes to terrorize and demean women in both sexual and non-sexual situa- tions; 7) the mere existence of pornography, there- fore, makes women second-class citizens and is a violation of their civil rights. There may not be much sense in this progression of \"thought,\" but if you are a woman obsessed with pornography, such an analysis certainly lends gran- deur to your obsession. The anti-porn forces have found the key to the universe. Meanwhile, what im- mediate threat do they pose? Well, in Indianapolis, 32

by pornography, though not in the way they think. men would find them a turn-on too. The anti-porn Pornography seems to have overwhelmed their sense pornographers could cause a small revolution. At the of reality-I think you could say they have a porno- very least they would eradicate once and for all the graphic sense of reality. Images of domination and irresistible suspicion that the real enemy of the anti- submission flash through their lurid prose as fre- porn movement is not violence, not pornography, but quently as neon lights on the Vegas strip. Their style sexuality itself. of argument, in its lack of shading, distinction , nu- ance, its dependency on fantasy, its abhorrence of Alan M. Dershowitz common sense, reflects the brutally reductive world of pornographic fiction and movies. I have already men- tioned their tendency to generalize from extreme Brian De Palma poses a real dilemma for feminist cases. In addition, there is their amazing unwilling- censors. By focusing their censorial wrath on \"pornog- ness to distinguish between fantasy and act. After all, raphy,\" these feminists have made their Faustian pact almost all of us fantasize doing things or having things with the devil-the Reverend Jerry Falwell and his done to us that we would not do or have done to us in gang of Moral Majoritarians. The pact is this: although life. We all have \"pornographic\" fantasies, but only a there is little reliable evidence that non-violent por- few of us bridge the gap between fantasy and act. The nography-couples explicitly making love-causes anti-porn feminists show not the slightest interest in violence against women, the only way of putting to- the social and psychological conditions that lead some gether an effective censorship coalition is to agree that Alan M. Dersho- witz is professor men and women across the bridge while a great many pornography is the villain. In that way the feminist of law, Harvard Law School, and others stay safely on the side of fantasy. censors can join forces with their arch enemies, the author of The Be s t Defense, Like many women, they are frightened by the Moral Majority, and decry the evils of pornography. published by Random House. amount of violence directed against women in our Reverend Falwell has been keeping his end of the society. And who can blame them? The rape statistics pact; he now condemns pornography not only as im- alone are terrifying. But I don't think we should be morality and godlessness, but also as \"violence against afraid to suggest that in their panic the anti-porn forces women\" (an issue he was never very big on before the are grasping at straws. Pornography has become ... dirty deal was struck). well, it's become their whipping boy. As Brian De If the feminist censors had limited their attack to Palma said in FILM COMMENT (October 1984), \"The violent (or sexist) films, they would have had diffi- history of radical movements in this country has been culty with Falwell, many of whose constituents thrive that the media addresses itself to the minor issues on violence (and sexism) of all kinds . The shortsight- because there's no way they can deal with the major edness here is evidenced when you scratch just a bit ones.\" below the surface of the alliance and discover that the I think B. Ruby Rich was right when she said, in a very next group-after pornographers-on the Moral brilliant Village Voice article (\"Anti-Porn: Soft Issue, Majority's hit list are the feminists, especially of the Hard World,\" July 20, 1982) that feminists should stop Andrea Dworkin variety. Dworkin, who advocates a wasting their time on porn. They have more impor- lesbian life style, freely uses dirty language and ob- tant battles to fight and should leave porn instead to scenities to demonstrate the alleged evils of pornogra- \"the legions of feminist men: let them undertake the phy. In a public debate , I asked the leader of the analysis that can tell us why men like porn .. . why Moral Majority in New England whether his organiza- stroke-books work, how Oedipal formations feed the tion would, if it had the power, ban Andrea Dworkin's drive, and how it can be changed.\" writings. He answered without hesitation: \"We would And some further suggestions: Men and women most certainly ban such ungodly writings. It is not could organize against the acts themselves, not their necessary,\" he reasoned, \"to use pornography to illus- image. They could continue to sensitize courts, po- . trate its evils. It is only necessary to read the Bible.\" lice, and the public at large to the outrage of rape; Brian De Palma is one filmmaker many feminists continue to set up clinics for rape victims and battered would really like to censor. His films vividly portray wives, and also, equally important, clinics for men violence against women in a sexist manner. But the that will help them deal with violent feelings. They trouble is that he doesn't make pornographic films. could pressure local prosecutors to help those girls in Sure there is a lot of nudity and some non-explicit sex, the porno world who, having drifted into it for money, but De Palma's films pass the constitutional test of may be trapped and terrorized-too frightened to pull protected free speech. Indeed, if not for the nudity out. The existing statutes against rape,. assault, kid- and sex, the Moral Majority would have few com- napping, and the like should be turned against porn plaints. The \"morality\" of his films has striking paral- lords. But certainly if those statutes can't be made to lels to the morality of many of Falwell's followers:The work, some vague application of civil-rights law isn't punishment for promiscuous sex is death and disfig- going to work either. urement. If the feminist censors were candid, they Finally, taking my cue from Ellen Willis' review of would come out directly and say that they want to Deep Throat (also reprinted in Beginning to See the censor sexist films (and other forms of expression) that Light), I would suggest to the anti-porn feminists , who are demeaning and dangerous to women. have always insisted that violence rather than eroti- De Palma's films would be high on any such list. cism is the enemy, that they actually make some mo- But then the feminist censors would risk their unholy vies of their own. Make non-sexist, non-violent erotic alliance with those fundamentalists who care not a movies that appeal to women. Who knows? Maybe damn about sexism or violence against women, but 33

Edward Donner- who oppose explicit sexuality and deviance on moral- one would ban a speech advocating skepticism in stein is professor istic grounds. evaluating the stories of alleged rape victims. Some at the Center for feminist censors call pornography \"sexist propa- Communication The hard facts of life are that only a small percent- ganda.\" But all propaganda-sexist as well as femi- Research, Uni- age of Americans would be in favor of censoring nist-should be protected by the First Amendment. versity of Wiscon- violence or sexism. But a large percentage favor cen- sin at Madison. soring explicit sexuality. So in order to construct a The answer to \"bad\" speech is \"good\" speech. He is co-editor winning poker hand, the censorial feminists are will- The proper approach to the marketplace of ideas is not with Neil Mala- ing to use the wild cards of the Moral Majority to fill in to close by governmental fiat those stalls that sell muth of Pornog- their open straight. The upshot is a brand of moral and disagreeable merchandise, but to offer competing raphy and Sexual political opportunism that would make Machiavelli's merchandise and to persuade the public either to buy Aggression, pub- Prince proud. your product rather than theirs, or simply not to buy lished by the Aca- theirs. demic Press. The truth is that there is no legitimate basis for an alliance between feminists and fundamentalists. Fem- More feminists are beginning to realize that govern- Daniel Linz is a inist censors claim they do not want to ban good clean ment censorship is not the answer-that freedom is post-doctoral stu- sex-only sexism and violence against women. the best environment for equality. Several groups of dent in the de- (Some feminists, like Dworkin, also have a thing women-who despise pornography as intensely as partment of about heterosexual lovemaking, which they regard as their censorial sisters-are now lobbying against the Psychology at inherently unequal and exploitive, but that view is new censorship reflected in the Dworkin statues. the University of generally reserved for in-house disputes and rarely Wisconsin. finds its way on to The Phil Donahue Show.) Funda- I dislike much of what I see in Brian De Palma's mentalist banners want to ban good clean sex, nudity, films. But I can choose not to see them. Others can and all forms of deviance. All the two diverse groups choose to see them. There are too few places in the can agree on is a common word, \"pornography,\" as the world where real choices are available. Let us not evil to be exorcised. But even that common word is allow Reverend Falwell, Chief Justice Burger, or An- used very differently by feminists and fundamental- drea Dworkin to make our choices for us. ists. Both groups have an obligation to be more honest and say what they really mean. The first step is to stop Edward Donnerstein using that loaded and ambiguous word \"pornogra- and Daniel Linz phy\" in the debate over censorship. From the start I think we should indicate that we do Instead feminists, who favor censorship should ad- agree with Brian De Palma regarding regulation of vocate banning sexist violence, degrading portrayals pornographic and/or sexually violent films. Without of women-or whatever it is they really would like to question, there should not be any form of restrictions, see banned. And while they are becoming more can- limits, or constraints put upon the filmmakers. Be- did, they should stop pretending that they do not sides altering artistic expression, such restrictions favor censorship. The Indianapolis-Minneapolis would not, we believe, really change potential effects model statutes authorizing private lawsuits by of- upon the viewer. The issue is not one ofsexual explic- fended women is among the most blatant forms of itness but rather about violence against women and governmental censorship ever proposed. messages which tend to endorse rape as desired by women or which equate violence and sexuality. In The fundamentalists, for their part, should stop asking whether or not sexual violence in the media has being patronizing to the feminists and start advocating an impact upon the viewer, we must first ask what we censorship of nudity, homosexuality, explicit hetero- mean by sexual violence. sexuality, and whatever else it is they really want to see banned. (One interesting irony is that both grou,ps Research over the years has examined two forms of would probably like to ban De Palma's films, but for mass media sexual violence. First has been films or different reasons: the feminists because of DePalmas' stories which depict scenes of rape or other sexual violence against women; the fundamentalists because assaults against women. The research has primarily of his use of nudity and suggestive sexuality.) examined sexually explicit stories or X-rated films. A common theme in this aggressive pornography is that After feminist and fundamentalist banners clean up the victim enjoys, encourages, or desires her victimi- their respective acts, then at least those who believe in zation. Studies in this area (summarized in a recent choice-the right to choose what to read, see, say, book edited by Neil Malamuth and myself titled and believe-will know where their enemies are Pornography and Sexual Aggression) have indicated coming from, and how to respond. that after exposure to aggressive pornography some men show (1) less sensitivity toward rape victims; (2) There is simply no justification for governmental an increase in the willingness to say they would com- censorship of offensive material of any kind. To con- mit rape if not caught; (3) an increase in the accept- clude that a film is sexist or violent is not to conclude ance of certain myths about rape; and (4) increased that it should be taken out of the marketplace of ideas. aggressive behavior against women in a laboratory Some social science researchers have claimed that experiment. If we think about these findings for a they can prove that people who watch violent pornog- minute, however, they're not surprising. We can learn raphy come away from the experience with a reduced what behavior is socially acceptable or rewardable sympathy for the alleged rape victim. So be it! It is the from the media. If you constantly expose an individ- function of free expression to persuade and to change ual to images of women being raped and enjoying it, minds. If pornography convinces some viewers to be less sympathetic to alleged rape victims, that is an argument in favor of not banning it-any more than 34

we would expect that some individuals may come to the violence itself could become sexual for some indi- believe that women enjoy being raped. Sadly enough, viduals. These changes in perceptions or attitudes do there are few counter-media images depicting rape as not mean that such individuals would actually act a deplorable act. aggressively. But that isn't really the issue. The con- cern is that their tolerance of and sensitivity to real While this research does seem to demonstrate that violence has been changed. exposure to certain forms of aggressive pornography can have negative effects, the question is which is the It is safe to say that by the time one is an adult these major contributor-the explicit sexual activity or the films are probably influencing already socialized atti- violence? Studies have indicated that if you take out tudes and values rather than creating new ones. But the explicit sexual content from aggressive porno- what about the young viewer? What about the sexu- graphic films, leaving just the violence (which could ally curious young male whose first exposure to a be shown on any network television show), you find representation of human sexuality is female rape or desensitization to violent acts in some subjects. How- mutilation in an erotic bathtub scene? Might such ever, if you take out the aggressive component and exposure, particularly if it occurs repeatedly, act as a leave just the sexual, you do not seem to observe socializer? negative effects of desensitization to violence against women. Thus, violence is at issue here. That is why With recent advances in cable, satellite broadcast, restrictions or censorship solutions are problematical. and home video consumption, the chances of young viewers being exposed to the combination of sex and Images of violence against women are not the sole violence has greatly increased. Some will be affected. property of aggressive or violent pornography. Such How can we deal with the problem? Censorship is not images are quite pervasive in our society. Images the solution. Education, however, is a viable alterna- outside of the pornographic or X-rated market may in tive. Early sex education programs which dispel fact be of more concern, since they are imbued with a myths about sexual violence and early training in certain \"legitimacy\" surrounding them and tend to critical viewing skills could mitigate the influence of have much wider acceptance. Sexist attitudes, callous these films on some young viewers. attitudes about rape, and other misogynist values are just as likely to be reinforced by non-sexualized vio- Al Goldstein lent symbols as they are by violent pornography. As a maker of pornography, and as a champion of A second form of film violence against women which has been examined by researchers is violence the rights offree expression, I've been called on again which occurs in a sexual context. In these films, which have been labeled \"slasher,\" \"slice and dice,\" and and again to defend sexually explicit material. Over \"splatter\" films, there are no signs of enjoyment from the victim ... women are seen to die. The violence is the years, the censors, the bluenoses, the anti-sex graphic and explicit, even more so than in the X-rated violent pornography. Typically, a woman is often forces have been presented in various guises: as Chris- shown scantily clad, in the bathtub, in the shower, undressing, or nude, when she becomes the victim of tians, as protectors of youth , and lately, more and a psychotic killer's nightmarish assault. Men are also slashed to pieces in these films, but not in a manner more', as feminists. But these distinctions don't inter- which for some viewers may eroticize the violence. est me very much. The difference between the fun- stein is We agree with Brian De Palma that it seems strange damentalist and the feminist arguments against porn editor and pub- at first glance that exposure to fantasy violence would is verbiage; the underpinnings are the same. Sexual lisher of Screw influence an individual's attitudes or behavior. But repressiveness is rooted in self-hate, self-loathing, in a magazine. once you examine the psychological changes viewers Puritanical inability to enjoy the full sensuality of the experience when watching these films, it is not that strange. body. Repeated exposure to exciting stimuli will eventu- Another similarity I have noted in all the enemies of ally reduce arousal. If we are repeatedly exposed to graphic scenes of violence, many of us will become porn is a moral certainty, a we-know-what's-good-for- less upset, less anxious, less bothered by violent de- pictions. Desensitization to violence is a fairly normal you superiority that always calls up images of the process. The attending physician in the emergency room does not faint every time a mangled body is Nazis. Some members of non-ecumenical Christian wheeled in. The most important question, however, is its effects upon our perceptions and attitudes about sects are steeped in this attitude from birth: \"Our God real life violence. is the only God, and all those who don't believe in For some people there is an effect. They become less sensitive to the violence portrayed in the films Him are damned to Hell.\" Self-righteousness is their and to real life victims of violence. In fact, some individuals may find the violence sexually arousing. If birthright. With the women's movement it's the same scene after scene of violence against women is con- flated with erotica, one does not have to go beyond thing: Feminists are the new Nazis, and pornogra- some simple principles of conditioning to realize that phers are their Jews. Central to the tactics of all anti-porn groups is a rhetorical slipperiness surrounding the whole issue. How is pornography to be defined? Without a coher- ent, clear, and practical definition of pornography, arguments about it enter a gray area where sophists and mealy-mouthed debate-club graduates can have a field day. And there can never be a clear, coherent definition of pornography because it's so many things to so many people. The juggernaut judicial machin- ery of the United States can't even come up with a clear legal definition of obscenity; during my Federal indictment in Kansas City, the prosecution could not 35

get Screw declared obscene in the middle of the Bible to indict aLI porn, including that with no S-M content. belt. And ifScrew is not obscene-God knows we try Donnerstein himself said if there are studies showing -nothing is. In effect, with its \"community stan- that non-violent porn causes desen sitivity to abuse of dards\" ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court has thrown up women, he'd like to see them. its hands and said to loca l authorities, \"You fi gure it out.\" And they can't, either. The feminist argument against porn feeds off just such hazy distinctions as the blurring of the line be- With one exception, I take the First Amendment to tween S-M and non-violent porn. The rhetorical be absolute, plenary. That exception concerns the weight of the argument depends on that line being sexualization of children; I have never printed , and ignored. But it is on such distinctions that rational have always opposed, the publication of child pornog- discourse and social decision-making ought to be raphy. I think Constitutional guarantees must be abro- based ; otherwise we live in an Orwellian \"Truth-is gated to that extent in order to protect our children. lies\" society. My own newspaper prints less than three Similarly, my newspaper does not print pictures of percent ofS-M-related images, and all of it is mutually rape or other images of overt, non-con se nsual consensual. violence against women. Although I am not in favor of laws against such images- I think such laws would be Why are the femini sts so hysterical about pornogra- counterproductive in this case- I abhor all violence phy? One could see it as a single issue of the women's against anybody, and will not condone it in my publi- movement, maybe even a major iss ue, but the issue? I cations. believe women who object so stridently to representa- tions of explicit sexuality are reacting not on a political Let me repeat: I am absolutely opposed to kiddie basis but on a moral basis. Women have been indoctri- porn and do not involve myself with violent pornogra- nated for centuries to hate sex, to fear it, above all to phy. Yet again and again, in debates and in the printed remain ignorant about it. That this is an element of media, I encounter arguments typifying smut as an male control over them may be true. But the result is exploiter of small children and a mutilato r of women. that the feminists just cannot throw off the yoke of Porn is kiddie-smut, the censors say, porn is rape. centuries in a generation, that when they see a picture This confusion of the issues is a typical fascist debate of a pussy they just cannot stop themselves from tactic that serves to further the censors' ends. saying \"dirty\" -afterward modified to \" politically in- correct.\" The kiddie porn exploitation argument is easier to defuse than the one about porn and violence, because I was astonished that, in the controversy surround- the issue is quantifiable-age-and quickly deline- ing Vanessa Williams, it was always assumed she did ated. When the California purveyor of kiddie smut, something wrong by posing nude. She did nothing wrong. She celebrated her body by doing so. Yet the Catherine Stubbenfield Wilson, was convicted, the starting point in discussions about her is , \"How could assistant district attorney in the case said she was the she do something so bad?\" Puritanism is rampant in last commercial distributor of kiddie smut in the U.S. this society, and Puritanism has always been just as What that says to me is that the specter of child porn large an element in feminism as it has been in funda- has been vas tl y overestimated, and has bee n itself mentalism . exploited by sel f-appointed censors. And since kid- die smut is no longer commercially available, I think Ruth Christiansen, the woman who burned herself it is about time that adult entertainment-entertain- in a Minneapolis adult bookstore, stepped onto the ment made by and intended foradults-i s divested of pyre with all the moral fervency of a Christian martyr. this can tied to its tail. It is no coincidence that the feminist anti-porn move- ment has found a receptive ear in the conservative, • firmly-buckled Bible Belt of America, in places like Indianapolis and Minneapolis. Phyllis Schlafly has The argument against violent porn has been very written to express her admiration for an anti-porn well refuted , except that it's in a lot of people's vested ordinance that Andrea Dworkin helped write. Politics interest to keep it go ing, even though it is dead. makes for strange bedfellows, and so does Puritanism. There have been studies which show that representa- tions of rape dese nsitize people to violence aga inst The femini sts say they are \"anti-porn, pro-erotica,\" women, but there have been no studies which show but they offer nothing in illustration of the latter. I that non-violent pornography causes anything like a wish they would offer up some of their \"erotica,\" so I similar reaction . Time and again, studies either have could jerk off to it. But the truth is it is all semantics: shown that porn does not cause antisocial behavior or Ifyou like it, it's \"pornography,\" but ifthey like it, it's have failed to show that it does. Yet I am still seeing \"erotica.\" signs in anti-porn \"Take Back the Night\" parades: \"Porn Is Violence Against Women.\" These people The feminist argument against porn has been don't care about the truth ; they care about their te- pretty well refuted: they can offer no workable defini- nuously constructed, house-of-cards logic. tion of pornography, and they can offer no proof that pornography leads to abuse of women. The women's Let me reiterate: Pornography and violence against movement is a movement of middle-class journalists women are not conterminous, no matter how much and English majors; they have to write about some- femini st theori sts say they are or wish they were. thing, and the sexier the better. It is a tactical blunder of Edward Donnerstein, out of the University of Wis- the highest degree to make porn their centerpiece, consin, used sado-masochistic pornography in a study especially when the real issues of women's reproduc- of its effects on men. And it turned out that it did tive and economic rights remain unattended. desensiti ze his subjects to violence to some extent. Yet the Donnerstein study is trundled out repeatedly Censorship will eventually work against everyone, 36

feminists included. In Brian De Palma's Body Double, and have developed a camaraderie. We talk about a woman is murdered with an electric drill. In Slumber violence against women, and she declares that she is Party, a horror film written by the feminist Rita Mae against that. In fact, she says, she was the victim of Brown, author of Rubyfruit Jungle, several women are sexual violence. Then she tells me about an inCident also killed with an electric drill. In Slumber Party, the that occurred when she was 19, a decade before she drill is used as a sort of over-obvious symbol for the became a \"porn star.\" prick, and is integral to the heavily lesbian subtext of the movie (the heroine is the female gym instructor). She was living in New York City, working on Wall Who is to distinguish between these two uses of the Street, when she learned that her mother in California same image? Who is to say one is good, because there was gravely ill. She went to a loan shark to get money is a pro-lesbian e;lement to it, and one is bad, because for the trip home. He forced her to go with him to his it was made by a male? apartment, raped her, tied her up, and kept her tied up for days so his friends could also look at and rape It is the repression of sexuality which leads to rape, her. Finally he let her go, handing her the money she violence against women, and a host of other social ills. needed for the plane fare. She went to California and By agitating for censorship, for repressing that sexual- saw her mother for the last time. When she returned ity which porn represents (a flawed representation, to to New York, she discovered that she was pregnant be sure), feminists and fundamentalists are prolong- from the rape, and subsequently had a spontaneous ing an already too-long struggle for sexual freedom. miscarriage. It was years before she told anyone about Instead of calling for an end to porn, we should be her ordeal. I remember reading about Vietnam veter- seeking ways in which to make it better. ans who compulsively reenact the scenarios that traumatized them in the war, and ask her if she thinks Dorchen Leidholdt there might be a connection between the abduction and gang rape and her work in pornography. She Pornography begins with real women. We see them changes the subject. -usually no one but them-with their breasts bared and legs spread wide apart, sometimes with their In another industrial city, this one in the Midwest, I wrists and ankles manacled and their mouths gagged, debate another \"porn star.\" She is a skinny, manic 23 sometimes being broken into over and over by a penis year-old. Before we go on the air, I ask her if she is in a or a dildo or a fist. Yet, strangely enough, in debates about pornography it is as though these women do not support group that was recently formed by several exist. The arguments of civil libertarians that pornog- women who work in pornography. \"I don't need raphy is protected speech, the insistence by funda- that,\" she insists defensively. \"My life is good. They mentalists that pornography is an ungodly influence, just want to talk about their problems, about suicide even the declarations by feminists that pornography is and drugs.\" She later tells the TV audience that she is anti-female propaganda all ignore the obvious: por- \"happily married\" to a porn producer in his fifties, and nography is manufactured out of the lives and bodies she loves her work. of women, who are not speech, not influence, not propaganda. Understanding pornography starts with Something about her appearance disturbs me, and I them. realize that it is her nose. It is a tiny turned-up stump that makes her face look like a jigsaw puzzle missing a I have flown to a large northern industrial city to piece. On the flight home to New York City, she represent Women Against Pornography on a series of praises her plastic surgeon: \"Look how he fixed my radio and TV talk shows. I am to debate a woman who nose!\" I chalk up her assessment to a difference in starred in a soft-core pornography film whose success taste, until I learn the truth from the porn film director rivaled that of Deep Throat in the mid-Seventies. She who accompanied her: \"Her mother shattered her is promoting a pornographic magazine specializing in nose with a baseball bat.\" photographs of empty-eyed young women whose genitals are painted bright pink, glued open, and \"A lot of the women in pornography have histories weirdly resemble wads of bubble gum. of abuse,\" I respond. I mention the name of another \"porn star\" I met on yet another talk show. \"She said Although she is represented as the magazine's pub- on the air that she had been battered by her husband.\" lisher, what I learn of her circumstances belies that The porn director nods his head and tells me that not claim. She lives in a one-bedroom apartment in a less only did her husband beat her, he also pimped her and than elegant part of New York City. Compare that to got her started in \"the business.\" Bob Guccione's East Side townhouse or the Playboy Mansion West. And that isn't the only difference These are just three of the women who smile for between this woman and the male pornographers who the pornographers' cameras and later are trotted out to are supposed to be her competitors: She is required to tell TV audiences how much they love their work. pose with her breasts and genitals exposed. Try to They also explain why they do the work: for the sex, imagine Hugh Hefner on display in a Playboy center- of course, and also for the money. They insist that fold or Bob Guccione spread-eagle before a vaseline- they have chosen pornography in the same way that smeared lens. other young women choose law or nursing. And if, somewhere along the line, a different story starts to We share a cab to a TV station that night. We've emerge, no one wants to hear it. spent the entire day together, being shuttled back and forth between restaurants and radio and TV stations, In the mid-Seventies the media flocked to press conferences given by the \"star\" of Deep Throat: Sample question:\"Does it bother you to suck cock in front of so many people?\" Sample answer: \"Oh, no, I love it. I guess I'm what 37 m

you might call an exhibitionist.\" pornographers have pulled off the world's most gigan- Many yea rs later Deep Throat's \"s tar\" wrote, tic hoax. Except that \"hoax\" suggests a relatively \"... those words weren't mine. They were words harmless deception, and both the industry and its being delivered by the Linda Lovelace doll. ... Chuck injury to women's status and lives are all too real. wound up the Linda Lovelace doll , and she gave interview s. \" Experts estimate that the pornography industry reaps $8 billion a year-more than the film and record When Linda Lovelace began to speak her own industries combined. And it is growing at a staggering words, she told of having been forced into prostitution rate, boosted by its encroachment into cable TV, and pornography by a sadist who had beaten, raped , computers, and home video. Whereas once pornogra- phy was \"out there,\" peddled in porn shops in easily and terrorized her. It wasn't such an extraordinary identifiable sections of town, now it is also sold in convenience stores and transmitted directly into peo- story. Chuck Traynor was a pimp, and just ask any cop ple's homes. on any vice sq uad how pimps treat \"their women.\" But the real story wasn't sexy like the earlier one, and But pornography has never really been \"out there.\" Linda Lovelace , the survivor of pornography, lacked It has long exerted a powerful if unrecognized influ- the credibility of Linda Lovelace, the doll : \"The ence over sexual fantasies, identities, and behavior. minute I sta rted telling it the reporters would turn off Although boys may learn about the mechanics of their tape recorders.. .. They'd point out that the true reproduction from their parents or their friends, they story would really be a downer for their readers.\" almost always learn sexuality from pornography. Por- nography teaches them what women's bodies will What looms large in the stories of women who work look like and what female sexuality will be like. It in pornography is not love of money and sex. Instead teaches them how to view women and how to treat it is a history of being used for the sexual gratification them . Pornography gives boys the images they con- and hatred (in porn the two are hard to separate) of jure when they masturbate and replaces them when someone with power over their very survival. This they are no longer exciting. Through pornography, seems to be as true of the women at the bottom of the boys channel their sexual feelings and responses into sex industry's hierarchy as it is of the \"stars.\" Trudee patterns, and these patterns become identity and acts. Able-Peterson, author of Children o/the Evening, esti- Of course, the use of pornography by males doesn't mates that 70 percent of prostitutes were incest vic- tlms. stop at adulthood. In 1978 Forbes magazine estimated If sex ual abuse defines the past of the women in that 18 million American men subscribed to softcore pornography, it also defines their present. Exposing pornographic publications. And how many regularly the most intimate parts of your body for a photogra- buy hardcore? pher or camera crew is humiliating. Being fucked , vaginally or anally, is humiliating and usually painful. Pornography also shapes the identities and sexual- ity of girls and women, although it reaches them Sometimes posing is fatal-witness the fate of two indirectly, mediated through women's magazines like teenage girls who were killed for a \"snuW' film last Cosmopolitan and Vogue. This is what men want, year. And then there is the time between the shoot- pornography tells women. This is what you must be if ings and the tricks , often spent in the thrall of a man you want to succeed as a woman. Pornography im- who sets up the deals and collects the money after- poses on women a sense of self as object and an ward. eroticism that centers around being desired rather Women learn to survive the photo and film sessions than feeling desire. in the same way that they learn to endure the beatings and rapes. First there is a self-induced shutting down Think about it. These sexual identities and fanta- of the senses. Often this means sending your mind out sies-that predominate in our society-are created of yo ur body and pretending that the body being hurt isn't your own, a trick used by prisoners of war to out of the victimization of real women. In fact, the survive torture. Drugs can help in attaining this mind- out-of-body state. Linda Lovelace found that her content of pornography- the use of women as things, work became much easier after she discovered a the conflation of sex and violence, the packaging of painkiller called Percodan: \" I'd really load up on it and coercion as consent-is the content of these womens' become totally numb to what was happening to me.\" lives. Pornography mass markets their violation., It Dorothy Stratten, Playboy's 1980 Playmate of the universalizes it. It turns the humiliation and abuse of a Year, described her survival tactic to movie director Peter Bogdanovich: \"Hate . .. I mean that I hated all horribly exploited group of women into the blueprint those men so much, and my hatred was so strong, it of sexual relations for men and women everywhere. It made a kind of invisible shield between them and me, makes the condition and valuation of the prostitute and then I didn't feel as naked anymore.\" Tragically, and \"porn star\" the condition and valuation of all there was nothing to shield Stratten from the rage of women. her pimp-like husband, Paul Snider, who forced her into pornography and raped , tortured , and murdered Pornography begins with real women, and it ends her after she left him. with them as well. At a speakout on pornography in January 1982, dozens of ordinary women talked about Once you begin to realize that pornography's icons the impact of pornography on their lives. Some de- of female sexual love and pleasure are abused women scribed the fear and humiliation engendered by con- who survive by blunting their senses and who despise stantly encountering pornography-on newsstands , the men exploiting them , it becomes clear that the in drugsto res, on cable TV. Some talked about how they hated their bodies when they didn't meet por- nography's standards, and how they hated them when they did . Several women described how their bosses 38

and coworkers used pornography to let them know tions that fuse sexual and violent elements. Neil Malamuth is exactly where they stood on the job. The research shows that sexually explicit media associate profes- sor and chairman At three days of hearings before the Minneapolis have become increasingly violent and are firmly en- of the communi- City Council in December and at two separate hear- trenched in America's mainstream . Circulation fi gures cations studies ings before the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile show that more men buy Playboy and Penthouse th an program at UCLA. Justice this past August and September, scores of Newsweek and Time. Hustler claims to have seve ral He is co-editor women testified about the sexual abuse inflicted on million subscribers. So-called \"slasher\" films such as with Edward them by men who use pornography. One woman Halloween , The Texas Chninsaw Massacre, Toolbox Donnerstein of described how her father, a prison guard and devout Murders , I Spit On Your Grave , and Friday the 13th Pornography and Baptist, had used pornography to teach her, at age have been viewed by millions, particularly teenage Sexual Aggres- eight, to comply with his sexual demands. Another males . sion, published told how her former husband had forced her to act out by the Academic the scenarios from his bondage magazines. A grand- While there has been no research specificall y on Press . mother recalled how her pornography-obsessed hus- Body Double and the effects of its scenes that combine band had battered her and molested her children. A sexual and violent themes , it appears to fall into a film Jan Lindstrom is college student told about a rape at age 13 by three genre that combines sexual and negative images a research assist- hunters who had been masturbating to pornography. about women. In films of thi s type and other media ant and freelance stimuli, there are both obvious and subtle messages writer who works These men were respectable husbands, boy- communicated about women and men, their social with Neil Mala- friends, and fathers, not pimps and pornographers, roles and relations , power, values, and morals. muth . but they shared the mentality and behavior of pimps and pornographers. And although most of the women Content analyses of pornography indicate that had never posed for pornography or worked as prosti- women are often depicted in negative ways that are tutes, they had experienced the same degradation and clearly contrary to ideals of social eq uality of the sexes. violence. The messages communicated include the beliefs that male dominance over women is natural and justified , The practice of the pornographers can be traced that women's value is based primarily on their physi- back to ancient Greece, but the expression of pornog- cal appearance and on their ability to please men , and raphy's victims is something new. As more and more that violence against women is justified and often women speak out, it becomes clear that in one crucial leads to positive consequences for both victim and respect all women stand on common ground: No assailant. We are continuing to research the reasons for woman has a chance of freedom as long as pornogra- this content. phy is deemed the proper use of some women's lives. We also find a link between the degree to which Neil M. Malamuth people have hostile or sexist thoughts or feelings and and Jan Lindstrom the message in pornography they find appealing. Al- though this is not necessarily true for everyone, it is a Some people will see Body Double , Brian De Pal- generalization applicable to large numbers of people. ma's newest film, and call it pornography. Others will For example, men who have more aggressive inclina- label it art. And so the argument begins over what tions toward women are more sexually aroused by constitutes pornography and what, if anything, should violent pornography than men with lower aggressive be done about it. tendencies. As is true of depictions of non-sexual violence, violent pornography seems to be attractive But rather than getting bogged down in trying to to those with violent tendencies, who are, in turn, categorize De Palma's latest effort, or other films of more likely to be affected by the violent scenarios they the same genre, we will examine the specific mes- ingest. For some people, this may lead to a condition- sages being communicated in media stimuli that eroti- ing process whereby frequent exposure to material s cize violence against women. For it is not the degree that fuse sex and violence may cause them to eventu- of sexual explicitness in films , books, or magazines ally find violence alone arousing. that produces socially undesirable attitudes, but the specific messages being communicated. The research also suggests that exposure to violent pornography can help shape people's attitudes in so- First, to clarify the issues at hand, we will summa- cially undesirable ways. For some people, some of the rize the recent research on exposure to violent pornog- time, exposure to media messages that eroticize raphy, as such studies are often cited in support of violence or communicate myths about women does legal restrictions against pornography and mainstream contribute to changes in their attitudes and percep- movies with violent content. By discussing what the tions and, under certain circumstances, even their research does and does not tell us , and what we as behavior. This is true of men from all cross-sections of members of society might do, we hope to shed some the population and not merely those who have been light on these difficult issues. Our specific goal is not labeled \"deviant.\" to advocate a particular policy but to discuss alterna- tives and to raise questions. Studies to date have not supported the view that exposure to pornography causes long-term changes in When we use the term pornography, we refer to adults' sexual response patterns. For a variety of rea- sexually explicit materials without any pejorati ve sons, including ethical considerations that preclude meaning necessarily intended . In violent pornography researchers from exposing children to pornograph y in we include those sexually explicit media that depict laboratory experiments, similar studies have not been coercive sex and sadomasochism, along with depic- conducted on children's sexual response patterns. The research on a possible link between violent 39

Janella Miller is pornograp hy and rape is as ye t inconcl usive. At the extre me instances, such as the rumored \"s nuff ' films an attorney with state level, th e re is a gene ral co rrela tion between th e (in which wome n were ad ve rtised as havi ng bee n th e L eg islati ve amo un t of porn ograph y co nsumed and th e rape rate. m urd e red ) have p ro tests been large and tml y effec- Action Committee A simil ar corre lati on has been found in a num be r of tive. T he re is conside rable po te ntial in these ap- of the Pornogra- countri es thro ughout th e wo rld . proac hes, but th ey req uire a large numbe r of in volved ph y R eso ur ce and committed individ uals. Center in Minne- But we mu st not make th e mi stake of assu min g a apolis. ca usa l conn ectio n be twee n viole nt po rnograph y and E duca tio nal approaches are a no th e r impo rtant rape sole ly on th e bas is of a co rrela tio n. Some states stra tegy, rega rdless of whe the r othe r tactics are also have a low rape rate a nd a high leve l of porn ography e mployed . By teaching people c ritica l viewing skills consumpti on . T hese exceptions suggest th at eve n if a and by p rov iding the m with accurate info rm atio n that ca usal connection cou ld be de monstrated betwee n corrects many of th e myths de picted in violent por- viole nt po rnography and rape, oth e r in d ividual and nograph y and othe r media, it is possible to counte ract c ultural facto rs can certainl y mitiga te suc h a link . the nega ti ve influe nces of suc h mate ri als. T he c hal- lenge with educatio nal programs is how to reac h large Recentl y, researche rs have paid more atte ntio n to numbe rs of people . Mass media presentatio ns, such how expos ure to viole nt po rnograph y and slas he r as docume ntaries about viole nce agai nst wome n, may films affects the way men think abo ut wome n , rape, help to inoculate viewers so that they become less and othe r acts of violence against wome n . Ove rall , suscepti b le to negati ve messages. C learl y, a g rea t deal both labo ratory and fi e ld resea rc h shows that th ese re mains to be do ne in the educa tional interve ntion mate rials ca n re inforce and contribute to a social e nvi- a rea. ro nm e nt in whi ch me n are mo re tole rant of violence aga in st wome n. W hi le thi s does not necessaril y mea n Atte mpts to alte r the conte nt of mass medi a usin g th at men ex posed to viole nt pornograph y o r other the above strategies ca n not be limited to po rnogra- portraya ls of viole nce aga inst women will commit acts phy, since resea rc h has docume nted simil ar e ffects of viole nce themselves, it may indeed affect oth e r fro m mainstream movies. In addition , o the r mass me- res ponses, such as the ir attitud es as jurors in rape dia fo rms, such as ad ve rtiseme nts, telev ision soap tri als, how th ey respo nd to rape vic tim s, and a n ope ras , and de tecti ve magazines, to name a few, also increased tolerance fo r viole nce aga inst wome n in co ntain un des ira bl e im ages of v io le nce aga in s t genera l. wo me n . T he most pe rtine nt q uesti on o n th e issue of changing mass media conte nt may not be whe re we. Im portantl y, these antisocial changes in attitud es draw the lin e be tween po rnograph y and non-pornog- have bee n doc um e nted follow ing exposure to main- raphy but how we can best combat violence aga inst strea m mov ies as we ll. Eve n tho ug h viewe rs may wome n in its myriad fo rm s. recognize the fa ntasy nature of both main stream and porn ograp hic movies, they none th e less ap pea r to be Janella Miller a ffec ted by viole nt conte n t. Mov ies th at po rtray wome n des iring to be ove rpowe red by me n and that T he latest movie in the stream of H oll ywood offe r- show positive o utco mes of suc h violence appea r to ings in which wome n are bmtally murde red has ar- tri vialize rape in th e minds of some viewe rs. rived - Body Double. Director Brian De Palma's atti- tud e towa rd th e v io le nce a nd t owa rd th e G ive n the findin gs of the most rece nt resea rc h, e ncroachme nt of po rnography into th e mainstrea m what sho ul d socie ty do to c urb any negati ve effects of med ia de mands a response. D e Palma told Ma rcia viole nt po rnograp hy and simila rl y the med mate ri als? Pally in these pages las t issue that he opposes po rnog- As resea rche rs, we cannot ad voca te specific policy raphy legislation beca use he has a ri ght as an individ- im p le me ntatio n othe r than educa tion. If we allow ual to take pictures of a nything he pleases, including o urse lves to beco me ca ught up in the political deba tes pictures of a wo man be ing viole ntl y murd e red with a su rro u nd in g p o rn og ra p h y a nd vio le nce aga ins t drill. H e says that he does no t be lieve viewing po rnog- wome n, o ur judgme nt and cred ibili ty as objecti ve rap hy has any e ffect upon male viewe rs o r the ir like li- researche rs may be impaired . hood of committin g acts of aggressio n against wome n. Neve rthe less, we rea lize that atte mpts to control D e Palma has obvio usly not bee n pay ing any atte n- the p rodu ctio n and distrib ution of q ues tionable mate- tio n to th e victims of porn ography, the women who are rials will con tinue. We ca n o nl y say that lega l ap- hurt by and th ro ugh pornogra phy, w ho have co ura- p roac hes using criminal or civil law to res tric t the geously spo ke n o ut about the abuse they have ex pe ri- availab ili ty of viole nt po rnography have some appea l e nced beca use of pornography. o r has he studied but are und o ubtedl y fraug ht with dange rs. T he ir ap- the mos t rece nt researc h linking po rnograph y to in- pea l li es in th e po te nti al fo r bring in g abo ut rea l creased aggress io n aga in st wo me n . If he had , he c hanges with nega ti ve co nseq ue nces fo r those w ho wo uld kn ow th at po rnography is no t just ideas o r violate th e new laws . O n the othe r hand , q ues tions of word s o r pictures o n a page; it is a practice th at harms F irst Ame ndme nt rig hts and th e ine ffec ti ve ness of wome n and children. some past lega l pro hibitions certainl y alert us to th e Recent legislatio n passed in M inneapolis and in need fo r ca utio n . Indianapolis addresses, fo r the first time, the harm O the r app roac hes that have successfull y been used done by po rnography. Fe minist write r and acti vist Andrea D workin and U ni ve rsity of M inn esota law by o rga nized gro ups include press ure-confrontatio n professo r Ca tharin e MacKinno n , at th e req uest of the strategies such as boycotts of sponsors and de mo nstra- tio ns o r similar tactics to effect so me changes in media co nte nt. W hile thi s has worked to some degree with viole nt po rnograph y and sexist ad ve rtisin g, onl y in 40

Minneapolis city council, wrote a civil rights ordi- the civil rights ordinance on pornography is censor- nance on pornography that defines pornography as a ship. They misunderstand what the ordinance does form of sex discrimination and as a violation of wom- and also what censorship means in a society that en's civil rights. The ordinance defines pornography values freedom of speech. The word censorshIp im- as \"the sexually explicit subordination of women, plies official examination of pictures, plays, televi- graphically depicted, whether in pictures or in words,\" sion, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts that also includes one or more of nine listed character- deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or istics which range from \"women are presented as other grounds. The ordinance works on an entirely sexual objects who enjoy pain or humiliation\" to different principle. There are no prior restraints, no \"women are presented in postures of sexual submis- criminal penalties, and no increase in police powers. A sion or sexual servility, including by inviting penetra- particular work could be removed only after an adver- tion\" to \"women are presented being penetrated by sarial hearing before a judge. Both sides could present J objects or animals.\" evidence, as in any legal case. The ordinance provides Material must meet each part of the definition to be no mechanism for telling people that they cannot pornography. It must be graphic, and sexually expli- publish what they want. What it does do is tell pornog- cit, and subordinate women, and meet at least one of raphers that if they print material in which women and the nine characteristics. If the material is found to children are harmed, or material that leads to harm or meet the definition of pornography, the ordinance discrimination, they must be responsible for the harm provides for a civil cause of action if a woman is that they cause. In that regard, the ordinance works coerced into making pornography, has pornography much like libel laws which hold the media account- forced upon her in her workplace or any other context, able for false information that harms an individual if or is assaulted or attacked in a way that is caused by a the individual can prove that he or she was injured. specific piece of pornography. The ordinance also provides for a claim against the makers, exhibitors, • If the ord inance were effectively applied, pornogra- distributors, and sellers of pornography for the terror- phers would undoubtedly choose not to publish cer- ism and intimidation created by pornography which tain materials because it would be too costly for them. perpetuates women's inferior status and promotes There would be fewer pornographic pictures, movies, continued discrimination against women in all areas of and books. Supporters of the ordinance intend that our society. A woman could bring her claim directly to result. For the first time, people are challenging the court or to the city civil rights commission, which idea that the First Amendment should shield pornog- would decide whether to pursue the matter further. raphy from any legal challenge. The harm done to Because the ordinance creates a civil cause of action, a women in this legal system is great enough to justify judge could award damages or issue an injunction limitations on the pornographers' right to \"freedom of against the further sale of the pornography, but he or speech\" under which they have committed atrocities she could not order a criminal penalty. The ordinance against women for centuries. does not give more power to the police. It does give Those who cry censorship whenever someone more power to women. mentions the ordinance act as though the right to By acknowledging the harm done to women and freedom of speech were absolute and that it exists in a providing them with a way to do something about that vacuum apart from any other social concern. But no harm, the ordinance goes beyond any previous legisla- lawyer who has ever studied the First Amendment tion. The ordinance is not an obscenity law and does would ever claim that we have an absolute right to not contain any of the language of obscenity laws freedom of speech. which rely upon criminal sanctions to enforce commu- We have libel laws, slander laws, and court deci- nity standards of decency. The theory behind this sions which limit words that create a \"clear and pre- ordinance is diametrically opposite to the theory be- sent danger\" or that constitute \"fighting words.\" Ob- hind obscenity laws. scenity is not protected speech under the First The ordinance says that women have a right to Amendment, nor is child pornography. In New York v. possess their bodies and their lives. Obscenity laws, Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982), the Supreme Court said on the other hand, are based upon the premise that that the harm done to children in pornography justi- women's bodies are dirty, that sex is immoral, and that fied restricting the pornographers' right to print what pornographic materials should be kept behind closed they please. There is thus a precedent for weighing doors where only men over the age of 18 can have the harm done to women against the pornographers' access to them. Under obscenity laws, a judge must right to \"freedom of speech.\" That harm was well decide whether the \"average person, applying con- documented in the hearings before the Minneapolis temporary community standards\" would find that the city council in December 1983 and the Senate Sub- work, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interest. committee on Juvenile Justice in September 1984. That usually means that a work is \"obscene\" when a Social scientists, researchers on pornography, peo- man is sexually aroused. Because of their vagueness, ple who work in the field ofsexual assault, and victims obscenity laws have been haphazardly and erratically of pornography have all testified about the effects of applied. Nowadays, we seldom hear cries of censor- pornography. Using this documentation to support ship about obscenity, which is not protected speech legislation and legal decisions would not be a new under the First Amendment, perhaps because the laws idea. The Supreme Court has used sociological data in do not work. the past, most notably in Brown v. Board ofEducation, There have been many, however, who claim that to support their finding that the harm done to black 41

Marcia Pally is a children in segregated schools was so great that inte- phy has grown into an $8 billion-a-vear industry that writer who lives gration was required to alleviate it. has spread into every form of medi~ and advertising. in New York . America's culture has become pornographic. It is time Opponents of the ordinance are also fond of claim- to look at the harm done by pornography and weigh it ing that we are on a slippery slope that vvill end in the against the pornographers' claimed right to freedom of suppression of the Bible or of Shakespeare. The con- speech. We legislate for the good of society-to es- cern about the Bible and Shakespeare is very interest- tablish justice, equality, and freedom for all Ameri- .ing, since they are not sexually explicit and would not cans. But women still do not have justice, equality, or be covered under the ordinance as it is written. But freedom. The pornographers tell lies about women opponents also seem to be arguing that any limitation which lead ' to terrorism and intimidation . Men rape on freedom of speech will lead to the institution of a and torture women with the use of pornography. Men repressive regime. These arguments are based not force women to perform in pornography. A beaten and upon facts about the ordinance or upon a reasoned tortured woman is not free , nor is she an equal mem- analysis of the First Amendment, but rather upon the ber of our society. She is a second-class citizen with no manipulation of people's fears. Forecasting the worst way to improve the daily condition of her life, because possible outcome for any piece of legislation is an old no one hears her screams. legal strategy that is particularly powerful when the predicted outcome is the suppression of ideas. How- Marcia Pally ever, it does not necessarily follow that the worst possible outcome will occur because we are in the area Snap to, film buffs. The Catherine MacKinnon- of the First Amendment. In fact, the opposite out- Andrea Dworkin antipornography ordinance could come is more likely. Americans guard their right to make trouble for the film and video industries that the freedom of speech with a tenacity that would surprise old obscenity laws never did, for artistic merit-even people in other countries which also value their free- educational value-wouldn't save a film from a civil dom of speech. A judge would likely interpret the suit. If a work showed women in \"postures of sexual ordinance narrowl y, finding that material falls under submission ... including by inviting penetration\" the ordinance only if it clearly degrades and subordi- (from a related bill introduced in Suffolk County, New nates women. York), it could be brought to the courts. Ironically, Dworkin's own books, with their extensive examples We always trust the courtS to make decisions which of the pernicious stuff, could land on the docket. clarify and illuminate the law. To say that the task is difficult begs the question. Asking the courts to de- Maybe it's wOlth it to those who believe that porn cide which works subordinate women and which works fall within the definition of pornography, when teaches men to beat and rape women. But does it? In a woman claims to be harmed, will be far less onerous than asking them to decide which works are \"ob- an attempt to see if there is such a clear reason to curb scene\" under obscenity laws or what constitutes \"dis- porn, psychologists such as Edward Donnerstein and crimination\" under civil rights laws. There is actually Neil Malamuth are trying to figure out just how the much less potential for abuse under the ordinance mind processes it. Yet one might wonder: Does the than there is under obscenity laws, under which we sexual bravura college men (the usual subjects of porn allow judges to make moral decisions about what we studies) display in the experimental set-up-espe- should view. Under the ordinance, as written, moral- cially in front of other college men-tally with their ity plays no role. The ordinance speaks only to the actions in life? Do repeated viewings of porn in a short subordination of women and the harm done to women period tally with home use? Could \"desensitization\" in pornography. I fear more the continuation and be boredom? And more importantly, we make all legitimation of a system which treats women as less kinds of distinctions between fantasy and reality (we than human, as objects to be consumed, than I do do not, for example, leave football stadiums tackling allowing our judges to decide what is covered under a passers-by on the street), might we not also make specific and narrow definition of pornography. them with what turns us on? An amendment to the ordinance further prevents Porn may not be the rote teacher antiporners think frivolous abuses of the trafficking provision bv pre- it is. Perhaps the candy-shop spread of sexual goings- cluding legal actions based upon isolated passages or on helps women, brought up to be some version of a isolated parts. The ordinance does not specify a cer- \"lady,\" to figure out what they like. Or perhaps porn is tain percentage of the work that must be pornographic a kind of return of the repressed, allowing us to flirt to be actionable, but the authors clearly intend to with our fears and live through it. require more than a de minimus amount. It may be that, on the way out of infancy, each of us Finally, the ordinance avoids any interpretation finds an achievement that comes to represent inde- leading to the suppression of ideas by defining por- pendence. One person may focus on controlling the nograph y as \"the sexually explicit subordination of body, another on preventing the degradation of dia- women, graphically depicted, whether in pictures or pers or nakedness. Failure to control or forestall degra- in words.\" Pornography does not present the \"idea\" of dation, then, remains associated with helplessness subordination or of any other idea. It is an active and annihilation. It remains a deepest fear which we practice of subordination. Only pictures and words toy with-and overcome-in sex, where a moment that do subordinate women are pornography and fall out of control is rehearsed each time. That fear-of within the scope of the ordinance. abandon, humiliation, exposure-may be triggered by arousal and trigger arousal because it poses the We cannot wait for a solution any longer. Pornogra- 42

gravest risk, if not objectively then in the imagination. mething about the mind and the way we use fiction It may be what we pick out of any pornographic and fantasy. We'll learn more about how we learn, and image; it may be an unavoidable component of sex. about the seemingly irrational things we concoct, As with rollercoasters and horror films, we alarm our- dream, or imagine. Ifwe accept the porn-teaches~ rape selves with the possibility of extinction and yet em- theory now as the only possible model for the me- erge intact, reconstituting the self over and over. We chanics of the mind, we'll know less about ourselves may need to play with our fears in sex to assuage their than we might. threat, to live with self-respect and self-determination the rest of the time. Thomas Radecki, M.D. Naturally, what's annihilating may change from cul- The violence of Hollywood entertainment has in- Dr. Thomas Ra- ture to culture-seafaring people having more fanta- creased dramatically over the past 15 years. Horror, decki is the chair- sies about overpowering waves, for example. And slasher, and violent science-fiction movies, as a cate- person of the what about those cave drawings? We've always as- gory, have gone from six percent of boxoffice recei pts National Coali- sumed they belong to religious rituals-which they in 1970 to 30 percent now. With paycable movie tion on Television might-but could they also be Cro-Magnon Man's channels in millions of American homes, the con- Violence and a kicks? In that world where (as every two-year-old sumption of these movies has skyrocketed even more psychiatrist affili- would know), stampeding mastodons promised great than the 500 percent suggested by boxoffice receipts. ated with the Uni- reward and great danger, pictures of the beasts could versity of Illinois be a first-class thrill. Other \"adventure\" and \"revenge\" movies of in- School of Medi- tense violence have multiplied , with 55 percent of cine. Closer to home, overcoming the mother has always 1983-84 Hollywood movies featuring themes of high been a crucial rite of independence-and here's and intense violence . Many of these are actually where the battle between the sexes, in life and in aimed at teenage audiences, although sometimes R- fantasy, may begin. For boys, that necessary separa- rated. Forty-five percent of the viewers of Halloween tion becomes a matter of \"conquest\" (of women and were 17 and under. The distributors ofDressed To Kill other things), and, as manhood is never really secure expressed disappointment since only 21 percent of (like autonomy, it must be regularly proved), the theater viewers were 17 and under. campaign to subdue mom is as pervasive and persist- ent as transcending fear of abandon or exposure. Girls Over 900 research studies on violent entertainment are generally not taught to conquer. If we want to be give \"overwhelming\" evidence, in the words of both without misogyny (or misogynist fantasies) , either the National Institute of Mental Health and the U.S. girls have to get in on the game or boys' II have to get Task Force on Family Violence, that this entertain- out. Perhaps some mode of separating from mom, ment is having an important, harmful effect on the other than conquest, is in order. American people. Yet another review by the Depart- ment of Justice in 1983 revealed that \"virtually 100 Moreover, you're looking for trouble when it's percent of aggression researchers agree that there is a mothers-and only mothers-who need be over- cause-effect connection between the consumption of come. Each breastfeeding takes only a few minutes; violent entertainment and an increased tendency to- where's Dad the rest of the time? Were he around as wards aggressive behavior.\" The National Coalition much as Mom, we'd still have fantasies of fear and on Television Violence estimates, based on available transcendence, but men would be their object as scientific research, that 25-50 percent of all violence in frequently as women. Men and women , like abandon our country comes from the culture of violence that and exposure, would appear in fantasy according to has been established by violent entertainment rein- individual experience and idiosyncracy. Talk about forced on a daily basis. polymorphous perverse. Despite this massive amount of evidence NCTV Perhaps this is utopic. Perhaps this isn't the way has found the 1984 summer Hollywood movies to fantasy and pornography work. But we've only just contain the highest amount of violence ever, 28.5 started asking the questions. Psychology and sexology violent acts per hour, with PG movies containing are one hundred years old-about where we were some of the highest levels ofviolence. X-rated movies with chemistry in the 13th century. actually contain far fewer murders and even fewer rapes than PG or R-rated material. Streets ofFire and And there are other knotty issues: Are live sex Android are recent examples ofPG-rape movies, while shows pornographic acts or expressions covered by the Gremlins brings horror violence down to the level of First Amendment? What can be done about the treat- kiddie entertainment. ment of women in the sex industry? How do feminist anti-porners expect to prevent anti-porn laws from A Motion Picture Association of America vice-presi- being used to impound literature in favor of gay rights, dent admitted to NCTV that the X-rating is virtually a pro-choice stance on abortion, or birth control (Mar- synonymous for sex. Although the MPM claims its garet Sanger was imprisoned for disseminating \"ob- ratings help parents decide what's best for children, scene\" material)? If preventing violence against these corrupt movie ratings provide essentially no women is WAP's goal, and assuming that people imi- useful information as to potentially harmful content. tate films and books, why is the target ofWAP's efforts This omission is both intentional and damaging. sexual imagery, violent and nonviolent, rather than violent imagery, sexual and nonsexual; and who NCTV has completed a recent study of over 1,000 would be entrusted to judge which images violate movies from around the world. U.S. violence, ex- women's civil rights? ported worldwide, dominated the survey. Hollywood As long as the debate continues we'll learn so- 43

spends over $300 million each year advertising a menu Fowler, the Reagan appointee who controls the FCC, of intense violence under the guise of exciting enter- that he did not want an investigation into the violence tainment. While all forms of entertainment-TV, question so long as he was chairman. books, pornography, rock music, etc.-have shown dramatic increases in violent content, Hollywood Many other steps can and should be taken. Offering movies, as the highest quality and most expensive Americans alternatives would be a good place to start. form of entertainment, definitely set the pace. Every cable company providing a violent movie chan- nel should also offer a non-violent pay-cable channel. The United States is theoretically still a democracy. Presently, any subscriber to HBO not only tempts I say theoretically since the media is on record as himself by bringing movies actively promoting rape having bought influence in Congress through PAC and murder into his home, but even if he avoids contributions of over $1,500,000 this term alone. Re- watching such movies, roughly $55 per year of his fee searchers have documented that many Hollywood goes to financially supporting the production and dis- movies teach rape and murder to millions of American tribution of film violence. I estimate that over one- third of HBO subscribers would switch to such a adults and children. Meanwhile, Gulf + Western service, if its availability were required by law. Pres- ently, the film industry has carefully constructed re- (Paramount), Time-Life (HBO), Warner Communi- straints of trade to prevent such a non-violent pay- cations, etc., amass fortunes for executives and cable movie network from coming into being. Only wealthy owners. To date, there have been at least a federal legislation can break this blockade. Plenty of dozen Congressional hearings on entertainment high-quality non-violent films do exist. Every Acad- violence, but no action. Three Surgeons General in a emy Award in 1983 except the one for special effects row have said that entertainment violence is a serious was won by a non-violent movie. Only an appropri- health problem contributing to our epidemic of ately regulated marketplace breaking the monopolis- violence and rape. tic power of the film industry can make this choice available to the American people. The common claim is that nothing can be done in our nation that would not violate the First Amend- The U.S. government can and should actively as- ment. HBO has a tax-deductible million-dollar maga- sist the production of pro-social and non-violent mov- zine advertising campaign to \"protect the First ies by providing a $500 million fund for this purpose. Amendment.\" Yet, there are many steps that can and Funds could be tied to co-funding from the private need to be immediately taken to turn back the culture sector so that commercial movies could be produced. of violence that is infecting our country, steps fully By decreasing the risks of the production of movies compatible with the First Amendment. like Terms of Endearment, Gandhi, Yentl, Tender Mer- cies, Tootsie, Ordinary People, and Kramer vs. Kramer, First and foremost of actions against entertainment the economics of the marketplace would shift in favor violence is the education of the American people. of pro-social entertainment. U.S. governmental bod. The American people have a right to know that they ies already fund the private film industry to the tune of personally are affected, unconsciously, by entertain- tens of millions of dollars per year, plus provide hand- ment violence. The research suggests that probably some tax breaks worth much more. An equal attention 100 percent of Americans consuming the usual 10-12 paid to the interest of the American people would pay hours of violent entertainment per week are harmfully handsome dividends in decreased violence. affected. Sixty-six percent of Americans think that violent entertainment increases crime in the streets, NCTV has begun a campaign to set up public yet only three percent realize that they personally are movie-rating systems in cities and states across our harmfully affected. The American people have a right country. Ideally, a federal movie-rating system would and need to know this honest information. be best and would probably be ruled constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court as long as it did not actively NCTV has proposed counter-advertising legisla- censor movies. However, the film industry's powerful tion that would require one advertising slot warning control of Congress effectively frustrates its enact- viewers of the finding of the Surgeon General for ment. We hope that local governmental officials will be every three violent advertisements for movie and TV more responsive to concerns of citizens. Such public programming. This honest truth would have a much local movie-rating boards, already approved by the more powerful effect on stopping violent entertain- Supreme Court in the Ave Maria case, would be run ment than any form of censorship. by unpaid citizens appointed by city councils, placing movies into G, PG, R-13, R-18, and X categories. Part of this informing and educating of the Ameri- Warnings of potentially harmful content and state- can people mandates an honest movie-rating system. ments that such content has been found to uncon- For instance, Variety stated that Friday the 13t/:l should sciously effect normal child and adult viewers would have been X-rated. Ed Donnerstein's research at the be required in all advertising. There would be no University ofWisconsin found that this movie strongly restricted access for adults to any movie. Enforcement promotes rape values to healthy college males. Re- would be left to the good will of theater owners as with quiring that this information be provided to movie- the current MPM system. The public system would goers in all advertising would allow the adult viewer to be educational in its method but powerful in its im- truly choose for himself. pact against violence. At the present time, Congress, the FTC, and FCC NCTV does agree that many current Hollywood -bought off by the TV and film industry-actively movies contain obscene and gruesome violence and, protect promoters of rape and murder by preventing the counter-advertising that should be provided under eXIstIng federal law requiring truth in advertising. Indeed, I was told face-to-face by Chairman Mark 44

as such, should fall under current obscenity regula- ordinance is supposed to prevent that. Ha! The dis- Margo St. James tion. NCTV also thinks that legislation placing grue- tinction between women and girls, between adults is founder of the some and sadistic slasher movies in the same category and children or men and boys is erased when every- prostitutes advo- as obscenity would probably be upheld by the Su- one is treated like a child. Treating women like chil- cacy group, COY· preme Court in light of new research information. dren, allowing newspapers to advertise them and po- aTE (Cast Off lice to license them while ignoring the partici~ation of Your Old Tired However, NCTV thinks that information, educa- men, and then arresting only those women not smart Ethics). tion, and availability are much more important than enough to know a cop posing as a horny customer, can censorship in turning back the tidal wave of violence only do irreparable harm to a person's spirit. It can that is coming out of Hollywood. NCTV is confident only attach shame to a person's body, and in the that the American people-given honest information majority of cases it's women's bodies being shamed, on the same regular basis that violence is now pro- abused, mutilated. Serial murders have evolved over moted to them by Hollywood-will choose wisely. the last 1S years at an alarming rate, and I charge the U.S. government with incitement to violence against Only by changing the structure of the marketplace me as a class and as a prostitute. Keeping women as can this Hollywood culture of sadism and revenge be pariahs, as sex objects without property rights, and reversed. The honest truth is all that is necessary. arresting and incarcerating us for our own good only However, until the U.S. government is willing to promotes disrespect, contempt, and brutality in men. listen to the American people and take action, the future of our country looks grim. We seem to be a It's time men stopped being brutes because it's world increasingly controlled by greed and money, supposed to be sexy. Giving the whore her political and headed toward our final destruction. voice could result in men's enlightenment. Porn could become a source of valid information instead of vi- Margo St. James cious propaganda. Prostitutes could be regarded as people. Consenting adults would mean all consenting In her interview with Brian De Palma, Marcia Pally adults. Money would not be a dirty word for women is right about conservative feminists seeming to find anymore. And, children wouldn't be posing as adults dueling with porn pimps more exciting (going so far as for a fast buck. Men wouldn't be using sex as a to put down the daughter of a porn pimp, Christie weapon, and sex would be okay for women, too. Hefner) than organizing the scarlet-collar workers. Organizing would mean Good Girls would have to Film is important today, because fewer people give validity to the strategies of Bad Girls, instead of read, and more people get most of their information internalizing the stigma and blaming the victims. Di- from TV. I've been quite free with my advice to ana Russell and Susan Brownmiller are in bed with writers and producers in order to extend my campaign Phyllis Schlafly, or Mrs. Schlafly, as she prefers to be to change the way prostitutes are presented in Holly- introduced. \"I've worked hard for that 'r,' \" she re- wood films. Now, I can begin to charge for the infor- cently said in Boston. I wonder if she meant the \"r\" in mation, even selling my own life story to David Ladd mistress, or the \"r\" in privilege? I would hope that ... yet I'm thankful that writers haven't come up with Russell and Brownmiller would see it as the \"r\" in an acceptable script. A fiction that I will eventually wrong. have to live with ... postponed, with each option fee I take. Mrs. Schlafly also said she didn't approve of women doing illegal work. I suspect the conservative femi- During the last eleven years in the Prostitutes' nists object to prostitution because the role is tradi- Rights Campaign, I've been part of several films on tional. Both schools of thought would object to De various aspects of women's struggle for equality: Palma's connection between sex and violence... and Woman to Woman by Donna Dietsch (1973); George so do I, but only so long as the women victimized have Csisery's Hookers, about the 1974 first Hookers Ball, no legal recourse. Even so, I would keep juveniles financed by the late Max Scheer and the Berkeley from seeing sex and violence joined, particularly Barb. And, in 1976, I produced the 1st International when presented in a realistic manner, not ritualized as Hooker's Convention, which was filmed by Ginny in vampire or Japanese films, or in science-fiction Durrin as a documentary, Hard Work. plots with giant creatures. Prior to my becoming political, I did Steel Yard Blues It's a whitewash to dismiss De Palma as being afraid with Peter Boyle, Donald Sutherland, and Jane Fonda of women but not hating them. Hate produces fear on (she played the hooker). I had a 68-second piece in occasion, but fear almost always produces hate. Per- bed with the \"Fire-chief.\" Then I played four roles in haps De Palma has to control women in his films so he Dreamwood by James Broughton: a nun, a leather can have a relationship with one in his real life. Even if dyke, a nude princess, and the Witch of the North. I we swallow that line of reasoning and his assertion that was in an Alex de Renzy film, Little Sisters, before he \"likes women,\" it's hard to imagine him liking ending my patchy career in 1972. Of course, there are them for any reason other than to put them into his all those tape loops I made in the Sixties before you films as victims. And particularly his penchant for were allowed to touch yourself or show hair. They offing the Bad Girls. Of course, it is not hard to be bad, were made for the 2S¢ peep shows, but women it's just damn hard to be good. One is never good weren't allowed in so I never got to review my efforts. enough to survive a De Palma plot. I've visited Holland, Denmark, Sweden, France, The big flap is always over children getting into and England to compare their attitudes toward prostitution or porn, and the Dworkin-MacKinnon women in general, and prostitutes in particular. None actually protect workers from all exploitation. Some 4S

are worse than under prohibition. None maximize the cit subordination of women\" are subject to govern- money to workers if there is a third party system. mental proscription. Not only motion pictures depict- None of the porn models get royalties. ing violence against women (Body Double), but all \"pictures\" or \"words\" in which women are presented However, the violence against women in the op- as sexual objects for domination or conquest, as sexu- pressive countries is much worse than in the regulated ally submissive, or as degraded or inferior in a sexual countries, because the work and the person doing it context, can be suppressed. are stigmatized. To my amazement, the U.S. has the most disgusting porn: violent, mean, vicious, and not This anti-pornography legislation represents a radi- funny, but grossly vulgar. Other societies that have cal and dangerous departure from accepted First less contempt for women (and do not criminalize Amendment principles. It permits any woman to de- them for providing a service demanded of them) have mand the censorship of offending depictions without fewer crimes, sexual assaults, less battering of wives, proving factually that they caused direct, immediate, and no serial murderers. serious harm-or, indeed, any harm at all-to her or to anyone else. According to the architects of the Too bad conservative feminists have a blind spot legislation , Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea about the whore label and how to get rid of it. Good Dworkin: \"The systematic sexual subordination of Girl feminists fail to connect the repeal of the prohibi- the pornography is the injury.\" Thus, the purported tion on prostitution to emancipation. The gender justification for government censorship is not some stigma is official so long as prohibition remains on the demonstrated evil to which the publication of an idea books. It facilitates the divide-and-conquer strategy will lead but rather the offensive nature of the idea utilized by white men and the collaborator Good Girls itself, namely, \"dehumanizing women as sexual (who succumb to the sell-out because of their inter- things and commodities.\" nalized oppression). Further, the new laws plainly forbid portrayals of The media continues to ignore nine million part- women that do not fall within the very limited cate- time pros and one million full-time working pros in gory of expression which the courts have defined as the U.S. who are kept silent as long as the prohibition obscenity. Literary and film classics found sufficiently exists. Our Bodies, Our Selves never mentions the demeaning to women under the sweeping, ill-defined issue that is the bottom line in women's struggle for provisions of the ordinances are now subject to repres- equality. If the word \"whore\" was reclaimed, as sIon. \"dyke\" has been, women could come from a solid base of power. Their sexual power would not be short- But that is not the full measure of the danger. If the circuited. The label would not be available for Porn ordinances are sustained as constitutional, nothing in Pimps to exploit, nor be available for contrast to the the theory that supposedly supports them would re- Madonna image promoted by the Miss America Pag- strict censorship to \"sexually explicit\" material. Un- eant. like laws against obscenity, where the arousal of pruri- ent interest is the essential focus, here prohibition is The whore is the only one who can successfully based upon the \"subordination\" of a sex-defined ridicule porn and not be written off as a prude. No class. A claim of \"subordination\" could as easily be other issue reflects the position of women politically, leveled against a treatise suggesting that a woman's socially, and economically, and illustrates the stigma- place is in the home raising children, or against a film tization process so clearly, nor exposes hypocrisy so portrayal of a \"dumb blond\" (Marilyn Monroe in Bus vividly. Sexism, racism , homophobia, and economic Stop or The Misfits), or even a smart blond (Meryl discrimination can only exist where there is stigmati- Streep in The Seduction ofJoe Tynan). And goverment \"civil rights\" censorship needn't be limited to the zation. professed protection of women. Blacks, Poles, Jewish Wake up, America! Let the Bad Girls out of the mothers, Orientals, \"Moonies,\" et al. could equally claim that satirical, derogatory, or critical portrayals are closet. suppressible as \"dehumanizing\" and \"subordinat- ing.\" First Amendment rights would be bounded Lois P. Sheinfeld by the sensibilities of every group in our pluralistic society. Lois P. Sheinfeld \"Suppression,\" Spinoza said, \"is paring down the is an attorney and state till it is too small to harbor men of talent.\" These Constitutional protection of free speech is content associate profes- words, written over 300 years ago, precisely describe blind. Every person's voice is protected, not because sor of journalism the anti-pornography censorship campaign now being we like or approve every \"picture\" or \"word,\" but and mass commu- waged against Brian De Palma and others.While mod- because we recognize that when official censors make nications at New ern packaging cleverly disguises the new censors- the choice of what we see and hear, all speech is at York University. the 1984 models come cloaked in civil rights theory- risk. The authors of the Constitution understood that the mindset of those who would smother free thought a democracy can flourish only when each of us decides and expression has not changed. Bookburners may the value and acceptability of ideas, not the govern- wrap themselves in new rationalizations, but the ment. Otherwise, demanded Thomas Jefferson: books and films they condemn still burn. \"Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all The latest brand ofcensorship ordinances-passed to be cut or stretched?\" in Minneapolis and vetoed by the mayor; enacted into Invoking governmental repression of disfavored ex- law in Indianapolis-forbids pornography on the theory that it violates women's civil rights. Under the pression is not unique to these times. We have a sorry terms of this legislation , newspapers , literature, films, history of attempts to override the fundamental First and visual art portraying the \"graphic, sexually expli- 46

Ame ndme nt guara ntees of free speec h and prcss in und e r artificial conditi ons (conducted by acade mic orde r to impose an offi cial guard ianshi p ove r th e p ub- psychologists on stud e nt subj ects who received ex tra lic mind . As John M il to n observed , ce nsors have ofte n c red it in th e ir psychology co urses) , suffice it to say tried to \"s tarch\" us in to a gross co nfo rmi ty, and to he re that P rofessors E d ward Do nne rste in an d Ne il change our ope n socie ty in to one in which th e peo ple Ma lamuth , whose stud ies are mos t ofte n cited by hea r onl y one vo ice and see onlv one image , th at wo uld-be pornograp hy ce nsors, adm it that the re- whic h the gove rnm e nt in powe r see ks to put forvvard. sea rc h data does not es tab lish a direc t ca usa l co nn ec- Political disse nte rs and the p ro pone nts of unpopular tion be twee n porn ography and sexual violence. T hey views-advoca tes of civil rights, wome n's rights, and do not ad voca te ce nsorship legislation. the nucl ea r freeze- have all suffe red th e assau lts of censorship beca use so me peopl e thought th e ir vo ices Anti-po rn ogra phy censo rs a re simpl y un ab le to we re \"offe nsive,\" \" re pulsive,\" and \"dange rous.\" mee t th e ev ide nti ary burde n imposed by th e Fi rst Ame ndme nt upon th ose who see k to suppress exp res- The First Amendme nt impera tive of free ex pres- sion on the ground that it ca uses se ri ous harm . T hey sion p ro tects our libe rty aga in st just such assa ults. should not be pe rm itted to sideste p thi s p rofo und Justice O li ve r We nd el l H olmes made the essenti al failure of proof by the legerde main of decla ring th at point long ago: \"The ultimate good desired is bette r porn ography is per se a violation of wo me n's civil reac hed by free trade in id eas-the best tes t of truth is rights. the powe r of the thought to ge t itse lf acce pted in th e compe tition of th e marke t. ... That at any rate is th e In the last issue of F IUvl COt\\II\\1ENT, Brian De theory of our Constituti on. . . . we should be e te rn ally vigilant aga inst atte mpts to c heck the express ion of Palma sa id , ' 'I'd hate to li ve in a wo rld whe re art is left opinions th at we loath e a nd be lieve to be fraught with in the hand s of th e political peo pl e . I'd leave th e death , unl ess they so im mine ntl y threa te n imm edia te co unt ry if it came to that - soun ds like Ru ss ia.\" In- inte rfe re nce with th e lawful and press in g purposes of deed it does. In August of this yea r, th e Moscow the law that an immedi ate chec k is req uired to save C ommunist Party Committee c riticized the Sovie t the co untry.\" film studios for straying from Soc ialist Realism and iss ued new directives req uirin g filmm ake rs to refl ect Courts have uphe ld thi s bas ic principl e eve n whe n curre nt probl e ms and wo rke rs' li ves. A month late r, th e speech at issue was, to mos t mind s, hate ful , de hu- Soviet Party leade r Konstantin U. C he rn e nko had thi s mani zin g, and subord in ating. W he n te levision film s to say : \"F reedom of c reati ve wo rk ca nnot be a pri vi- broadcas t th e Ku Klu x Kl an di sparaging blacks and lege for a few. No thing and no one can free a pe rso n Jews, th e Supre me Co urt held in Brandenburg v. Ohio from the co mpulsory de mands of socie ty, its laws th at. (1 969) that the state co uld not puni sh this advocacy, are obli gato ry for all. It is naive to think that one ca n abse nt a cl ea r showin g that th e speech was directed at, blacke n th e moral and po litica l foundations of our and would like ly p rod uce, \" immin e nt lawless action.\" syste m ... .The nation will not forgive anyo ne defec- tion to the side of our ideological oppone nts. ...\" Simil arl y, whe n public offi cials atte mpted to forbid the neo-Nazi march through Skokie, Illinois, a suburb Such gove rnme nt co ntrol ove r the co nte nt of ex- with a large Jew ish popul ation including seve ral thou- pression is an anathe ma in a d e moc racy. W hat D e sand survi vors of the Nazi holoca ust, the court uph e ld Palma sees arid paints onto hi s \"w hite ca nvas\" might eve n the neo-Nazis' right of free speech. Collin v. not be to everyone's tas te. But the state may no more Smith (1 978). D espite the judges' \" pe rsonal views\" prosc ribe his creati ve wo rk than it may prescribe hi s that the marc h wo uld be \"extre me ly me ntall y and a rtistic im ages . e motionally disturbing\" to many peopl e , and \" re pug- nant to the core va lu es he ld ge ne rall y by reside nts of In Lui s Bunue l' s s ucc inct phrase: \"A pox on thi s country,\" th e court held : \" Howeve r pe rnicious an opinion may see m , we de pe nd for its co rrection not on ce nso rs!\" the consc ie nce of judges and juries but on the compe- tition of othe r ideas\"; this is what \" distinguishes life in Ann Snitow thi s co untry from life unde r th e Third Re ich.\" In th e Our subj ect he re is violent sexual imagery and Ann Snitow is a whe the r or not th e suppression of suc h im agery in member of FACT absence of ev id e ntiary proof of inte nti onal and direct films can lead to greate r safety for rea l wo men in a (F eminist Anti incite me nt to violence, the Skokie march was consti- country whe re a woman is raped eve rv few minutes. C e nsor s hip tutionall y p ro tected . Ta s kfo rce ) and But a problem a ri ses at once : I don't kn ow m y co -editor , wi th So me supporte rs of the anti-porn ograph y ordi- audie nce. Be fore c riticizing anti-porn ograph y ac ti v i s t~ Christine Stansell nances claim that porn ography ca uses rape and othe r for de manding a film censorship I think is as like ly to and Sharon acts of c riminal sexual violence. T his view ignores the be used against wome n as for us, le t me tes t the wa te r Thomps o n , of sta te of the ev id e nce. Th e re have bee n two co mpre- he re . Am I speaking to peopl e who have drif ted dow n Po we rs of D e - he nsive studi es of th e supposed link be tween po rn og- th e years and years of buddy mov ies , of lousy parts for sire: Th e Politics wo me n, of the cas ual in vis ibili ty of the fe male specta- of Sex ualit y, raph y and sex crimes: the in vestigations of the Pres i- tor, the rari ty of the fe male director, without once Monthly Review dent's Commission on Obsce ni ty and Pornography fee ling a twinge of loss? Because if so, I' ve got to Press . (1970), and the British Committee on Obsce ni ty and qualify what follows by saying how much I have expe- Film C en sorship (1 979). Both concluded th at the re rie nced madl y lov ing the movies as at th e sa me time was no causal nexus be twee n pornography and c rime . an occasional viole nce against myse lf- a viole nce That findin g is furth e r buttressed by studies of actual more pe rvasive than any that co uld be sugges ted by a se x offe nde rs. single fantasy of sexualized murde r in , say, a film by As for the recent rash of laborato ry research done 47

Brian De Palma. other feminists, I think it cannot. That is why I and others have founded a new organization, FACT How many engaging grade-B entertainments have (Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce, Box 135, 660 begun with a touch of intriguing emotional yeast only Amsterdam Ave., New York 10015). If only pornogra- to end as the usual flat white bread because of that old , phy were the root of the hatred and aggression lav- dreary motive-to-negate-the-female? What women ished on women. If only it were that simple. feel most, I think, is disappointment. Maybe it's like Freud said: Girls have a harder time because they've I'm sure that the feminists who first worked on the got more mental operations to perform. Some of the idea of anti-pornography legislation hoped such laws time you're working harder than the man sitting next would give women more power over violent men, but to you, trying to identify (since you're really not meant this is not, finally, what these laws are about. Instead to); sometimes you're trying not to identify (with of giving women what we need to reduce our vulnera- knifed, raped, ,terrified, or humiliated women); some- bility (money, institutions, support, and redress when times you're enjoying all that terror and threat on we are abused), they propose a moralism, an abso- the screen because it's fantasy (though images sucked lute boundary for expression, a sense of disgust or down mindlessly with the popcorn can surprise you horror about the sexually explicit. It's all too hideously with a bad aftertaste). If you can't keep this balancing familiar: These laws throw us back onto traditional act going, there goes your pleasure, your night out. definitions of women as victims, men as lusty maraud- ers. Instead of broadening the possibilities of the And that's a loss indeed, since the pleasure of just culture of sexual imagery, allowing women's subjec- plain looking is often problematic for women, mem- tivity to emerge at last, such laws close down what is in bers of the over-observed sex; women have lots of fact already a wide range of expression, relatively little good reasons for hoping for something from the admis- of it explicitly violent. sible voyeurism of the movies. In a sense, then, I'm insisting that our present film culture does do violence Why some feminists are turning toward legal pro- of a kind to women-the violence of impoverishment tection at a moment when progressive lawyers are -and nothing which follows is meant to obscure or beginning to despair in the face of increasingly right- forgive this fact. wing courts is a mystery to me. It's not as if we women had no use for the sexually explicit, for the freedom to Up to this point I've been using the word explore our own fantasies in public forms-including \"violence\" metaphorically, which seems fitting in a those images others might find unsavory. Given the discussion of imagery where what's at stake is con- record of so-called protective legislation for women, sciousness, not actual torn flesh and blood. And I've it's easy to guess who might well be prosecuted first tried to imply that images of specifically sexual under these laws in Reagan's America: Lesbian images violence are but one kind among many which cause made by women would be singled out long before women to feel pained or deprived by present film Penthouse; female fantasies about attacking men long culture. But such niceties of speculation are being before Snuff. As one Suffolk County resident testified swiftly overwhelmed by a new censorship campaign at the recent anti-pornography bill hearings: \"God that sledgehammers all distinctions, that defines that does not promote, nor does He condone deviant sex- broad genre \"pornography\" as violence, insisting that ual behavior.\" \"pornography is the theory, rape the practice.\" But of course this is to take the easiest case; proba- If the laws now in various stages of consideration in bly most readers would agree that an anti-pornography Minneapolis, Indianapolis, and Suffolk County, Long law was being misused if it censored self-conscious Island, survive court tests, we will have a legal defini- feminist expression, imagery critical or somehow dis- tion of how violent sexual images affect women. Dan- tanced in its depiction of sex and violence. What of gerous, actionable pornography, defined as sex-and- the hard case, then, a \"snuff\" film? It's always appro- violence, will include scenes of women \"in postures of priate for us to inquire into the means of production of sexual submission\" or \"being penetrated by objects or the culture around us. If women are literally murdered animals.\" This is a campaign of the literal, where or maimed in the making of these films, existing laws fantasy is sin , and thought is act. The problem of have been broken. It is not the image but the mur- the image is solved by a draconian axe stroke: derer who must be put on trial. If a snuff film literally murders, we need no vague and potentially pernicious The council (of the City of Minneapolis) finds that laws about imagery to prosecute the killers. (That the films were made beyond the reach of U.S. law compli- pornography is central in creating and maintaining the cates this argument but doesn't change its main prem- civil inequality of the sexes. . .. [ItJpromotes injury and ise: You don't legislate against images when you want degradation such as rape, battery and prostitution .... • to catch murderers. Nor does the argument hold that snuff-makers wouldn't kill if there weren't those big This was written by radical feminists Andrea dollars in the film industry: You don't have to literally Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon. The Suffolk kill to make big dollars in the film industry.) County version, substantially the same, was written by a right-wing legislator who added \"sodomy\" and How about a hard case which does not cross the line \"disruption of the family unit\" to the list of the nega- into literal murder, a filmmaker like Brian De Palma, tive results of \"objectionable pornography.\" All these whose whole cinematic vocabulary revolves around laws project confidence that \"sexually explicit mate- sexualized images of violence? In Body Double, a rial which subordinates women . . . in pictures or woman who enjoys masturbating is ravished (to death) words\" can be clearly defined, then quarantined . by a power drill (an analogy that does the penis no For the New Right this is old turf; for feminists, though, it's a new and odd terrain. Can censorship, if defined by feminists, benefit women? Like many 48