U.S.

Hollywood On Trial

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

September 13, 2000 / 8:25 AM EDT / CBS

A three-car pileup of Campaign 2000 personalities took center stage at a Capitol Hill hearing on entertainment violence.

Wednesday's hearing by the Senate Commerce Committee was held in response to this week's scathing Federal Trade Commission report that condemned the entertainment industry for deliberately pitching violent adult content to children.

Star witnesses from the presidential campaign at the hearing included Lynne Cheney, wife of GOP vice-presidential nominee Dick Cheney; Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., Al Gore's running mate; and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the committee's chairman and onetime rival of George W. Bush in this year's presidential primaries.

This time, all three were on the same side on the same issue: the entertainment industry's responsibility for keeping violent and sexually explicit music, movies and video games away from children.

"Internal marketing plans show conclusively, that the movie, music and video-game industries were intentionally cutting out what might be called the middle mom and dad, and routinely aggressively and intentionally, marketing violent, harmful products to our children," Lieberman read in his statement to the hearing. "This practice is deceptive. I believe it's outrageous and I hope it will stop."

Despite the presence of such political heavyweights, the lighting rod in the room was a young musician with baggy pants and bad skin.

Eminem, a rapper who won the award for Best Male Video at the MTV Music Awards last week, was the subject of debate among the pinstriped panel.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., a longtime conservative critic of violent entertainment, displayed poster-size transcriptions of lyrics from Eminem's song Kill You and from another rap song by Dr. Dre whose title could not be called "family friendly."

Committee members who grilled Cheney, Lieberman and executives from music distributors and video-game makers insisted they had no intentions of censorship. Instead, they asked the executives to commit to an industry-wide voluntary system of labeling CDs and video games, as well as change their marketing practices by advertising adult content only in magazines with adult readerships.

"We're focusing on how they market, not what they make," said Lieberman.

"This hearing is not about and never will be about censorship!" declared Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.

But Cheney, a conservative intellectual and former head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, didn't make nice about the entertainment industry as a whole.

"Our shock at the way they market their products should not distract us from our shock at the products they market," she reminded the panel. "Let's just remember what they're marketing."

She took a swipe at the Democratic presidential duo, asking them to deliver her message of accountability when they attend a fund-raiser on Thursday with Harvey Weinstin, chairman of Miramax Films.

As it happens, neither Weinstein nor the head of any other major movie studio who was invited to the Senate hearing showed up to return Cheney's cultural fire.

"Their hubris is stunning," said McCain, who called for another hearing in two weeks. "I have never seen such a thing before."

The Arizona senator has asked the chiefs of Time Warner, Walt Disney Co., Newscorp, Viacom (the parent company of CBS), Miramax and others to speak at the follow-up hearing.

But the movie industry's top lobbyist, Jack Valenti, denied that the film execs ducked Wednesday's hearing on purpose.

Their absence "is not because they are ducking and running," said Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, which is in charge of movie ratings. "It's because they literally have other things on their schedule that they could not erase."

Who's Allowed

The voluntary movie rating system was introduced in 1968 and has been modified to better serve audiences with the following ratings:

G: General Audiences, All ages admitted.

PG: Parental Guidance Suggested: Some material may not be suitable for children.

PG-13: Parents Strongly Cautioned: Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

R: Restricted: Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

NC-17: No one 17 and under admitted.

Retired ratings:

M: For mature audiences was replaced by the rating PG.

X: No one under 17 admitted was replaced by the rating NC-17.

For all the hand-wringing and wistful expressions of hope that government and industry would together find a solution to protect both children and profits, only Cheney offered a detailed strategy.

"We need to be specific; blanket denunciations do us no good," said Cheney, who proposed shaming individual entertainment executives and corporate board members, holding them "singly and individually accountable" for content.

To that end, Cheney said she began by writing to the two female board members of the parent company of Eminem's distributor - Marie Jose Kravis and Michelle Hooper of Seagram's.

"Is it to their benefit to put out lyrics under this record label that degrade women, demean women and invite violence toward them?" Cheney said.

And she caled on the entertainment industry to include song lyrics with CDs, so that parents will know what children are listening to.

Artemis Records President Danny Goldberg said he's willing to do that. Playing defense, this onetime executive at Atlantic, Warner Brothers and Mercury gave colorful and impassioned testimony at the hearing. Goldberg talked eloquently about the nature of music, consumers' subjective responses to art and the different contexts in which a bad word or an ugly sentiment might be used by an artist to criticize, not titillate.

Goldberg repeatedly batted back senators' attempts to equate movie ratings with music warning labels. At one point, he told Dorgan that with film, there's "nudity or not nudity, blood or not blood. Words have never been categorized the way you're suggesting."

BMG Entertainment chief Strauss Zelnick said he could support providing lyrics, favors a voluntary labeling system and would consider "a more robust system" of labeling content and monitoring corporate marketing practices.

What remains an open question is whether entertainment industry leaders - including the no-shows at the hearing - could ever agree on a uniform labeling system, let alone meet the six-month deadline set by the Gore-Lieberman ticket for "cleaning up" the industry's ways.

What did come through loud and clear from the entire industry is that it doesn't want the government calling the shots.

Goldberg said that government decisions about art "makes as much sense as going to Hollywood to restructure Medicare."

Zelnick defended his right to make business decisions the way he does now, "artist by artist, lyric by lyric and case by case."

Though furious with the movie executives' absence, McCain expressed "reluctance" for legislation on the issue, but reserved the right to "examine every option."

And Lieberman warned if the industry fails to respond to his challenge, he will consider "narrowly targeted legislation."

Many committee members admitted that they found the controversial music before them to be unlistenable and impenetrable. Still, Cheney gave Eminem high marks for diction. "I will give him this credit," she said sardonically, "you can understand every word he says."