The weather this time of year is annoying: subzero temperatures and blizzards are ubiquitous, and neither my comatose car nor I are feeling particularly well. Being a Massachusetts native, I'm used to all this, but it doesn't make winter more bearable. I only have myself to blame, though, for choosing to come to school here instead of, say, UCLA. But I get the feeling that if I were a conservative, I'd be trying to pin the blame on my local weatherman instead.
People like Bob Dole and Bill Bennett are trying to blame the shocking nature of movies and/or popular songs on an apparent depravity of a large subset of the American people. Saying that popular culture causes rather than reflects social problems is like saying that weathermen cause bad weather. These works of popular culture are symptoms, not the disease. But since treating the disease in this case is extremely complex, the dialogue simply focuses on the symptoms.
If you ask Dr. Dre, Ice Cube or any other purveyor of "gangsta" rap whether their songs depict "middle-class fantasies," as many conservatives believe, they'll likely tell you they wish their songs were fantasies. Chuck D of the veteran rap group Public Enemy calls rap "black America's CNN." If poverty and violence weren't prevalent in American cities, "gangsta" rap music wouldn't exist. These artists are not the bringers of stormy skies; they're the weathermen.
And then there is Bennett's attack on trashy talk shows like "Ricki Lake" and "Jerry Springer." I don't know about you, but watching these shows does not make me want to emulate the guests, the hosts or the audience. I myself can't believe the market can sustain Ricki, Jerry, Montel, Jenny and the rest, but I'd like to know what Bennett -- who himself has been a guest on Watergate spook G. Gordon Liddy's radio program -- thinks these shows do to undermine the American character. Yes, our society is messed up. But if we get rid of Jenny Jones our society will still be messed up.
If Senator Dole loses the election in '96, he should become a film critic (if only from a desire to keep up with Senator Phil Gramm). If you want to see just how misguided and politically motivated Dole really is, all you need to do is check out his "best" and "worst" list. On his "worst" list is "Heat," the new DeNiro-Pacino film, presumably because its moral universe is not strictly black and white, which is the way most cultural conservatives look at the world. The film, however, is not amoral. The notion "crime doesn't pay" is, admittedly, not central to this film. The film does, however, highlight other principles. For instance, those who obsessively seek revenge all meet with death. "Heat" also plays games with the audience's sympathy. We don't know whether to sympathize with DeNiro's master criminal or his love interest. Such confusion is integral to the film's dramatic tension.
Predictably, other violent films like "Natural Born Killers" and "True Romance" are also on the Senator's "worst" list. But the violent "Die Hard With A Vengeance" is omitted, and "True Lies," a film with as high a body count as any film on Dole's "worst" list, actually earns his praise. Of course "True Lies" and the "Die Hard" pictures starred two major contributors to the Republican Party, namely Arnold Schwarzerneggar and Bruce Willis, respectively. Conversely, no self-respecting Republican would ever admit liking any film by known liberal Oliver Stone. I'm unsure what Quentin Tarantino's politics are, but I can't imagine any of the GOP White House hopefuls sitting through any film of his without ingesting toxic levels of antacids, though perhaps this is to their credit.
The choice of "True Lies" as being compatible with American values is intriguing. Let's see, in "True Lies," Ahh-nold plays a secret agent married to housewife Jamie Lee Curtis. The premise is essentially that Curtis' character is unaware of her husband's occupation. Hmmm ... keep the chicks in the dark and off lots of bad guys. Core American values there. Or how about "The Lion King," another of the senator's picks. People are unable to govern themselves and need a hereditary monarchy of the "best" creatures of the jungle, a dynastic regime of lions. What exactly are these "American values" he's talking about? They sound like something out of the Middle Ages, and I know Bob Dole is nowhere near that old.
Of course, I can't let an article like this end without mentioning that Senator Dole, a favorite of those who decry the emptiness and recklessness of youth culture, is appearing on MTV from, of all locales, Dartmouth's own Alpha Delta Fraternity. (I wonder where "Animal House" belongs on Dole's lists.) Keep the knives in the drawer; the irony here is so thick, you're going to need a chainsaw to slice through it.
Of course, if it should snow that morning, you might well catch Senator Dole cursing the weatherman.
