August 2, 1997
LIBERTIES / By MAUREEN DOWD
Butt Out, Hillary
ASHINGTON -- If the First Lady is going to worry about Julia Roberts as a role model, you'd think she would object to "Pretty Woman," in which Ms. Roberts charmingly presented prostitution as another yuppie avenue of upward mobility -- leading to respect, rubies, escargots, good table manners, flossing and Richard Gere.
Or "Everyone Says I Love You," in which the actress played a married woman who has an affair with Woody Allen. Or "Something to Talk About," in which she tries to poison a philandering husband. Or the upcoming "Conspiracy Theory," in which she is a Justice Department employee who hooks up with Mel Gibson, a conspiracist cab driver who thinks NASA is trying to kill the President with earthquakes.
Instead, Hillary Rodham Clinton chooses an easy target, scolding Ms. Roberts for smoking in "My Best Friend's Wedding." Her chiding column appeared on the same day that the U.S. Postal Service had a red carpet ceremony to unveil a stamp with a handsome image of Humphrey Bogart, who epitomized the cool of smoking and who died of lung cancer.
"This portrayal of a modern woman so reliant on cigarettes is particularly troubling given that more young women are taking up the deadly habit," the First Columnist wrote, adding: "A dynamic woman smoking throughout 'My Best Friend's Wedding,' an intelligent scientist lighting up in 'Contact' and Leonardo DiCaprio playing a chain-smoking Romeo in 'Romeo and Juliet' send children the wrong message." ("Romeo and Juliet" sends children the wrong message.)
"Instead of hiding behind the excuse of artistic license," she continued, Hollywood big shots "should admit that most film scenes depicting smoking are gratuitous -- whether it's Will Smith celebrating every triumph by lighting a cigar in 'Independence Day' or Kurt Russell unveiling a pack of red, white and blue cigarillos with the brand name 'Freedom' in 'Escape From L.A.'�"
Ms. Roberts's character in that movie bothered me, too, but smoking was the least of it. What about her willingness to lie and manipulate and break hearts and even get her best friend fired, just so that she could steal him from his fianc�e? I don't care if the woman had a smoking problem. I do care that she had a means-ends problem. Or should children be taught that it's okay to behave like Machiavelli if you don't light up?
I've always loved all those old movies that glamorize smoking. But it never made me want to smoke. I've always loved those old movies that glamorize bank robbers. But I never wanted to rob a bank.
It was my older brother who made sure I would never take up smoking; he told me, early and often, that men found women who smoked unattractive. TV and movies are a powerful influence, but it is the family's role to shape behavior and instill values.
A movement to modify behavior through media started several years ago when Jay Winsten of Harvard began lobbying to have prime-time television programs insert designated driver and anti-violence themes. His success caused lobbyists for every disease and social problem to besiege Hollywood.
It was one thing to make TV and movie people more conscious that characters might buckle their seat belts or use condoms or talk about consequences. But now the focus on subliminal messages has become an obsession, as every show is pressured into becoming a thousand little sermons.
Critics complain that Christine Baranski's deliciously cynical character on "Cybill" should not drink so many martinis. Lucie Arnaz wishes her parents' smoking scenes could be cut from "I Love Lucy" reruns.
The First Lady is straying into commissar territory. The purpose of movies is not moral uplift, and Mrs. Clinton does not know what is good for everybody.
A holier-than-thou celluloid universe where people are portrayed as we want them to be, rather than how they are, is not art or entertainment. It's propaganda. It is their flaws that make characters interesting.
The state has no authority over culture. It is the purpose of art -- it is even the purpose of Julia Roberts movies -- to explore all aspects of life. Politicians are not parents. Studio executives are not parents. Only parents are parents.
The problem with most of the stuff that comes out of Hollywood is not that it is unedifying. The problem is that it is unwatchable.
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Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company
