41I
LUNCH • DINNER • COCKTAILS
Saturday Special Dinner
Includes:
Glass of Wine • Soup and Salad
Choice of Atlantic Salmon or Whitefish
-Grilled Vegetable Napoleon • Fettuccine Alftedo
Chocolate Torte
$25.00
Brad Pitt
and Edward
Norton in
"Fight Club."
President Clinton has•asked the
Office of Surgeon General to investi-
gate the impact of violent program-
ming on children. As part of the pend-
ing Juvenile Justice Bill in Congress,
we may witness the creation of the
National Commission on Youth
Violence, intended to evaluate popular
culture's impact on our nation's teens.
Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) had
been trying to garner support for a
special Senate inquiry on "violent and
vulgar" entertainment titled the Senate
Committee on American Culture.
Although his attempt to form this
committee failed, he has been pushing
to create a different body called the
Task Force on the State of American
Society.
Potentially more meddling is the
Federal Trade Commission's ongoing
inquiry into violence in the media.
The FTC has already asked to review
the Motion Picture Association's rat-
ings board files. Now, the FTC has set
its eyes on documents prepared by the
major studios that outline their mar-
keting strategies.
While the government couches
these investigations as a way to combat
the marketing of violent fare to chil-
dren, the consequences of the govern-
ment riffling through studio files seem
obvious and chilling. These practices
would only seem to intimidate
Hollywood into producing entertain-
ment product that lines up with the
government's slanted view of the
world.
How else can Weiss or Sallan or
Sarner interpret these investigations as
anything other than a roundabout way
to discourage their creative freedom?
Robert Avrech, a screenwriter best
known for Body Double and A Stranger
Among Us, noted that if you are con-
cerned as a parent about the effects of
violent programming, you should take
responsibility for what your children
are watching. You do not need the
government to investigate or legislate
what you or your children watch on
television or see in the movie theaters.
The last time Hollywood was inves-
tigated in this way, the blacklist was
formed and Joe McCarthy destroyed
countless lives.
It is not such a stretch to envision
the Office of Surgeon General, the
National Committee on Youth
Violence, the Task Force on the State
of American Society or the Federal
Trade Commission devising blacklists
of producers and writers who create
what they subjectively deem to be vio-
lent entertainment.
The question is whether the Jewish
community will exercise the collective
free will provided to it in Deuteronomy
and the Talmud and oppose. the efforts
of a government that professes to
honor creative freedom but apparently
would rather dictate what type of
entertainment we create and consume.
What should the Jewish response to
violence in the media be?
Government, stay out.
❑
In "The Industry," Hollywood
insider and attorney Brad
Pomerance takes a look at issues
in the world of entertainment.
Pomerance enjoys family ties to
the metro Detroit area. His wife
Tina's aunts and uncles include
Arnie and Marge Fuller of West
Bloomfield and Shel and Harriett
Fuller of Bloomfield Hills.
Opening this Saturday at 8:00
7295 Orchard Lake Road, West Bloomfield, Michigan 48322
Robins Nest Shopping Plaza
24 8-932- 8934
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VISIT OUR WEB SITE AT: wwwladifference.com
Corner of Drake
Walnut Lake Road
cets \ ic . 4
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2000
87