TV AND THE GULF WAR : Now You Have Your Choice: Killing and Gore for Real or Simply Make-Believe

As if the real world weren’t grim enough. . . .

Just in case you weren’t experiencing sufficient gloom and pessimism. . . .

On the off chance you weren’t feeling fear and jitters all the time. . . .

Well, has television got something swell for you. Yes, friends, from the folks who give you murder and mayhem in peace time, you lucky suckers are now getting more--much, much more--murder and mayhem in wartime.

As February’s TV ratings sweeps continue to fuse with February’s Middle East military sweeps, that durable theory about the small screen generating a vast “mean world syndrome” was never more operative.

That is to say TV’s violence-as-usual policy as regards entertainment programming is bound to further nourish a national paranoia that needs feeding about as much as Saddam Hussein’s ego needs feeding.

Violent crime always has been the programming soul of TV in those months--November, February, May and, to a lesser extent, July--which are especially crucial in the setting of local advertising rates.

And war is not about to change that.

At a time when Iraqi civilian casualties are increasingly visible and newscasts and newspapers are buzzing with reports of imminent bloody land combat, the Persian Gulf is just not gory enough for TV.

For example, NBC Sunday launched “Loves, Lies and Murder,” its two-part drama about a grisly murder case in which a 14-year-old was manipulated by her father into killing her stepmother.

Opposite this on ABC was a remake of “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”--more murder opposite still another slaying scenario in the old “Prescription: Murder” movie on KTLA Channel 5. Opposite that on KCAL Channel 9 was Part 2 of its rerun of “Fatal Vision,” a TV account of an especially horrid case that resulted in Jeffrey MacDonald being convicted of murdering his wife and young daughters.

This is not to say that any of the above were poorly executed, only that in these times of war-driven stress what we may need most from TV--what a UNICEF official visiting Baghdad described on CNN on Sunday as “corridors of tranquillity”--is what we’re getting least. Instead, TV is clearing out artificial corridors of tension.

Whether “The Evil That Men Do,” tonight’s Charles Bronson movie on KTTV Channel 11 about a professional hit man pursuing a sadistic doctor, or “10 to Midnight,” Channel 11’s Bronson movie on Tuesday about attempts to capture a murderer of women.

Whether’ “Sins of the Mother,” Tuesday’s CBS movie about a manipulative parent and her rapist son, or Channel 5’s Ninja movies on Tuesday and Wednesday, or the latter night’s “Unsolved Mysteries” on NBC profiling an ancient serial murderer known as “The Butcher of Kingsbury Run.”

Whether “Murderous Vision,” Wednesday’s USA cable movie about surgical mutilation. Whether “Friday the 13th, Part V” on USA or “Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers” on Cinemax or “Howling IV” on Showtime.

Whether the slasher themes of “Cobra” on Showtime or “Night Game” on Cinemax. Whether the nightly brutal crime themes on the syndicated “Hard Copy” or the three dozen other violent movies on this week’s TV schedule.

Isn’t now the time for a break?

And let’s also retire the ugly, dangerous Persian Gulf stereotypes that the World Wrestling Federation perpetuates on its syndicated “Main Event.”

On Sunday’s telecast on KNBC Channel 4, Sgt. Slaughter--who some time ago dropped his super-patriot Marine guise for his current role as an amorphous evil military maniac with a caricaturish sneaky Arab sidekick--played typically dirty with Hacksaw Jim Duggan.

The wild, American flag-waving crowd began chanting “U.S.A. . . . U.S.A.” when Hacksaw seemed to be winning. But the jubilation was brief.

After creaming the all-American Duggan with a steel chair--and then doing the same to heroic Hulk Hogan when he attempted to aid Hacksaw--the Iraqi flag-waving Sgt. Slaughter really whipped the screaming crowd into a frenzy by defiantly stalking off as if Saddam Hussein himself were somehow escaping from the U.S. military.

Not to worry, though, for later the resilient Hogan warned Sgt. Slaughter not to “fire some Scud missiles at my Hulkamaniacs.” After then leading the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance, he drew cheers while waving a large American flag to patriotic music. And, oh yes, as business and bigotry merged, it was announced that the Hulkster himself will be wrestling Sgt. Slaughter in Los Angeles.

Again, as if the real world weren’t grim enough.