COMMENTARY : Hill vs. Thomas: TV Event Was Too Tragic to be Fun Viewing

All we learn from history, the saying goes, is that we do not learn. That may be about all we learn from television, too.

Optimistically, though, one could hope that one lesson that might be taken away from the televised Senate hearings on Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas is that this kind of excruciating fiasco must never happen again.

It could, of course. But it shouldn’t.

As a television spectacle, the hearings, prompted by University of Oklahoma law professor Anita F. Hill’s charge that Thomas had sexually harassed her, had everything one could ask: sex, conflict, politics, grasps for power, colorful characters and no shortage of lurid details.

It might only be fair, in fact, that the scandal be dubbed “Silvergate” after a certain L.D. Silver, who became, for a brief moment, one of the most famous movie stars in America, even though most people have never seen him. Now he belongs to the ages.

Despite all the tantalizing and absurdist aspects of the story, however, it remained too essentially tragic to be considered fun viewing. The hearings weren’t rollicking entertainment; they were exquisite torture. You kept wondering if things could possibly get worse, if some of the people involved could embarrass themselves still further, and often, they did.

Certainly the public’s opinion of how the Senate does its work had to have been lowered even more by this intensive, concentrated exposure. Some senators came across as buffoonish caricatures, or as posturing phonies with vicious streaks they could not conceal.

In particular, the abuse heaped on Hill--the attempts at amateur psychoanalysis, the sleazy smears, the trial by rumor--helped make the proceedings a sorry spectacle.

One of the grimmest ironies is that some committee members chided Hill, either to her face or behind her back, for not having come forward years ago with her charges of sexual harassment. Why, they wondered, had she kept silent?

They were answering their own question. Look what happened to Hill when she did come forward. For agreeing to testify when asked to do so by the committee, Hill was rewarded with character assassination.

In a nationally televised statement she made upon returning to the University of Oklahoma, where students and faculty cheered her, Hill encouraged women not to take her ordeal as an example of how society treats all those who come forward.

“I am hopeful that others who have suffered sexual harassment will not become discouraged by my experience,” Hill said, “but instead will find the strength to speak out about this serious problem.”

To her last moment on the air, she remained a poised and persuasive figure. She kept her dignity, which was the real challenge of the whole unseemly episode.

Among the many likely side effects of the hearings is this: Language on TV programs may get even more raw and risque than it has been. Now that certain words and subjects have been spoken, bandied about and repeated endlessly in an official government proceeding, producers and writers will start including them in their scripts, too.

How could the network censor in charge of, say, “Saturday Night Live” forbid the use of certain expressions when they’d already been heard on the network, and out of the mouths of U.S. senators?

Another possible bit of fallout: More movies and TV shows about sex scandals in Washington. The problem for those who try to make such films, however, will be coming up with fictions more outlandish than what we’ve already seen happening for real.