PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE : By Taking Today’s Pop Culture Literally, Critics Miss the Point of Entertainment

Entertainment is about fantasy and escapism. This is why political attacks on show business seem so ridiculous to people who enjoy the movies, TV shows, or music.

When a TV show is “analyzed” by politicians, a few lines are quoted as if they should be taken literally, as a sort of instruction manual. But literalism has nothing to do with entertainment, an experience in which exaggeration, emotion and invention unite to make people laugh or cry or dance or feel a release from pressure. No one watches a situation comedy expecting to imitate its silly characters the next day.

Yet the same people who insist that modern entertainment should be morally judged based on a literal interpretation, somehow grasp the impressionistic nature of the entertainment they grew up on. Dan Quayle is unlikely to attack “Casablanca” for sending a message that “adultery is OK.” The most strident critics of today’s rock music always say they are fans of Elvis Presley. This is not because Elvis was a big role model for “traditional family values,” but because a generation of adults now accepts his sexuality as an expression of a symbolic attitude, not as a moral guidebook. When “All in the Family” was first aired, some liberals worried that Archie Bunker was legitimizing bigotry. But “All in the Family” had the opposite effect--it somehow drained bigotry of much of its power.

The magnet of the moment for pseudo-moral politicians is rap. Like Bill Clinton’s arch villain, Sister Souljah, rapper Ice-T is accused by some police groups of “advocating” murder in his song “Cop Killer.” Ice-T has repeatedly explained that his song is intended not to encourage violence but as a description of the emotions and mind-set of a black victim of police brutality. Nonetheless, a predominantly white police group based in Texas is insisting that the song be withdrawn from the marketplace because it supposedly makes cops less safe. Meanwhile, the National Black Police Assn. is defending the song.

This creates a dilemma for Quayle, one of a parade of elected officials who have jumped on the anti-Ice-T bandwagon. Does Quayle think black policemen are more stupid or self-destructive than white policemen? Or could it be that Ice-T’s explanation of his own song reflects how his audience views it and black police officers are more in touch with that perspective?

L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina displayed a candor rare among politicians when she admitted, “I have not listened to this song, but I am convinced by what I’ve read in news accounts that this is a totally inappropriate rap song.” In terms of Molina’s political agenda, it probably makes no difference that the song is not a rap but sung to rock instrumentation.

However, rock and rap are different genres, and this distinction means everything to people who actually listen to contemporary music. The rock-music context means the primary audience for “Cop Killer” will be the white rock audience, which needs to understand the agony of victims of racism, and not the black rap audience, which--according to the dubious literalism theory--might commit an act of violence as a result of hearing the song. Of course, when Chief Daryl F. Gates told a congressional hearing, “Casual drug users should be taken out and shot,” many of the same politicians who condemn Ice-T were quick to accept Gates’ explanation that his remark was symbolic of his strong feelings about drug abuse--and not intended literally.

Besides the contempt the vice president showed for single mothers, the silliest thing about Quayle’s attack on “Murphy Brown” was that he obviously didn’t understand, or care, that the show is not a series of lifestyle sermons, but a comedy aiming to make people laugh.

Ross Perot, who claims to be different from other politicians, criticized one of last year’s episodes of the TV series “Doogie Howser, M.D.” The show was about the 18-year-old title character losing his virginity. What is the moral point of the criticism? Does Perot think there are kids who hadn’t heard about sex until they saw this episode?

This doesn’t mean that to love show business you have to become amoral. There are moral distinctions between different kinds of entertainment--but they are not discernible in the sound-bite world of campaigns. Entertainment fans often argue about the moral resonance of various TV shows, films and music. This is why we read reviews. There is no example of a decline in the divorce rate or reduction in crime because of political pressure on entertainment.

The advantage to some politicians in knocking show business is no mystery. Attacks on entertainment get headlines. There also exists a moralistic cabal, which does not have confidence in ordinary people to make judgments about entertainment. They want to impose a set of standards on the entertainment business other than public taste. Whether such standards would be imposed by a secretary of culture, or by pressure groups who intimidate entertainment corporations, the intent is the same: to subvert the free market in favor of a set of values held by a culturally conservative elite.

The subculture of conservative religious groups can generate thousands of letters to politicians, creating the illusion of a groundswell in favor of changes in the entertainment culture. In a recent speech, Quayle exulted that “hundreds” of callers had flooded his office with praise of his “Murphy Brown” attack. Meanwhile, 30 million people a week are watching the show’s reruns.