COVER STORY : AT THE CENTER OF THE DOLE FIRESTORM

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) got plenty of attention when he scolded Hollywood about sex and violence in movies, TV and pop music. But, as The Times reports today (see Page A1), Dole’s comments aren’t changing the face of show business. Yet. The creative and business powerbrokers will tell you they’ve always been thoughful about what they produce. Here, then, are some snapshots of life on the front lines:

DAWN STEEL

Movie producer

Dawn Steel released an eclectic slate of movies ranging from “Ghostbusters II” to “Awakenings” when she ran Columbia Pictures from 1987 to 1990.

In her life as an independent producer, however, she’s targeted material she considers “spiritually uplifting.” If “Cool Runnings,” the story of a Jamaican bobsled team, was a black “Rocky,” she says, the upcoming “Angus” is a teen-age “Rocky.”

“Having a kid has affected the movies I’m drawn to--big time,” says Steel, 48, a partner in Atlas Entertainment who was the industry’s first female studio chief. “I don’t want to make any pictures I’m embarrassed about, not because they’re turkeys but because they’re morally offensive. Still, it’s unrealistic to expect Hollywood to give up violence altogether. Balance, rather than avoidance, should be the goal.”

Hollywood’s propensity for violence is market-related, she says. “If people didn’t flock to movies that are overtly violent, I promise you we’d stop making them. Why, then, are politicians picking on us and not the public? Because it’s not strategically advantageous to target the voters.”

Family films are in vogue because they, too, fill the seats. “Everyone can go to them,” Steel says, “and they eliminate the need for a baby-sitter.”

Steel doesn’t have the same concerns about sexual content, however.

“In fact, if it was up to me, there’d be more sex in pictures,” she says. “My next movie is a mushy love story about longing and touching rather than the kind of sex that makes one uncomfortable. ‘Legends of the Fall’ was one of the first good love stories in a very long time.”

For all its problems, Steel says, the U.S. film industry sets the standard: “Movies are what America does better than anyone. The Japanese make cars as well as we do. The Italians make clothes as well as we do. But, as corny as it sounds, when I stand in back of a movie theater abroad, I’m proud to be an American.”