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:

SAMUEL GOLDWYN JR.

Chairman/CEO, Samuel Goldwyn Co.

As filmmaking has become increasingly centralized, Samuel Goldwyn Jr. is arguably the last true independent. The distributor of art-house films like “The Madness of King George” and “Much Ado About Nothing,” his company--currently on the market after a tough fiscal year--has also tapped into popular culture with the Martin Lawrence concert film “You So Crazy” and TV’s “American Gladiators.”

Where his famed producer-father once commented that he seriously objected to “seeing on the screen what belongs in the bedroom,” this Goldwyn is convinced that art should reflect reality.

“Bad taste is bad taste, but when it comes to issues, there are no taboos,” says Goldwyn, who released the AIDS drama “Longtime Companion” and the lesbian tale “Desert Hearts.” “We can’t return to movies in which women and men didn’t sleep in the same bed and divorce was unthinkable. ‘Family’ films, too, should be reality-based. ‘Forrest Gump’ is more of a family film than ‘Lassie.’ ”

Goldwyn, 68, calls ratings judgments by the Motion Picture Assn. of America “uneven”: tougher on sex than on violence--especially that disseminated by the major studios.

” “Menace II Society’ is more at risk than ‘Terminator,’ ” he says. “And though we’ve come a long way from the all-white jury that judged my ‘Cotton Comes to Harlem’ in 1970, there’s a white-bread approach when it comes to language and cultural differences. Still, cries of ‘censorship’ are just bombs thrown by movie executives to get media space.”

Don’t blame the movie industry for the state of the nation, Goldwyn says.

“Movies are no longer the mass medium they once were when the only competition was from radio and people went to the theaters once a week. People get their information in a lot of different ways.”