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:

BOB COOPER

President, HBO Pictures

Inherent in Sen. Bob Dole’s accusations that the entertainment industry debases the nation’s culture is the suggestion that life imitates art.

If that’s the case, then Bob Cooper, 50, wonders if Dole has been watching HBO, where the self-righteous Sen. Larson Crockett recently waged a vicious campaign blaming societal problems on Hollywood magic. Crockett was a fictional character played by Eric Bogosian in the satirical movie “Witch Hunt.”

“That was a fantasy movie, but it dealt with a congressman in Washington who decides that the way to get votes is to blame the entertainment industry for the ills of society, so he conducts a witch hunt,” Cooper says.

“I don’t see the depiction of sex on television as a problem for our culture,” he says. “The industry certainly could, should and will do more than it’s doing, in terms of gratuitous violence. But that’s not saying that the cause of violence in America is the result of television.”

HBO arguably broadcasts more sex and violence than the networks by showing uncut movies on its premium cable service, but people must pay to receive that service. In its original movies, HBO has carved a niche for itself in films like “The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom,” for which Holly Hunter won an Emmy in 1993.

“What did that say? How we sensationalize violence and how we make celebrities out of alleged criminals, with their TV movies and book deals,” Cooper says.

Still, he says: “When I look at what goes on in [broadcast] television, there’s a kind of sameness--a date rape into a violent rape into incest. It’s sort of astounding that there is such a vacuum or void.”