Dole II Offers Praise for Hollywood

Bob Dole came to 20th Century Fox Studios on Tuesday not to bury the entertainment industry, as he did in an angry speech last year, but to praise “what is best in your industry . . . in hope that others will follow the example.”

What is best, Dole said in a 19-minute speech to several hundred Fox employees and a smattering of entertainment executives, is movies like “Apollo 13,” “Babe” and “Forrest Gump.”

“Braveheart,” too, won his stamp of approval, despite its copious gore. It is a story of “love, honor and yes, violent battle,” Dole said. “But it was violence true to the story, a story of men fighting for freedom, not just brutality thrown in there for the shock and thrill of it.”

Dole called his Tuesday address, set on a sound stage with a picture of the Hollywood sign in the background, a “sequel” to his 1995 lecture on the darker aspects of Hollywood.

This time, while he repeated some of his criticism of popular culture--slapping the entertainment industry’s defense of “gratuitous violence and casual sex and generally cheap behavior in some movies”--Dole said he wanted to focus on “good movies in Hollywood.”

“People in this town have such power over our culture, such enormous influence over what people see and think and feel,” he told the group. “You have the power to alter moral sensibilities, to shape attitudes and outlooks and habits of mind and heart.”

As has often been the case on the 1996 campaign trail, President Clinton stole some of Dole’s thunder in advance, hosting a White House summit Monday in which he announced that television executives had vowed to offer at least three hours each week of educational programming for children.

Dole received a tepid response from the audience of about 200 Tuesday, but Hollywood II: The Dole Sequel received better reviews from the entertainment industry than did last year’s version.

Lionel Chetwynd, who wrote such made-for-TV movies as the biblical miniseries “Joseph” and “Ruby Ridge: An American Tragedy,” said he was concerned about the balance between uplifting American morality and protecting free speech.

But he praised the address after Dole finished speaking, saying, “It’s the job of a presidential candidate to try to remind us of what is the best in American society.”

And he argued that the entertainment industry “is not a monolith,” as it may have been viewed in the past. In fact, he said, “the most severe attacks [against it] are coming from the Democrats.”

Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, said many of Dole’s comments had a certain validity. “I could have written it myself,” he added. But, he said, certain realities were omitted from the address.

The movie industry, Valenti said, is a microcosm of the political arena. “Last year we produced 550 films and there are 535 members of Congress,” he observed. “In both, some are good and some are bad. We try to do the best we can but, just as congressmen can’t be demagogues, we can’t dictate what kind of films should be made.”

Dole, however, said in his speech that he disagreed with that argument--what he called “that familiar line, ‘We’re only giving the public what it wants.’ ”

“We’ve all heard that line. There are other lines that I find much more convincing--the lines outside America’s theaters,” Dole said. Noting that the heavily promoted and sexually explicit “Striptease” had flopped, Dole argued that audience reactions proved that “most of the public wants something better.”

Entertainers can make money with art that is wholesome, he argued. “You can watch your ratings rise and your box-office receipts go up and still look at yourself in the mirror.”

On Monday, in a Hollywood homework session, Bob and Elizabeth Hanford Dole took in a bargain matinee of the blockbuster film “Independence Day”--the kind of movie he pointed to as both good for viewers and the studios.

The laconic former Kansas senator left the Century City theater Monday evening after giving the movie--which is marked by violence but no sex--a spare but positive review. “It’s a good movie,” he said. “Bring your family to, be proud of. It’s about diversity in America. Leadership.”

William J. Bennett, the former Education secretary and author of the best-selling “Book of Virtues,” was quick to note that the probable Republican presidential candidate had actually seen all the movies that he praised on Tuesday. That wasn’t the case a year ago.

And he took pains to emphasize that the speech--which he helped write--was a pat on the back, not a punch in the nose. Dole’s address “was in the interest of giving due to Hollywood,” said the man who introduced the candidate Tuesday morning.

“That first speech last year was a very tough speech,” said Bennett, among the most visible conservative commentators on public values. “To some people it left the impression that there’s nothing good here. Nothing encouraging happens. Nothing good happens. Nothing uplifting happens. But a lot that’s very good and very encouraging happens.”

Dole later journeyed to Orange County for a lunchtime rally in Irvine, where he brought a like-minded crowd to its feet with a speech that chastised Bill Clinton for liberal waffling and offered safe themes that have resonated in this predominantly Republican county for decades: The heartland, God and country.

Referring to oft-repeated criticism that his campaign so far has not offered an agenda, Dole said the Republican convention in San Diego next month will be his launching pad.

“It’s too early to spell out an agenda,” Dole said. “Starting in San Diego, you will be informed precisely where I’m coming from.”

Times staff writers Elaine Dutka in Los Angeles and Len Hall in Irvine contributed to this story.

* DOLE’S INFLUENCE: The bottom line still carries more weight in Hollywood. F1