Firing Darts Too Dull to Sting Hollywood

Washington is not exactly a laugh a minute. Politicians are not naturally funny. Congressional attempts at humor make the monthly Rotary Club luncheon sound like a laugh riot.

Example of Washington wit: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Answer: To meet FDA requirements.

Let’s face it, Washington’s rightful place in the universe is not to sling satire, but to suffer it, most deliciously at the hands of our own beloved entertainment industry. There was Dana Carvey as Ross Perot. Phil Hartman as Bill Clinton. Chevy Chase as Gerald R. Ford. And, more recently, the Norman Lear-sponsored Equine Posterior Achievement Award given annually to “the biggest horse’s patootie” in politics. This year it went to Rep. Bob Barr, the thrice-married Georgia Republican who opposes gay weddings as morally bankrupt.

But in the spirit of never leaving well enough alone, a couple of Washington legends have lately attempted to flog the entertainment industry with its own whip. This in the form of the Silver Sewer Award given to the nation’s most notorious cultural polluters.

Three out of three times the honors have gone to Hollywood. Natch.

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Morals czar Bill Bennett and the incorruptible Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) teamed up this month to dishonor Fox Television Network for setting new lows in prime time programming. They also lampooned Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch for leading one of America’s largest television networks “into the gutter.”

Evidently, a preview of the network’s new fall lineup really fried the morals police, particularly:

* “Manchester Prep,” in which a high school girl sizes up her stepbrother’s genitals as he comes out of the shower, concluding: “Hmmm. Not bad.”

* “Get Real,” wherein a mother finds her teenage son in bed with his girlfriend and jokes: “Is this your idea of a bed and breakfast?”

* “Action,” in which a prostitute masturbates a movie star in a crowded theater, a producer lets loose with a string of bleeped but easily recognizable F-words and a kitchen worker urinates into a Cobb salad for revenge.

Yuck.

It’s not that the Silver Sewer bestowers don’t have good intentions: Responsible parents probably don’t want their kids watching some TV mom’s fantasy orgasm.

Neither can their motives be impugned: Murdoch is a mega-contributor to the same conservative causes that Bennett espouses.

But what began as a barb for the entertainment industry may have backfired on the culture warriors.

“Two new Fox series . . . just hit pay dirt,” Washington Post TV columnist Lisa de Moraes wrote when the Silver Sewer was announced.

“This put a large halo of publicity around the little-known shows and heavily implied that young people would be foolish not to watch since two older cultural conservatives were so obviously alarmed,” said nationally syndicated columnist John Leo.

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Fox’s is the third Silver Sewer awarded since last spring; the first went to the Seagram Co. for the “Jerry Springer Show.” The second went to CBS Television for “The Howard Stern Show” and for the “60 Minutes” airing of the Kevorkian death tape.

So far, not one of the recipients has lifted a finger to change their low-down ways.

“In all honesty, it probably made Fox happy,” one Washington aide said. “It’s hard to argue that we have had any effect by trying to embarrass these guys. We are starting to get a little frustrated.”

It appears the Silver Sewer purveyors overlooked a few things.

First, they have tried to publicly shame an industry that is shameless. In Hollywood, profit sometimes matters more than morality. Witness Fox Entertainment President Doug Herzog’s response to the dubious recognition: “This is all happening because society is evolving and changing. The bottom line is, people seem to be buying it.”

Second, they inadvertently rewarded a publicity-hungry industry with more publicity. Even though it was supposed to be bad publicity, anyone who knows Hollywood knows there is no such thing.

And third, they tried to skewer shows a lot of people think are funny with a prize that isn’t. The aforementioned horse’s patootie prize comes with the dishonored’s name etched on a 10-inch bronze horse’s patootie cast by sculptor Robert Graham (Anjelica Huston’s husband).

With the Silver Sewer you just get a certificate.

“Never, never try to attack a funny show with a not-so-funny satirical award,” columnist Leo cautions.

Washington’s more traditional way of shining a hot spotlight on Hollywood behavior it doesn’t like has been to hold some long, scary hearings. And with a pending Federal Trade Commission inquiry into the industry’s marketing of violence to children, and the Senate’s recent attempt to form a task force policing the decline of American culture as politicians see it, those may yet come.

In the meantime, maybe we’d all be better off if legislators did not do stand-up and comedians did not make laws.