TV Programming Under Fire From New Quarters

Despite Hollywood’s perceived liberal bent, the entertainment industry increasingly finds the content of its programming under attack from presumed ideological allies. Blacks, Latinos, Jews and the gay and lesbian community have all lobbied the television industry in recent months for changes that range from taking a show off the air to excising dialogue considered to be racially insensitive.

This emerging trend to restrict the content and language of TV will be in sharp view Tuesday as the growing uproar among gay and lesbian groups over a proposed television show featuring controversial radio personality Laura Schlessinger accelerates into a public protest being staged by the activists.

The conflict over Schlessinger--which has put Paramount Pictures at odds with some of its own employees and top producers--signals a shift by these interest groups to more strident tactics. Activists representing homosexuals and minorities have begun adopting methods generally employed by religious conservatives, often seeking to eliminate, as opposed to just criticize, programs that offend them--sometimes, as in the case of Schlessinger’s show, before the series in question has even aired.

This dynamic has proved especially uncomfortable for Paramount and presents awkward challenges in general for Hollywood, which is accustomed to drawing fire from the right but is often ill-prepared to handle flak from the liberal side of the political spectrum.

“Other groups are taking it to the streets and letting their concerns be known,” said Najee Ali, the head of Project Islamic Hope, a community group that orchestrated a campaign against the Fox series “The PJ’s,” a satirical look at an impoverished inner-city housing project. “It’s not just the religious right.”

Advice on Morality and Ethics

Schlessinger’s equally divisive project is the subject of the Tuesday morning protest, when gays and lesbians intend to assemble outside the Paramount lot in Hollywood to rally against the studio’s plans to distribute a new daytime TV program in September featuring the radio talk show host.

Dispensing advice each weekday on ethics and morality to an estimated 18 million listeners on her nationally syndicated radio show, Schlessinger has become a lightning rod of controversy over remarks regarding homosexuality, including references to gays being “deviant” and “a biological error.”

The turmoil surrounding Schlessinger stems from her rhetoric toward gays and advocacy of controversial reparative therapies as an alternative for leading them away from homosexuality. Since the TV show was announced, a group called StopDrLaura.com has sprung up, arguing that no studio would support a host who proffered anti-Semitic or anti-black views.

“The point is, we all know there are restrictions on what goes on TV,” said John Aravosis, an attorney and Internet consultant involved with the group, who said it will expand to a boycott of the program’s advertisers if necessary.

“This is going to be an online living nightmare for Paramount,” he said. “The first sponsor has a spot reserved on our home page.”

The irony is that Hollywood regularly comes under siege from religious fundamentalists for its accepting view of homosexuals and perceived hostility toward religion. Examples include the lead character “coming out” as a lesbian on ABC’s “Ellen,” NBC’s new animated comedy “God, the Devil and Bob” (which some affiliated stations refuse to broadcast), and feature films such as “Priest,” “Dogma” and “The Last Temptation of Christ.”

Michael R. Gardner, a Washington, D.C., attorney specializing in communications and entertainment law, sees the recent tendency to call for removing programs deemed objectionable as too drastic.

“It can be a pox on everybody’s house,” Gardner said. “You have to have total 1st Amendment protection and let the marketplace determine it. If you don’t like Dr. Laura, don’t watch her, and tell your friends not to watch her.”

Various legal scholars and activists, however, say protesters are well within their rights in seeking to persuade a network or studio to drop a project.

“Laura Schlessinger, Paramount and the gay and lesbian groups are all exercising their speech rights, and all are acting appropriately,” said USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky. “Paramount may say, ‘This isn’t worth the controversy.’ The law rightly leaves this to be worked out in the marketplace.”

Organizations such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation have sought to effect change through a dialogue with the TV and film industry, educating executives and creative talent about the need for positive minority images. Even the alliance group, however, recently joined the call for Paramount not to proceed with Schlessinger’s show.

L. Brent Bozell III--chairman of the watchdog Media Research Center, which regularly monitors and chides Hollywood for its sexual content and assaults on family values and morality--doesn’t approve of the cause, but conceded: “I don’t fault them for their tactics. It’s perfectly acceptable for an organization to lobby to cancel a program they think is inappropriate. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that at all.”

According to Peter J. Eliasberg, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Paramount might be well-advised to heed the protesters, saying much of what Schlessinger has said is “homophobic and hateful.”

Programmers, he added, make choices about what to put on all the time, and whether something might alienate a segment of the population is a legitimate consideration. “It’s not censorship in the way I look at it because it’s not the government,” Eliasberg said.

Insiders say top Paramount officials were caught off-guard by the reaction to Schlessinger, unaware that she was such a polarizing figure in the gay and lesbian community. At this point, however, it’s unlikely the studio would pull the plug, given the millions of dollars the TV show could generate if enough of her radio listeners flock to it.

On the strength of that following, Paramount has sold the program to 160 television stations blanketing more than 90% of U.S. homes. Activists have discussed directly pressuring stations as well, though the series will air in major cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York on outlets owned by CBS, which is merging with Paramount’s corporate parent, Viacom.

Some Past Efforts Have Backfired

Historically, efforts to squelch television shows often have backfired. Criticism did little to stem the popularity of “All in the Family,” and ratings rose for the Fox comedy “Married . . . With Children” after a Michigan housewife, Terry Rakolta, garnered national headlines by waging a one-woman campaign against what she characterized as the program’s immorality.

The same held true with “NYPD Blue,” which pushed prime-time standards in terms of nudity and language. Dozens of ABC stations in the South and Midwest initially declined to air the police drama, which became a hit and gradually gained acceptance.

More recently, however, controversial programs have failed to reap such benefits. “The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer,” a Civil War-era satire that resulted in demonstrations outside Paramount’s gates 18 months ago, drew minuscule ratings for UPN and was soon canceled--arguably due more to bad reviews and a general lack of interest than the protest.

Tune-in has also been low for “God, the Devil and Bob,” the NBC comedy that received critical praise but was quickly targeted by religious conservatives for its skewed view of religion as headed by a God wearing T-shirts and jeans.

Howard Stern’s late-night television show, adapted from the shock jock’s sex-obsessed radio program and routinely featuring antics that include nudity and ogling women, is faring much better on cable’s E! Entertainment channel than it has on network TV, where pressure from conservative groups has led some stations not to carry it.

Network and studio executives have grown somewhat numb to the volume of complaints they receive, seemingly resigned to the fact that any program taking creative risks is virtually sure to offend somebody.

In fact, NBC twice retreated from actions taken to mollify interest groups: reinstating a character’s reference to her Latino maid as “tamale” on the comedy “Will & Grace” and saying it will rerun a “Saturday Night Live” sketch that angered the Anti-Defamation League. At the time, NBC said the network must “find a balance between being politically correct and being funny in a non-hurtful way.”

NBC Entertainment President Garth Ancier pointed to a clear distinction between sitcoms and a personality such as Schlessinger espousing a serious political viewpoint.

“It’s one thing to do something in humor that’s not meant to offend the group,” he said. “In all these situations, it’s really been a case of a character playing something humorously as parody. Nobody is consciously trying to hurt people.”

Paramount declined to comment on the scheduled protest, which will include employees as well as the co-creator of the studio’s Emmy-winning comedy “Frasier.” Executives previously issued a statement citing Paramount’s long history of supporting civil rights as well as “the free exchange of speech and ideas.”

Schlessinger also declined to be interviewed, but 10 days ago she released what she has since characterized as a “clarification” of her views, distributed after she retained a crisis management public relations firm. The radio host said she will keep discussing moral and ethical issues and hopes to do so “in an environment free from hate or intolerance and with deep respect for freedom of speech. I can only hope others share this commitment.”

Organizers of StopDrLaura.com, meanwhile, have posted Schlessinger’s comments from her radio show on their Web site, among them the following: “The 1st Amendment is not the 11th Commandment. Its protection does not extend to all speech.”