"Pushing the envelope in terms of sex is one way to...shock the audience," says Susanne Daniels, The WB's entertainment president. "The Farrelly brothers love to do that. I'm not sure whether it's unfortunate or fortunate. It feels like with physical or sexual comedy or violence, you can [draw a crowd]."
This is a problem. Isn't it? This is a problem that does a disservice to audiences and doesn't do any great favors for those who make entertainment, either, as they scramble to top the most attention-getting stunts from the bottom. (Semen as hair gel is so 1998; how about a dog defecating on the neighbor's lawn, dissolving into a shot of swirling chocolate soft-serve in Me, Myself & Irene?)
Another problem: Talking about this, in ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, makes me sound like Bill Bennett with a wedgie.
Eminem got his say; now it's Duc de la Rochefoucauld's turn. "Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue," the French author wrote, which doesn't have the headline power of "Shut your f---in' face, Uncle F---a," but you see my dilemma. Yes, I have praised the liberating humor of the Farrellys' gross comedies, because the brothers are kind to even the most hapless victims of their pranks; I put South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut on my top 10 list last year because it's as funny and profound a social satire as it is profane. Just two months ago, The Marshall Mathers LP was given an A- in this magazine for "overall artistry" (and, in an impressive act of baton-passing, a D+ for "moral responsibility"). EW thrives because readers share our obsession with popular culture: the more popular (and headline-making) the better! (And have you seen the recent Gucci magazine ad in which a woman clutches at the pants leg of a man wearing neither a shirt nor, obviously, underwear? Our trend editor is right on it!)
Some of my colleagues disagree about the need for this essay, not just because I may be accused of hypocrisy or moralistic finger-wagging, but because they don't think there's anything new or rotten in the state of entertainment. Neither, for example, does Joy Behar, of ABC's The View, which features a quintet of chatty Manhattan gal pals talking--often saucily--about the news. "I don't find things shocking," she says. "I just find them either stupid, annoying, or too much information."
And neither does Adam Carolla, smirky cohost of Comedy Central's The Man Show (which has featured a guy with breast implants--topless), who offers a hard-to-resist argument for lightening up. "When it comes to sexuality and profanity, TV and movies have got a long way to go," he says. "Put it this way: I've never killed anybody, but I use the F-word 350 times a day and I jack off 10 times a week. So I've seen killing on TV for the last 30 years. I've never seen anyone jack off on TV and I've never heard anyone say 'f---' on TV.... Why is it a big deal when you've been saying 'f---' for 20 years?"
Even the MPAA's Jack Valenti offers a unique historical view. He never saw American Pie (remember the nudge-wink newspaper-ad tag line: COME AGAIN?). He has no opinions about what constitutes crossing the line--none that he'll share with us, anyway. (The man who oversees the movie industry's ratings board hasn't seen Scary Movie or The Klumps, either.) As for violence? That's apparently a grand cinematic tradition. "Gladiator is about violence in Roman times. The Perfect Storm is about violence of the weather...."
