Sitting shoulder to shoulder, looking about as comfortable as a row of Rodney Dangerfields tugging at their collars, the executives offered cringing mea culpas. But only some--including Disney president/COO Robert Iger (mispronounced EE-gor by some of the senators), Warner Bros. president/COO Alan Horn, and DreamWorks Pictures cohead Walter Parkes--unequivocally promised not to market R-rated movies to minors. Others fell back on a 12-point plan Valenti had cobbled together, promising such reforms as ending underage test screenings and banning trailers for R-rated films before G-rated movies.
McCain wasn't assuaged. "A weasel-worded equivocation," is how he describes Valenti's peace proposal.
What's scaring the studios so much isn't McCain's bark but the promise of his bite. Unlike presidential candidates--whose anti-Hollywood rhetoric has a sell-by date of Nov. 7--McCain's committee could result in legislative action, including possible fines and government-filed lawsuits against studios, much the way Congress went after the tobacco industry.
"McCain is asking the impossible," explains Rob Friedman, vice chairman of Paramount's Motion Picture Group and one of the execs who didn't promise to stop marketing all R-rated movies to minors. "You can't guarantee that kids won't see your ads. He's asking us to commit to something we can't do--and then to open ourselves up to legal action if we don't live up to that commitment."
An even more problematic point: Not all the executives agreed that every R-rated movie shouldn't be marketed to minors. "Not all R-rated movies are created equal," DreamWorks' cohead Walter Parkes tried to explain at the hearing. "Films are not widgets or cans of beer or cigarettes," echoed Warner's Alan Horn. Universal's chairman Stacey Snider mentioned Erin Brockovich and Boys N the Hood as two films she might consider appropriate to market to older teens ("I'm sorry to hear your answer," McCain coolly told her, even though it turns out he hasn't seen either film). And most every exec invoked Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List as R-rated movies they'd want their children to see.
Still, McCain wasn't buying it. "Please," he says, "don't bother me with this phony baloney about Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. If I heard those movies mentioned once at the hearing, I heard them 500 times. Those are fine films, and parents should be allowed to decide if they want their kids to see them. But 98 percent of R-rated movies are not the sort of movies parents want their kids to see. And they shouldn't be marketed at children."
Actually, that 98 percent figure may be a tad high. Last year, for instance, the studios released The Insider, The Green Mile, and Liberty Heights, R-rated films that can't exactly be accused of luridly exploiting the teen market, and films many parents may indeed have wanted their kids to know about. More to the point, if McCain's hearings result in legislation, any number of R-rated movies that explore themes relevant to teenagers (we're not talking American Pie here) might not get made. "It could make the studios more cautious," predicts Friedman.
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