Doug Lief Lief is a third-year English
student who says, "Hooray for Hollywood, Yippee for New York, and
Blech to Barstow!" Send your two cents to dlief@ucla.edu. Click
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When I’m in the need of column ideas I often drift off
into a rich fantasy world in which I am a beautiful swan and
homeless people are beautiful swans, and instead of eating cheerios
for breakfast I eat tasty swan heads. Or, I just wander into
Westwood and put my finger on the pulse of the people. According to
one such random person, Hollywood isn’t doing enough to help
the poor. I concur.
The guy came up to me with a cardboard sign, a sure sign of
credibility. He informed me that, given the resources, he would
shut down all the movie theaters in Los Angeles. Why? To solve the
world’s poverty problems, duh!
Don’t you get it?
First off, the people working in the actual theaters are barely
making minimum wage. Since minimum wage isn’t going to be
raised (at least not by any satisfactory degree), the best thing to
do would be to deprive them of income completely by taking away
their place of employment. This will force them to forge a new
industry out of their existing resources, like making a new energy
source from stale Mike & Ikes.
But his main argument was that the filth on the big screen was
contributing to the downfall of society. This crappy argument has
been going on for a long time. There’s a lot of pretend
violence out there, and there’s a lot of real violence out
there. The conclusion is that the pretend violence causes the real
violence. By that logic the prevalence of lawn flamingos should be
causing real flamingos to turn into plastic.
 Illustration by MICHAEL SHAW/Daily Bruin There has also
been a direct correlation between the rise of violence in film and
the decline of public executions. Perhaps if we brought back the
guillotine we could teach our children a valuable lesson about
morality, tradition and French. I’m sure President Yosemite
George would go for it.
I am uneasy about the idea of claiming the media is responsible
for society’s ills instead of placing the blame on more
powerful influences like parents. As a member of the mass media
myself, I hope that my columns haven’t influenced anyone to
do anything evil. Then again, given the contents of my columns,
I’ve probably only encouraged people to eat cotton candy,
make fun of Puritans and plagiarize Dave Barry.
So if it is in fact true that phony behavior on-screen causes
the real thing, how is it that Hollywood hurts the
underprivileged?
Hollywood tells people that the poor don’t exist. How?
Think about every homeless character you’ve seen in a movie.
They always turn out to be ghosts or angels in disguise. Remember
the guy on the subway in “Ghost?” I’ve been on
the New York subway and let me tell you that while there are plenty
of people like that there, they cannot walk through solid matter
and move things telepathically, try as they might. I remember
seeing one such guy getting into a rather heated argument with a
very disobedient Almond Joy wrapper.
It’s unfair for Hollywood to turn its back on the poor,
who have done so much for the entertainment industry. Where would
Vaudeville routines have been without hobos to make fun of? Where
would “Cats” have been without indigents selling their
hair to make the costumes? Could there be a “Les
Miserables” without some Miserables? Without the poor,
deformed, belligerent and sociopathic, there would be no Jerry
Springer. The number of slaves needed to keep just Katie Couric
happy is simply staggering. It’s time Hollywood gave
something back.
That’s why I’m proposing the Universal Studios
back-lot housing projects. After all, if three spunky animated kids
with a yearly income of zero can survive in the Warner Brothers
water tower, then surely the set designers of Hollywood can create
a kind of tinsel shantytown. During the day, the studios can use it
to film “Shaft” sequels, meanwhile providing its
impoverished residents with work as extras and walk-on roles as
various stereotypes.
If it works out and the studios want to get more ambitious,
I’m sure the WB could just stick a camera in somebody’s
window and call it a sitcom. Just tell the resident that for every
“booty” joke they make, they’ll receive an extra
$20; the executives can sit back and watch the magic happen. If
that isn’t enough, I’m sure they can get Nikki Cox to
stand around and fold her arms.
This is all, of course, utterly ridiculous. Maybe the media has
some impact on society, but I guarantee Hollywood has no say in
global fiscal and monetary policy. Lobby as we might, Mann Theaters
will never repeal its $2.50 tax on a cup of Diet Coke that only
costs three cents to make.
Frankly, if Hollywood really wants to do something to help poor
people, they can reduce ticket prices. I’ll be damned if
I’m going to pay nine dollars to watch Adam Sandler talk in a
funny voice he wasted on SNL seven years ago.
In reality, Hollywood has done quite a lot for the poor. They
have done so indirectly by supporting the Democratic Party and its
ideals, with the notable exceptions of Arnold Schwarzenegger who
pretends to shoot people, and Charlton Heston who actually hunts
men for sport on his secluded “NRA Isle of
Hesteria”.
A more admirable and direct approach has been fundraisers like
Comic Relief, which, since its inception, has raised more money to
help the homeless than was spent by the Reagan and Bush (Papa Bush,
not Baby Huey W.) administrations combined. It’s about equal
to one dollar per hair on Robin Williams’ body (around $40
million).
There have been many other famous benefits for major causes
““ LiveAid, FarmAid, BandAid, Jerry’s Kids, and of
course Brooke Shields and Peter Gallagher’s pet project,
Eyebrows for Tots.
So why did that crazy guy I met think shutting down the dream
factory would help anything? Because Hollywood is the epicenter of
the mass media machine, it is a highly visible and therefore easy
target. The truth is that celebrities use their visibility and
renown to help the less fortunate far more often than politicians
seem to do. If Sally Struthers is helping more of those kids than
Trent Lott, then why stop her? (Actually the only thing capable of
stopping Sally Struthers is Mothra.)
This brings me to the real culprit: the government. It
isn’t Hollywood’s responsibility to solve this problem.
The president takes the oath to “guard against all enemies,
both foreign and domestic.” Guard whom? The American people,
particularly those who can’t protect themselves, and I
consider poverty as serious a domestic threat as war is a foreign
one. FDR made it clear that this country wouldn’t turn its
back on its suffering citizens.
This noblest of missions has been perverted, however, ever since
the Republican Party decided to play Sheriff of Nottingham. Now in
the richest, most powerful nation in the world, we debate whether
or not to install decidedly useless and superfluous ICBMs while our
own populace starves in the streets as beggars.
We are scrambling to protect ourselves against an enemy we
don’t have, and criticizing the producers of make-believe
trauma. In short, I find it utterly ridiculous to muck about in a
national debate about what Hollywood is up to on a national scale
when the nation itself is ignoring a real problem that actually
affects millions.
So please think twice before you boycott “Save the Last
Dance.” Actually, that movie sucked (unless you are attracted
to girls with enormous foreheads), so you can boycott that one. But
overall, let’s think sensibly and assign blame where it
belongs. That homeless guy probably isn’t an angel, so you go
ahead and be one yourself.