Pretty worthless; whatever happened to making movies that make a difference?

Pretty Worthless

In the 1954 film On the Waterfront, Marlon Brando plays a dockworker named Terry Malloy whose brother is in cahoots with the vicious leader of the dockworkers' local. Although he resists falling in with the crooks, Terry also has no interest in trying to stop them. When an investigator from the crime commission tries to question him, Terry more or less sums up his philosophy of life: "I don't know nothin', I ain't seen nothin', an' I ain't sayin' nothin'."

Enter Edie (Eva Marie Saint). She's educated and has a shot at escaping the docks; if she falls for Terry, she probably never will. But much more threatening to the relationship than Terry's lack of money or brains are Edie's weird ideas. She's putting herself on the line to clean up the waterfront, and she expects no less from Terry. "Shouldn't everybody care about everybody else?" she asks him. He looks amazed. "Boy," he observes, "are you a fruitcake."

As On the Waterfront amply demonstrates, Hollywood has never been a hotbed of complex moral thinking. But the past few years have seen a dramatic narrowing of the issues and themes addressed in the movies. The cinematic legacy of the Reagan era divides roughly into two categories. On one hand are what could be characterized as outward-looking films, in which the main players try to save or avenge their friends/town/city/planet. These heroes are not descendants of George Bailey, who through example and hard work kept Bedford Falls from the clutches of Mr. Potter, or of Gary Cooper, who made it almost to the end of High Noon without firing a shot. Instead, they take after Dirty Harry, whose readiness to blow holes through villains seemed to be all that stood between San Francisco and the apocalypse. No one will be shocked to hear that this bloody-buddy genre has its moral deficiencies.

The Reagan years' other moral legacy to Hollywood is more inward-looking: the exaltation of "family values," in which the family itself has become our only value, the single bright ray in an increasingly murky world. Compared to the bloodbaths of the cop films, these movies are refreshing not only because they're generally fun to watch, but because of their emphasis on love and sincerity within relationships. Still, you don't have to be a graduate of NYU film school to see that the warm, fuzzy movies celebrating friendship, family, and the occasional dog are also lacking morally. In fact, as a moviegoer--and a wife and a mother and a journalist--I find them not just empty, but insidious, because they leave us feeling so good about our insulated selves. The redoubtable Edie would never have settled for such moral interior decorating, as Terry learns to his peril. She flings his offer of a mere relationship right back in his face: "No wonder everybody calls you a bum."

He pursues her, bewildered. "I'm only trying to help you out. I'm trying to keep you from getting hurt," Terry mumbles. "What more do you want me to do?"

"Much more," Edie fires back, almost snarling, "much, much, much more."

Radicchio ad absurdum

Much more, indeed. In trying to produce "family" movies, today's popular filmmakers have confused niceness that stops at the front door. Trend spotting is, of course, a risky business, and there are some exceptions--this year's Oscar-sweeping Dances With Wolves comes to mind, as do other films such as Glory, The Hunt for Red October, and Guilty by Suspicion--to confuse the rule. But a look at the heart-warming blockbusters of recent years indicates that, in general, we hold these truths to be self-evident: that a parent's highest responsibility is to provide complete emotional and financial security for his child; that women exist to help men get beyond their fear of intimacy and commitment; and that personal relationships are the single most important facet of life.

And sometimes the only facet. In the latest afterlife extravaganza, Defending Your Life, Albert Brooks doesn't have to minister to reach a higher level of being. He just has to admit he loves Meryl Streep.

Of course, Brooks and Streep are utterly insulated from the real world--but then again, so are almost all movie couples. In When Harry Met Sally, the seal is so tight that any real human being would surely suffocate. We barely learn what the characters do to pay for their loft apartments, grilled radicchio, and Mexican ceramic tile floors. ("Everybody thinks they have good taste and a sense of humor," lectures Marie, the character played by Carrie Fisher, "but they couldn't all possibly have good taste.") The outside world intrudes only once, when Harry and Sally double-date with their best friends. Harry's friend Jess, an intense journalist, launches into passionte praise of Jimmy Breslin, calling his writing "a wake-up call to the city of New York": "He's saying we've actually got people in the city, people on welfare. . . ." And that's it. Sally rools her eyes, and the conversation fades out, overlaid by Harry and MArie's discussion of window decorating.

Think back: Away from your VCR, when was the last time you heard a somber Rick reminding the audience that larger obligations give life meaning--that, when you get right down to it, "the problems of two little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world"? When was the last time you saw a Mr. Smith waving the Constitution on the Senate floor, expostulating, "I wouldn't give a red cent for all your fine rules, without there was some plain everyday, common kindness under 'em--and a little looking out for the next fella"?

A little looking out for the next fella is precisely what filmmakers are leaving out of their family-oriented pictures--a dangerous signal to be transmitting to our kids (at whom most of these movies are aimed), since, as Mr. Smith puts it in his homey, gender-specific terms, "Now, we're not gonna have a country that makes these kinds of rules work, if you have't got men who've learned to tell human rights from a punch in the nose. And funny thing about men--they start life being boys."

Dances with wives

The people who start life being boys--and girls--have always looked to the screen to learn about life and love. Boys watch for whatever quality or action of the hero gets him the girl; girls learn what kind of girl is worth getting. At least the characters played by the likes of Jean Arthur, Katharine Hepburn, and Rosalind Russell had useful lives and independent minds. Today's female characters exist exclusively to bring white male starts in touch with The Things That Really Matter; once they grasp these Things, the stars win the prize.

Since well before Edie drove Terry to blow the whistle on the crooked local, Hollywood has been using women to make heroes out of men. But The Things That Really Matter have changed; today, they include nothing beyond personal relationships. In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Jean Arthur urges Jimmy Stewart, "Don't quit. Don't grab a measly chance like this to save a few pieces--other men could--but not you. As long as you lived, you'd remember you ran out and threw this country of yours to the jackas.--!" If you can handle such a feat of cognitive dissonance, compare that movie to the blockbuster Batman. When Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) has to rush off to save Gotham City from poison-gas extermination, Vicky Vale (Kim Basinger) cavils, "It doesn't have to be a perfect world."

Getting the girl--in other words, doing the right thing--almost costs ferry his life, but by the time 1990's number two movie, Pretty Woman, rolled around, the price of a heroine had dropped to $300. Richard Gere--whose ambition is not to work on the docks but to own a shipyard--at first wins the girl, Julia Roberts, by, literally, paying for her. But keeping her, in both senses of the word, is another matter. Like Edie, Roberts wants much more from her man than he is prepared to deliver--but what, exactly? Good legislation? The defenestration of a corrupt union boss? No. She wants "the fairy tale." Robert's mission is to use her feminine softness and her unstinting sexual healing to turn Gere from a cold corporate raider into a creative enterpreneur and a family man. To its credit, the movie drives home the lesson that Gere's work is not only worhtless but dehumanizing. And as would a Jean Arthur, Roberts sets her man straight (at the same time helping him get over his resentment of his capitalist dad). But making the right career move still isn't enough for Gere to win Roberts. He has to realize he doesn't want to live without her and then commit.

Gere may turn to more productive work, but he doesn't sacrifice one thread of his thousand-dollar suits--which is fortunate, since, to deliver the fairy tale, he has to prove over and over again that he's Roberts's knights for her, but in the movie's most thrilling moments, he's always buying for her. He lifts her up from the slums to a luxury suite with a sweeping view. He decks her out in jewels and whisks her away in a private jet to San Francisco for the opera. With his invincible credit card, he vanquishes shopkeepers for her along Rodeo Drive, scooping up every item in sight as Roberts's smiles (and eyes) grow bigger and bigger. Eventually, he chases after her to carry her off--in a silver stretch limousine.

It's a nice nineties fairy tale, but don't try this at home. Today's movies show boys what it takes to win a girl in much the same way Steve Martin famously advised Americans on "How to be a Millionaire and Never Pay Taxes": First," he said, "get a million dollars." "You know what's wrong with our waterfront?" cries Karl Malden, playing a Catholic priest also shamed by Edie into doing the right thing by the dockworkers. "It's the love of a lousy buck. It's making the love of a buck and a comfy job more important than love of your fellow man."

Making it with Meryl

Women aren't the only victims of cinematic morality in the nineties. Blacks are also put on earth--or at least on screen--to help white males "find out more about themselves." In films made by whites, blacks are almost universally portrayed as warm, centered, and soulful--so much so that it is positively refreshing to find that 1990's number five hit, total Recall, features a lying, treacherous black man. This vision of blacks as conduits to The Things That Really Matter reaches an apogee in 1990's number one, Ghost, in which medium Whoopi Goldberg (a two-fer, a black female) gives up her body to the spectral Patrick Swayze so he can get in touch with Demi Moore just once more. Few movies take on the hard and dramatic issues that confront contemporary American blacks even as gingerly as A Raisin in the Sun did in 1961. Again, there are exceptions. This year's New Jack City takes a stab at exploring the connections between the drug culture and the underclass (though those issues ultimately get buried by the movies's buddy-cop format). Only spike Lee seems consistently willing to consistently confront a range of issues related to race.

But, as Do The Right Thing proved, tackling such issues unsettles audiences, a risk most filmmakers never run. In general, when thirtysomething parents track down the elusive babysitter and head out to the mall to see one of today's blockbusters, they get not just an evening of lighthearted entertainment for their 14 bucks--they get a subtle validation of an "I'm OK, You're OK" view of society. In relationships, they learn, people need never make any painful demands on each other; Gere doesn't sacrifice to give Roberts what she needs; he merely realizes what he wants. Same deal in Defending Your Life. In Albert Brooks's cosmology, self-sacrifice isn't the highest good; it's the stupidest move you can make. In the penultimate scene, Brooks forfeits his chance to apotheosize not because he's been selfish and dishonest all his life, but because he didn't bed the willing Meryl Streep even though he really wanted to. Don't worry--he doesn't suffer for long. In the end, they wind up together, divinely happy.

Even a movie like Rain Man, which takes on themes that seem guaranteed to disturb audiences--autism and institutionalization--manages to cause no pain. At first, Rain Man presents the familiar plot: Cold troubled capitalist seeks gorgeous compassionate SWF to share nice car, difficulties with father. The female character, however, can't pull off her hero's redemption alone. Enter Raymond Babbitt (Dustin Hoffman)--not a woman or a minority but close, an autistic savant--who effectively teams up with her to bring his brother Charlie (Tom Cruise) in touch with those Things again: the importance of family and commitment. Who wasn't moved by the scenes late in the movie when Charlie and Raymond warm up to each other? But--and here's Rain Man's painkiller--who wasn't subtly relieved when Charlie realizes that he can't care for his brother adequately (the guy can't even toast his own waffles, for Chrissake) and decides to ship him back to that wonderful institution, where he'll be so much happier? It's OK, the movie tells us; you love your relatives, you're committed to doing the best by them, so go ahead and institutionalize them. Keep the antique car, but send the brother back; he requires too much maintenance.

Cinema very tame

Consider To Kill a Mockingbird. The movie's central moral issue remains a tough one: Should Gregory Peck follow his conscience and defend a black man charged with rape, or should he turn his back on the case to protect himself and his young children from possible retaliation by an angry town? As Atticus Finch, Peck never wavers, even though his obedience to his conscience nearly costs his children their lives. The legal heroes of today's films take a different tack. In Reversal of Fortune, Ron Silver portrays Alan Dershowitz as a loving father and a model lawyer--brilliant, dedicated, and deliberately inattentive, not to the fee or celebrity involved, but to the moral implications of freeing Claus von Bulow.

Because of its apparent conflict between career and family, To Kill a Mockingbird sends a message that today's movies, with their emphasis on quality time, sincere relationships, and parent-child bonding, never appraoch: A vital part of loving your children--of loving anyone--is living a life they will admire, which can mean risking yourself and even your loved ones to do the right thing It's disheartening to realize that, in a nineties movie, Atticus Finch would be considered a bad parent because he risks his family's safety for his work. Today, his daughter Scout would quickly set him straight, convincing him to ditch the case because nothing could be more important than spending more time at home.

Children who put their parents back on track show up throughout these family-oriented movies: The Shirley Temple genre has triumphed. Look Who's Talking, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Dead Poets Society, and Home Alone all feature children struggling to bring their insensitive, inadequate, or just plain bad parents is touch with the Things. Watching these movies, one pictures the filmmakers as disgruntled eight-years-olds being trundled off to bed, screaming and vowing revenge. As adults, they've made good on those childish threats by creating a slew of movies in which kids always know best. The calm, dependable, unbelievably wise and loving parents who once populated Hollywood have been replaced by a passel of unstable neurotics who need a good 12-step program--or a good 12-year-old--to bring them back onto solid family ground.

Home Alone develops this theme so cannily that it promises to replace E.T. (another kids-good, grown-ups-bad epic) as the top film moneymaker of all time. Home Alone's winsome little hero, Kevin, is a terrific and resourceful kid whose light is hidden under the bushel of his family's disapproval. He comes into his own only when his family manages, accidentally, to leave for Paris without him. In his parents' absence, the plucky child manages to save his home from burglars, reconcile and elderly neighbor with his son and grandchildren, and, finally, bring his own family back home--where they belong--in time for Christmas.

Of course, Kevin is a juvenile delinquent compared to the adolescent paragon at the center of Dead Poets Society. He's perfect--brilliant, athletic, well manered, charming, artistic, and unaffectedly sweet. The movie, notable for its greatest-hits approach to English literature, never explains how this extraordinary young man sprang from the loins of an overbearing, embittered father and a mealy mouthed zero of a mother, but it wholeheartedly endorses his raging case of adolescent self-pity (no one understands me, there's no place for me in this cold, cold world). When the father insists on placing his sensitive, artistic son on the premed track, the boy is forced to take the ultimate step in parent-rearing; suicide--which the movie treats as an act of Christ-like self-sacrifice, not of self-indulgence. Forget giving him space to experiment with his art. What that boy needed was a swift kick in the pants.

Parenthood is in many ways an exception. In that movie, we do get to see parenting from both sides of the spared rod; despite their flaws, most of the parents seem well intentioned. Still, when the parents make moral choices, family happiness is always the paramount issue. When Steve Martin has to pick between time at the office and time with his kids, it's a simple cost-benefit analysis: Money, although very good, is less valuable than family time. (It should be noted that his big choice is between maintaining an upper-middle-class lifestyle and a slightly less upper-middle-class lifestyle in which his wife would need to get a job).

And exactly what was Martin doing at the office, anyway? You probably don't remember, because beyond paying the bills, his job had nothing to do with his family life--or, for that matter, with anybody's life, since he was an advertising executive. Meaningful work? Don't look for it in these films. In fact, in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, the parents are censured for pursuing their dreams, an act of betrayal that can only hurt, not instruct, their children. The mother's commitment to her job leaves her children feebly attempting to create order in their chaotic home. And Dad, the nutty professor, won't get a good job at a good wage. Instead, he wastes his time fiddling with a wacky invention just because it might cure cancer.

The purest example of this disregard for work is the sentimental blockbuster Big. It's all there: the sepiatinted visions of home, the blacks who validate Tom Hanks's coolness by slapping him five but who never have a conversation with him, the self-pitying fear of the real world lurking beyond the threshold. At least Big presents an unpretentious poretrait of home: The boyish Tom Hanks lives in a simple, middle-class house, without an invy-clad all-boys school or a Ferrari in sight. The problem is that home is all that matters. In his grown-up incarnation, Hanks makes a ton of money and gest the girl, but those benefits prove insufficient compensation for the loss of his childhood. The world of childhood--playing ball with your pals in the crimson autumn leaves--is superior in every way to the world of work. The idea that tackling a problem at work can be just as much fun and even more satisfying never rates even a cameo in these movies. Family-centered films make no distinctions: Whether you're trying to cure cancer or invent toys, none of it is worthwhile if it cuts into quality time.

Each of these movies projects a Bush-era vision of the perfect family--warm, white, well heeled, and intact. But none of them asks what these good families are good for. When these exceptionally bright, centered, and resilient children grow up, will they consider their debt to society paid in full if they merely produce 2.2 perfect replicas of themselves?

No one is asking Hollywood to churn out an undifferentiated string of uplifting biographies, say, Mother Teresa: The Black Hole of Calcutta. But it's jarring, and somewhat frightening, to see the cheerful moral flatness of one screen couple and family after another. George Bailey would never have gone to work for Mr. Potter so he'd have more money and time to shower on little Zuzu, just as Bogie would never have let Ingrid Bergman's love for him stop her from getting on that plane.

It's equally hard to picture Gary Cooper ordering chardonnay--or Atticus Finch driving A BMW. Is everyone's moral sense blunted by materialism? Are moral people truly as scarce as moral movies? As Home Alone's Kevin would say: I don't think so. Hollywood relationships require moral judgment of the highest order. It's easy for a third-grader, or a filmmaker with a third-grader's moral sophistication, to set out the relationship commandments: Be wise, loving, responsible, emotionally available, and financially secure, or your kids, girlfriend, or autistic brother will send you to bed without your supper. But families are not all alike, and each person must find a balance between the understandable desire to seal relationships off from the world and responsibility toward the greater community. These decisions are never simple, but they are filled with excitement and satisfaction to which Hollywood these days seems oblivious.