As a TV character, Sgt. Christine Cagney of CBS` landmark female cop show ”Cagney & Lacey” is in serious trouble: She`s a sexually active single person in the age of AIDS who doesn`t seem too concerned about practicing safe sex.
And she`s part of a larger problem facing almost every writer, director and producer in the film and television industry: how to depict sex, sensuality and romantic relationships at a time when incautious intimate contact is potentially deadly.
”For the first time in the history of the show, I am stymied,” says Barney Rosenzweig, executive producer of the celebrated series that has examined such themes as abortion, incest, apartheid, breast cancer and alcoholism. ”As a filmmaker, I feel I have a responsibility to have a clear point of view. But I am confused. We do not know a whole lot about this disease yet.
”In the past, we went out of our way to portray Cagney as a sexually liberated woman. It became clear to us about 8 to 10 months ago that we were sending an improper or irresponsible message to the public. But we didn`t know what to do about it. We didn`t want to create any more of the homophobic hysteria that already exists.”
The plan now, says Rosenzweig, is for Cagney to ”practice abstinence for the first half of (next) season, which is not really a practical message.”
Then she`ll have her first ”blue-collar relationship” with a maintenance man that will reflect her gradual awareness of the dangers of unsafe sex, and a change in her romantic lifestyle. But it`s giving the writers and producers fits.
Says Rosenzweig: ”We`re still struggling with it. I`m not very proud of our leadership in this area.”
The safe-sex issue has exploded in Hollywood like a time bomb that had an inexplicably long fuse. Recent feature films heavily dosed with casual sex and hothouse sensuality–”Body Heat,” ”Crimes of Passion,” ”9-1/2 Weeks,”
”About Last Night,” ”Blue Velvet,” ”Angel Heart,” the ”Porky`s”
series, to name a few–now seem like period pieces made in a different time when there were different rules. And TV programmers are feeling more than ever the burden of social responsibility in a medium that reaches over 200 million viewers in the U.S. alone, many of them children and teenagers.
The reality of acquired immune deficiency syndrome is raising questions in production offices about taste, social responsibility versus artistic freedom, the delicate balance between caution and panic and the long-term psychological effects of a new restrictiveness–even the possibility that the AIDS crisis for the general population has been exaggerated, as a backlash contingency claims.
But the bottom line among film and TV people now seems to be: unsafe sex is taboo. Or, at the very least, a troubling creative and commercial concern. ”Absolutely,” says Susan Merzbach, president of Sally Field`s Fogwood Films. ”Every writer I`ve talked to, if the story involves free sexuality, you can`t ignore it.”
Already well-publicized are the condom scene inserted into ”Dragnet”
(Tom Hanks, in bed with his girl, finds the condom box empty and the action cuts to the next day) and a monogamous James Bond in ”The Living Daylights.” Also revealed: a title change for Warner Bros.` ”Dying for Love” to
”Masquerade” because of public sensitivity to AIDS.
Further examples of the media`s growing AIDS awareness are not hard to find:
— In writer-director David Seltzer`s original script for Columbia`s upcoming ”Punchline,” Sally Field and Tom Hanks fell into bed on the first date. It was shot that way. But ”it will probably not end up in the picture,” Seltzer says, after viewing the scene in the editing room.
”There`s been a lot of talk and consideration here on whether it`s a responsible thing to put on screen.”
— One of the four young women characters on NBC`s ”Facts of Life”
”will have her first sexual encounter this season, in a positive way,”
says executive producer Irma Kalish. ”We do plan to make a responsible statement about safe sex, even getting into protection. And we`re likely to do an AIDS story if we find the right approach.”
— ABC, the network probably best known for sexually-oriented TV movies dealing with extramarital affairs, housewife hookers, et al, is changing its image. ”My own proclivity is to not make those kind of movies,
notwithstanding the current health problem,” says Ted Harbert, ABC`s vice president for motion pictures.
— A source who has read the script for 20th Century Fox`s recently completed ”Less Than Zero” reports that it is a ”much more moralistic story now” than the source novel by Bret Easton Ellis, ”which had no morals.”
Gone is the random and rampant sex, including teenage bi-sexuality and homosexual prostitution.
— For a scene in ”Glory Days,” a teen film completed recently in Seattle, director Martha Coolidge (”Valley Girl”) employed several hundred eager teenage extras. But she had to search hard to find two for a simple boy- girl kissing scene, so great was the general fear of acquiring AIDS from a stranger (and even though there is no medical evidence linking kissing to AIDS transmission). Coolidge finally found a couple going steady who were willing to touch lips for the camera.
— Producer Steve Tisch says flatly that his biggest hit, the landmark teen film ”Risky Business” (1983), ”could not and should not be made in 1987.” The movie about an enterprising boy using his parent`s house as a brothel to serve local high schoolers ”did not even address the fears and realities of AIDS. I`d feel irresponsible (today) making a film aimed at teenagers, as `Risky Business` was, that introduces them to the world of call girls and casual sex.”
At least one director, Penelope Spheeris (”Suburbia,” ”The Decline of Civilization”)–while bemoaning the AIDS epidemic–found some creative relief from its impact.
”Everyone is at a loss to say anything positive about AIDS,” Spheeris says. ”But at least now directors won`t have to shoot gratuitous sex scenes. I`m personally uncomfortable shooting them, or even having to watch them. I`ve always felt that way.”
Her new film, ”Dudes,” due out this fall from New Century Vista, tells of three New York City punkers headed for California who become entangled in an Old West adventure. In a love scene between Jon Cryer and Catherine Mary Stewart, says Spheeris, ”I shot it so they did the dialogue, kissed and I cut away so audiences could assume the rest.
”Now, I`d shoot it so they didn`t even kiss. I wouldn`t ask an actor to kiss another actor, even though they say you can`t get AIDS from kissing.”
That kind of reaction triggers near-disbelief in writer- director William Richert (”Winter Kills”). Among those interviewed, he stands pretty much alone.
”I`m living my life ignoring it (AIDS), and I`m making my films the same way,” he says, his words occasionally sliced with dark laughter. ”They took smoking out of movies. Now are they going to get rid of kissing and sex? Men and women have enough trouble getting together without (worrying about) this. What will happen to instinct?”
In his new picture, ”Jimmy Reardon,” to be released by Island Pictures later this summer, Richert will take his audience back to a more innocent time. Starring River Phoenix and based on Richert`s 1967 novel of the same title, the film revolves around ”a day in the life of a kid, 17, who`s loaded with hormones. Basically, he follows his instincts (bedding three women, including his father`s mistress) but eventually learns that`s not necessarily best. But he certainly has fun.”
Richert added, ”Mercifully, it was written and set in 1962. It`s a historical piece. The movie has no AIDS consciousness whatsoever.”
Molly Ringwald, according to her publicist, is ”very concerned” about the AIDS problem in relation to the roles she takes. In the case of Ringwald`s upcoming film, ”The Pickup Artist” from 20th Century Fox, heavy rewriting transformed her character from promiscuous in early drafts to ”quite the opposite” now, according to producer David MacLeod. The story revolves around an insecure, compulsive and unsuccessful womanizer (Robert Downey Jr.) who more than meets his match in Ringwald.
”We had an ongoing discussion (about AIDS awareness) since we began shooting the picture (last summer) in New York,” says MacLeod. ”As our awareness grew, particularly in New York, where so many were affected, we started making changes. It was written and rewritten in the context (of AIDS), though there`s nothing specific about that. As the script evolved, she`s no longer promiscuous. And by the end of the story, it`s clear that they`re going to attempt a serious relationship together.”
What does all this mean for artistic freedom in Hollywood, not to mention that time-honored staple, screen romance? To some, it portends a return to pre-`60s morality and sexual repressiveness.
Producer Steve Tisch admits, ”I`ve made films with gratuitous violence and sex. But this is a much bigger issue. We have to use our filmmaking power to show kids that lives are at stake. If you deal with it responsibly, lives will be saved. If you deal with it irresponsibly, lives will be lost.”
Like several filmmakers, Penelope Spheeris mentions ”Last Tango in Paris” as an exception (”It`s a shame that films like that one can`t be done anymore”). But as a director, she says, ”If I had a script that depended on (sexual) scenes, I`d turn it down. I couldn`t in good conscience do it.”
”It`s a very complex issue,” says producer David MacLeod.
”It`s like the early years of the Vietnam War. When sons and brothers and boys down the street started dying, people started to be troubled by it. It`s the same with AIDS.
”More and more of us will be troubled in some way, and attitudes will change.”
