Dial File: Innocence wanes as decades change

Thursday, Feb. 19, 1998 | 9:43 a.m.

A LONG-AGO memory -- silly at the time, bittersweet now -- resurfaced as I sat in a darkened movie theater, contemplating a runaway media world that has turned our culture inside-out.

It was 1968 -- my pre-teen years. Our living room TV sported swinging doors that closed and locked over the screen to camouflage it as just another piece of furniture. But they had a more practical purpose, as vividly demonstrated one night.

I was riveted to a station's showing of the 1965 movie "The Pawnbroker" as a scene approached that I had heard about but never seen, being deemed too young to see the movie in a theater -- a woman sheds her top in the Harlem pawn shop of tortured, Holocaust-haunted Rod Steiger.

I was ready, baby. S-A-L-I-V-A-T-I-N-G. Yeah, the stuff about Steiger's character was sad, but I was about to see nudity. We're talking 11 years old, remember.

Just then, my mom, ever-vigilant Keeper of My Morals, swooped into the living room like a suddenly visible Stealth jet, dove toward the set and slammed the doors shut, obliterating the screen -- and my dreams of entering the Promised Land.

NO NUDITY FOR YOU, YOUNG MAN!

Of course, it was all for naught. Even today, toplessness is taboo on broadcast TV, "NYPD Blue" notwithstanding. Mom's instincts outpaced her reason. And I'm glad of it.

(Of course, some protective measures are even more futile: Mom also outlawed TV watching on school nights so I could concentrate on homework and making something out of myself. ... So I grew up to become a TV critic. ... Sorry, Mom.)

But these times are virtually unrecognizable from those, and TV -- in the age of cable, VCRs, sex, gore and slackening standards pouring into our living rooms like El Nino -- rightly shoulders much of the blame. Which leads me back to that darkened Las Vegas movie theater.

All this flashed back to me as I watched "Deep Rising," a horrifically stupid, R-rated flick in which a giant squid attacks a cruise ship, "drinking" its victims to death, belching forth heaping piles of bloody skeletons. In one scene, lovingly lingered over, one of the victims reappears, still breathing, half his face and body grotesquely eaten away, as we casually watch his disgusting demise. In another, a woman is sucked down a toilet. The scene is punctuated by a bloody geyser gushing out of the potty.

And in the row behind me, a toddler wailed. A toddler -- accompanied by a clearly annoyed mother who only wanted the kid to clam up so she could enjoy the carnage. But the toddler would not be silenced. Finally, she dragged Junior out into the lobby. Common sense belatedly triumphed.

Moments later, she returned. ... toddler in tow.

At another movie -- the brilliant, R-rated "Titanic" -- children scampered up and down the aisles and giggled delightedly as Kate Winslet shed her modesty and her clothes so Leonardo DiCaprio could sketch her.

"Why, Mr. Big-Time Artist, I do believe you're blushing," Winslet teases DiCaprio. Which is more than you could say for the kids, who also seemed to enjoy the post-sinking sight of frozen corpses bobbing in the ocean blackness.

Other examples abound.

In retrospect, I rather enjoyed my pre-adolescent innocence, denied the adult "pleasures" that many children revel in now. Though I didn't buy it at the time -- what kid does? -- there turned out to be more than enough time to sample those sights and sounds. Heck, if my health holds out, I plan to spend in excess of 75 percent of my life with adult sensibilities.

It's the childhood sensibilities I miss. Today's kids? You can't miss what you never had.

Then again, I didn't grow up gawking at pay cable movies, watching jiggling breasts bounce across my TV screen in HBO's "Breast Men." Or passionate lesbian love scenes in HBO's "Gia." Or 8 p.m. shows such as "Friends" joking about premature ejaculation. Or "The Nanny" going into hormonal overload.

Or those Cinemax movies in which a beefcake and a bimbette meet in a supermarket produce section, squeeze the fresh melons, then commence the horizontal hula behind the zucchini bin. Or every unedited "Deep Rising" gore-fest splattered on Showtime. Or hardcore porn on a living room VCR.

Or the voice of Howard Stern. All the Howard Sterns.

Granted, in 1998, it's maddening to try to maintain high household standards in a media age soaked in sleaze. (As a child, I never heard Walter Cronkite describe presidential sex acts). But I miss the days when media, pop culture and technology let kids be kids instead of transforming them into pint-sized grown-ups.

No hypocrisy here: My appetite for lewd, nude and crude media images is just as healthy as the next guy's -- satisfied when I was ready to absorb it. What to do? I have no magic solutions, outside of unrelenting vigilance.

So feel free to borrow my mom. No TV set will be safe -- but maybe your kids will be.

THIS & THAT: As one of 200 country stations nationwide, KWNR 95.5-FM is sponsoring its sixth local "Country Cares" radiothon on Friday and Saturday to benefit the St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis. KWNR will broadcast from the Boulevard mall starting at 6 a.m. Friday and running through 9 p.m. on Saturday. ... Linda Dano of "Another World" has been named a co-host of "SoapExpo Las Vegas '98" June 12-14. ...

Former Tropicana publicist Ira David Sternberg has a new radio show, "Las Vegas Notebook," airing Tuesdays at 12:30 p.m. on KDWN 720-AM. ... KEDG 103.5-FM now sports this new lineup: Jessie (5-10 a.m.), Fitz (10 a.m.-3 p.m.), Freddy Snakeskin (3-7 p.m.), April Lee (7 p.m.-midnight), Fletch (midnight-5 a.m.). ... Congrats to Channel 10's "Business in Nevada," celebrating its first anniversary.

CROON A TUNE: Do you get a happy feelin' when you're singin' a song? Did it all come together when Mom sang along? Well, folks in The Macagno Family and The Jeanos Family knew that "The Partridge Family" theme included the lyrics "we have a dream, we go travelin' together; we spread a little lovin' and we'll keep movin' on," sung by that "EFX"-cellent David Cassidy.

Congrats to Alex Jeanos and Karen Macagno, who, by telephone and Internet, respectively, were the first to finger those bubble-gum rockers from the '70s sitcom. If Alex or Karen are interested, we hear there are two openings in the group: Little Tracy is reportedly sick of slapping that silly tambourine, and Danny Bonaduce's replacement -- a transvestite prostitute he met somewhere -- didn't work out.

Next? What TV theme landed on the pop charts with the lyric "Flyin' away on a wing and a prayer; who could it be? Believe it or not, it's just me"? Believe it or not, if you're the first to supply the correct answer, via phone or e-mail, along with the spelling of your name and a daytime phone number, you could get your name inscribed in Dial File -- a future memory as cherished as the time you stubbed your toe against the fridge while trying to sneak a turkey leg at 4 a.m.

'HOT' TO TROT: So KVBC-FM, or "Hot Talk" 105.1, is prepared to toss $5 million Monica Lewinsky's way for an exclusive interview.

Many thanks, KVBC, for elevating the public's already skyrocketing opinion of the media. But perhaps a fraction of the money could be better spent by buying something you really need:

Your very own (non-presidential) knee pads. (Monica-tested and approved!)

archive