The sign outside had only mentioned free HBO. After a night of watching Steven Segal chop off heads, hurl people from windows and shoot a topless prostitute to death, I was ready for something a little less political.

A very earnest looking suit named Rob Friedman, vice chairman of Paramount, was explaining that, Federal Trade Commission studies notwithstanding, his industry is run by neither Satan nor the Junior League.

The senators were mightily worried that Hollywood is marketing violent fare to young people instead of targeting such important films as "Marked For Death" and "Chainsaw Barber" to their intended audience of retired Sisters of Charity.

Young people and violence. I am astonished. How did they ever figure it out? Maybe they noticed that a parent can hand a stuffed bunny to an 8-year-old and the kid will point it back at him and shout "bang."

"We all recognize that violent themes in story-telling, such as war, betrayal and retribution, are anything but new. I need to think only of traditional Grimm's Fairy Tales, the works of Shakespeare, or the latest New York Times best-seller list, to realize that interest in these themes spans the centuries and crosses into all age groups," Friedman said.

Actually, I was thinking of the Starr Report and the gun-camera videos from the Gulf War. Both were hugely popular and gained considerable praise by any number of the assembled potentates who spent the remainder of the hearing warning Hollywood to clean up its act.

The testimony by each side was a breakfast hour treat of such sweet piety I doubted I would need any syrup for my pancakes. Hollywood studio heads mentioned that they, too, were parents, and that such R-rated movies as "Saving Private Ryan" have been held up as great teaching tools for youngsters mature enough to confront the graphic violence of war.

This from an industry that interviewed 60 children ages 9 to 11 to evaluate concepts for a movie about a serial slasher who uses an ice hook. This from a business that tested "Judge Dredd," an R-rated spectacular about urban warfare, and used a focus group that included a cool hundred 13-through-16-year-olds.

That they have to explain themselves in a city in which decisions are made to bomb pill factories in the Sudan, embargo food and medical supplies to enemy states and in which enough munitions are budgeted annually to carve out a parking place for the moon.

But this was not about institutional violence. This was about random violence. The hearings grew out of a Federal Trade Commission report ordered by President Clinton, who wanted to find out if the shooters at Columbine High School might have been inspired by violent media. We will bomb the daylights out of a convoy of Kosovar refugees and clear our throats and apologize, then pulverize downtown Belgrade. But when our kids shoot each other, it's time to look into matters seriously.

So, I suggest that we take the next logical step. Hollywood's violence is imaginary fare that might be translated into real life. Washington's violence is real-life stuff that usually is transformed into spectacle by Hollywood. Both have reputations for corruption, tawdry violence and sexual mores slightly better than those of Caligula.

Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, was skeptical when the moguls promised a new ratings system.

"I am sending a signal across the bow that if you do not try to make this really work, that you are going to see some kind of legislation. Because parents are throwing up their hands in frustration."

Not that anybody's for censorship, mind you.

It seems to me that in this particular contest, to paraphrase a line from a Jack Nicholson movie, the leper with the most fingers wins.

The assembled studio heads should rent a ballroom at the Beverly Wilshire and issue subpoenas to the President, House and Senate leadership, the attorney general and secretary of defense. In no uncertain terms they need to pass the word: Washington needs to clean up its act or Hollywood will step in.

Copyright © 2000 PG Publishing

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