European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 27, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Time for a hero to step right up on our Pedestal its strange Isnit it that we arc so hungry for heroes Norman Schwarzkopf filled in for several months but now we need another. Maybe the football season will produce one for us. We re critical and suspicious of people a or i am anyway a but we want Good Guys in our lives. We enjoy thinking someone is perfect. We done to want our hero to be human. We want a pure unadulterated idol. Whether the hero is a movie Star a religious icon or a character in a novel we done to want anyone with human faults. We done to want politicians who arc part Good part bad. We done to want sports heroes who arc merely very Good. We want babe Ruth and Joe Montana. Our hunger for heroes accounts for Why so Hollywood women Start standing up against harassment by Elaine Dutka los Angeles times t he late president of a major Talent Agency called his assistant into his office and greeted her with his pants Down. When she refused to have sex with him he refused to put her in an agent training program. She left the Agency one year later. A a now prominent agents former Boss used to Call her at Home in the morning to Tell her he was playing with his genitals. In the office he would comment on her breasts ask about her sex life and leave pornography on her desk. Too embarrassed to confront the Issue she asked to be transferred. A a we re just not getting along a she told management. K a a senior network to executive arranged to a meet a female writer late in the Day. Pleading Eye trouble he asked for a lift Home. In the car he tried to rape her. When the writers Guild discovered that dozens of others had similar experiences it pressured the network to Force him out. After a a medical leave a the executive has since been hired by two major studios. They discussed it in boardrooms and Over lunch they clustered around tvs at the studios and networks. In Hollywood As elsewhere the face off Between . Supreme court Justice nominee Clarence Thomas and his accuser professor Anita f. Hill placed the Long suppressed Issue of sexual harassment on the Job squarely on the front Burner. Quot people Are consumed by and in some quarters uncomfortable As a result of the proceedings breathing a collective sigh of Relief that they Many people accepted Ronald Reagan As one. He was one in a sense that George Bush for All his popularity is not. Reagan was easier to see As a hero. He had the outward appearances of a hero. He was tall Broad shouldered Good looking Quick with a funny remark and. We like to think very american looking. We thought that even though not one in a million americans looks As Good. We seem to need someone we can endow with Virtues we Don t have someone who s better at everything than we arc. Our admiration for the person gives us the pleasure of association too. We think we Are a Little like anyone we Admire. It probably accounts for Jesus Christ. We re Lucky so Many people chose a person As Good As Jesus to make a hero of. In be heard old friends idolize one of their parents who has died forgetting that i knew both the Parent and my friends relationship to that Parent. In real life the Parent had usually been thought of As less perfect and the relationship Between them had been less than idyllic. Our hunger for someone to Admire without reservation accounts for this american tendency to make pop heroes out of people who Are not heroic at All. Movie and musical heroes Are such. In my Mother s and fathers lifetime it was Enrico Caruso and Rudolph Valentino. In mine it was Frank Sinatra Clark Gable and John Wayne. In my children a it was Elvis Presley and the beatles. I done to even know who the pop heroes Are today but you can bet they Arentt heroic. But that Sok. There a nothing wrong with making heroes of people who were not really heroic because in doing it we at least form in our weren t up there on the stand a says 1cm agent Elaine Goldsmith. A when it comes to sexual harassment Hollywood is no different from the rest of the  s not surprising. Hollywood is after All the Home of the casting Couch a a free Wheeling highly competitive male dominated environment that attracts people in search of a fast Buck and their dreams. And what happens Here has vast implications since motion pictures and television shows shape attitudes worldwide. A sex is in the air a says producer Paula Weinstein former head of production for United artists. A we create the myths Here a Romance passion Glamour a with which America is obsessed. Because it can be hard to separate real life from myth making you see a lot of sexually oriented behaviour. Like Washington which is equally Power oriented and clubby Hollywood does no to feel like it has to live by the rules. It makes  is Hollywood a place that feeds on ego and Power a greater offender than other industries observers find it hard to say since the problem has been swept under the corporate Rug for so Long. But inspired by the Thomas hearings Industry women Morgan Fairchild a Long at the Bottom of the show business Heap have been speaking up recounting tales not Only of overt sexual demands but also of the More Subtle gender related tensions that come with working in such a male dominated business. A it was shocking a Margery Tabankin executive director of the Hollywood women a political committee recalls of a meeting the group held recently. A just about every woman in the room had a personal Story. These hearings have touched the Thelma amp Louise Button getting to women on a visceral level putting the Issue out there in prime time in a Way that no made for to movie could. A walking out of a screening with female writers minds a picture of w hat a hero is. When 1 Tell stories about my Grandfather. I talk about How i once found a Small ingeniously made wooden object in our attic. When 1 asked what it was. My Mother told me it was the Model her father had made for a Furnace grate for which he obtained a . Patent. He made a great Deal of Money from that and other inventions. 1 Tell my children and anyone else who will listen about my Grandfather s inventiveness because i Hope my linear proximity to him will make people think a Little of his Genius May have been handed Down. I do not Tell people that when turtles got in my Grandfather s fish net at the Lake he took the turtles and smashed their hard shells on rocks along the Shore so that they would never intrude on his net again. 1 want my Grandfather to be Plain Genius not cruel Genius. Often our hero has qualities we Don t have and Don t even really want. Most classic american heroes for example like Abraham Lincoln weren t much interested in Money compared to doing Good for the country. Old fashioned heroes always renounced Money. They turned their backs on worldly pleasures in favor of the simple life. We Admire them for it even though we May have two cares in the driveway. Americans Are looking for a hero now. If one comes along pretty soon he could get elected president. If he does no to which seems Likely i think we re going to have George Bush again. Listen he san improvement Over that hero we had. Andy Rooney is a torpor stars and stripes reporter. Last week Veteran to producer Barney Rosen Zweig Cagney a Lacey. The i rials of Rosie o Neill was amazed when All four claimed to be victims of sexual harassment. A Hollywood is a male bastion Quot he says. A it does t take women seriously because they done to have Tower a and Arentt Likely to any time soon. Like most men i tend to forget that what we regard As kidding around being cute can be very off putting to women. Guys figure a what a the big Deal just say  in the end they just done to get  in fairness it can be difficult to Deline the term. A the criterion in my mind is whether its a Power play a whether the person behaving badly has the ability to affect the other person s professional life a says producer Dawn steel who As the president of Columbia pictures was the business first female studio chief. Quot it All boils Down to status and  though actresses such As Tracy Scoggins and Morgan Fairchild went Public with charges of sexual harassment a few years Back insiders claim that the casting Couch a though still in existence a has seen better Days. A a in be been in the business seven years and no one has offered me illicit sex a said John Levey director of casting for Warner Bros. Television Quot but in a sure it exists but mainly in a c and d features a certainly not in network to and mainstream  Bonnie Pale producer of Moonstruck says the social climate has also encouraged Hollywood to clean up its act. Quot aids is a Factor. People think twice before jumping into bed. That statement a Job Isnit Worth dying for is taken literally these  Hollywood observers Are Only cautiously optimistic that the situation will change in the Wake of the Thomas hearings. A thousands of years of evolution won t be turned around by a few Days of  says producer steel. Quot but some Good May come of it All. The creeps a the Guys that out and out done to respect women a May curtail their behaviour out of fear. The non creeps those Guys unaware of their behaviour a May Start treating women with More  27. 1991 sunday a Page 7