Presswatch/KeepingDisinformed

...and Pink Flamingos, a homosexual extravaganza advertised as "the most disgusting movie ever made," featuring a .three'hundred-p~ transvestite named Divine who, at the film's end, partakes of defecation...

...Or has the f e a r of defending o n e ' s own country become so strong t h a t a spectacular story from Paris is totally "unnewsworthy" for our leading newspapers and magazines...

...Instead, this space will be devoted to two stories that never made it into the American press, even though many of the Most Important Persons at the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere knew about them...

...Rocky Horror is a twisted musical version of a classic Hollywood horror movie: In it, a young unmarried couple, Brad and Janet, find themselves with a flat tire in an out-of-theway forest...

...Frank N. Furter, whose lips, we discover, were the ones of the...

...In the last case we have as our best example a movie called The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a movie shown only on Fridays and Saturdays-at midnight, but which numbers tens of thousands among its devotees all across the country...

...Asshole[" the audience cries...

...Frank N. Furter, " a transvestite from transsexual Transylvania," and his entourage of likeminded individuals, who have gathered to celebrate the Doctor's success at creating life in his laboratory...

...The Director of Central I n t e l l i g e n c e has recently been attacked for even considering the use of journalists in intelligence missions...

...the French CIA] whom he knew to the K.G.B...

...Pathd's c a r e e r is fascinating for those who wish to familiarize themselves with Soviet techniques...

...It is, in short, not just a movie but a cult movie, not merely to be seen but to be experienced, and experienced religiously...

...Bradley...

...What is modestly memorable about this childish travesty is the power and strength of its homosexual imagery...

...It's quite a story...

...As Brad and Janet croon to one another outside a church where they have just been to a wedding, a wizened couple right out of "American Gothic" sings the background vocals, making it all too clear just what this cute young pair will become in the future...

...The Ayatollah has found an absolute weapon: kill his opponents quoted in the free press...

...but she insisted...

...Instead there is silence...

...Later in the month Chahin Bavafa was arrested and brought before an Islamic Tribunal to face two charges: sabotage in her work and "publication of an insurrectionary and cgunterrevolutionary appeal in a foreign magazine...

...I personally called editors and editorial writers, sent photo.copies around to journalists I know, urged people to reprint the article or to look into the m a t t e r in g r e a t e r detail_9 A regime that declares it a crime to speak the truth to a journalist is one that every American newspaper ought to condemn in the strongest possible terms...

...and they jump up on stage and dance the movie's production number, the "Time Warp," alongside the characters on screen...

...There is silence as well about another spectacular development, this time in France, carried in striking detail by Par,s-Match, the week of 11 .July...

...Third, when they become centers of cults, objects of devotion akin to-the transubstantiated wafer or the cross...

...g e n i t a l i a are removed from t h e i r bodies and women are raped at 30and 45-second intervals...

...She showed them around the hospital, observing that the main operating room had itself been struck by a 120-millimeter shell, that ambulances had been fired upon by Khomeini forces, and that the hospital lacked blood serum, antibiotics, anesthetics, and even bandages...

...S a y , w a s n ' t t h e r e a castle down the road a few miles...

...Found guilty, she was killed by firing squad on 17 June...

...Although it is not as immediately Shocking as these movies, Rocky Horror has been the great success of the midnight-movie industry in part because it manages to mix their elements, while adding a campy sense of humor which begs for the kind of active audience participation the film does, in fact, receive...

...And~finally, there is the sight of the Doctor going into paroxysms of desire when Rocky rises from the laboratory table and throws off thewhite sheet which was covering him, almost, fully revealing the glories of his body...

...But then, as Van Geirt rightly observes, Path6 did not turn over national security information to the Russians: l t e created filing cards on journalists who migh* haw' been subject to Soviet recruit*m'm...

...And Jean-Francois RevelItO whom we already owe a g r e a t debt for The Totalitarian Temptation--spells out the consequences: First, one cannot explain away this execution as the result of uncontrollable r e v o l u t i o n a r y fervor...

...At one point one of the characters insists that it is dark outside...

...More recently, however, he was used as a channel for passing systematically misleading information about French politics and about-Russian intentions and activities...

...Fourth, "The Third World dictators have for years been conducting a. campaign to stifle the f r e e flow of information...

...For this task the KGB helped him start a new newsletter in 1976, entitled "Synthesis...

...He began by writing some highly proSoviet articles and books, works that brought him to the attention of the Soviet Embassy in Paris_9 Over the course of several years he received training, financing, and information from the KGB, thus permitting him to acquire financial stability and to create a name for himself as a firstclass journalist with access to highly confidential information...

...The audience's responsive declarations both in word and deed, codified over the five years since the movie was first shown, resemble the ritual of a religious service...

...Yet the activities of the " o t h e r s i d e " do not a t t r a c t attention...

...Does no one care...

...This bi-monthly publication had restricted circulation to the French elite, reaching 41 journalists, 299 members of the Chamber of Deputies, 139 Senators, 14 Embassies, and 7 others...

...when Brad and Janet get caught in the rain and cover t h e i r heads with newspaper, the audience does the same...

...They objected, fearing that the supporters of the Ayatollah might attempt to punish her...

...The previous triumphs on this circuit have included Night of the Living Dead, in its time an almost unspeakably gory and unpleasant little horror film...

...Second, when they become social phenomena, winning such fantastic popularity that entire subsidiary industries are built up around them, as was the case with Star Wars...

...Second, "Agents of Khomeini'.s SAVAK are at work in the Iranian Embassy in P a r i s I a n d hence in all Iranian Embassies abroadIreading the foreign press coverage of Iran...

...Is any one home...

...Congressional committees have published thousands of pages dealing with this question, hundreds of editorials have warned about the dangers of overly-close relationships between the press and the American intelligence community...

...The Path6 case is remarkable for another reason: It comes right out of the pages of The Spike, the bestselling novel by Arnaud de Borchgrave and Robert Moss...

...Rosenthal, are you listening...

...This holds true even if the object of devotion is morally reprehensible...

...Chahin Bavafa implored the French journalists to write in detail of these events, and she asked them to promise that they would cite her name as a source of information, so that there could be no possible doubt about the accuracy of their reportage...

...Why did no one pick this up...

...Cronkite...

...First, when they become "films," functioning under the strict philosophical principles of both director and audience, as was the case with Days of Heaven...

...He was tracked down by French security officials, his contacts with the KGB were watched, an air-tight case was e s t a b l i s h e d . He Was sent e n t e d to five years in prison, a sentenc.e, according to M. J e a n - Pierre Van Geirt of Paris-Malch, that is not very severe...

...Yet in t h i s case t h e i r concerns are amply justified...

...film's opening, wears a black negligee and assorted leather garments all over his person...

...Rocky Horror proselytizers are not unlike marijuana lovers whose sole aim in life, it seems, is to get everyone s t o n e d . ) The rudiments of the cult are these: The Rocky Horror devotees costume up in the garb of the c h a r a c t e r s ; they reply in unison at various points in the movie to what the characters are saying on screen by John Podhoretz ("I knew I should have checked the spare tire," Brad says...

...Third, " I f the death [of Chahin Bavafa] had taken place under the shah's regime, we would have seen Michael Lealeen is Executive Editor ofthe Washington Quarterly...

...It is the story of the first western journalist to be sent to jail because he worked as a disinformafion agent of the KGB...

...by Michael Ledeen an outburst of petitions and petitione r s . " The Iranian Embassy might even have come under occupation, like the Spanish Embassy i'n 1975 after the last of the Francoist political trials_9 "I hope that the demonstrators and p e t i t i o n e r s will remember," Revel writes, " t h a t a cadaver is always a cadaver, even when the murderer is right-thinking...

...KEEPING DISINFORMED No, there will be no comment here about television coverage of the great "dream ticket" escapade in Detroit...

...Both deserve the fullest possible coverage and discussion, for both involve the use of the press for nefarious purposes by our national enemies...

...In these profoundly atheistic times, it can really come as no surprise that the need for religious r i t u a l - - w h i c h Emile Durkheim, among others, has told us is an essential part of human existence--will find its expression in the arena of popular culture...

...The murder of Chahin Bavafa was carried out in cold blood...

...That neither story got space is a disgrace...

...At the time the city was under siege by the Khomeini forces, and the t h r e e journalists spent considerable time in the city's "hospital of the martyrs," whiclq was under the direction of a 30-year-old female doctor named Chahin Bavafa...

...they briqg paraphernalia to the theater to help them react further to the action (when the wedding is over, the audience throws rice at the screen...

...Brad says, and off they go, finding at the castle Dr...

...Roone Arledge...

...He often wrote under a pseudonym: Charles Morand...

...But, above a l l , he succeeded in i n f l u e n c i n g t h e shapers of the wrilten press, arriving at a positi~m from which he could spread all arollnd the ideas of the Soviets_9 F o r many years now, t h e r e has 26 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1980 been a g r e a t hue and cry in this country and elsewhere about t h e nefarious role of the CIA in recruiting American journalists for clandestine activities...

...l,.wome~ on, we have to get a seat in front," I heard a girl cry when I saw the movie two years ago, "this is Billy's f i r s t t i m e ! " And she was indeed escorting into the auditorium a wide-eyed, extremely excited kid of sixteen who had already, by the look of his face, been initiated into the cult without even having seen the movie...

...In April of that year the magazine Realitd called Pathe: "an independent sociologist and economist, for many years an analyst of the problems of the modern world, having formulated various observations and propositions that have often impressed French and European leaders...

...There most certainly are Soviet disinformation agents in the West...

...The first story comes from L'Express in a.signed article by J e a n - Frang0is Revel in the 12 July edition...

...fly gave information concerning an official of the S.d.e.c...

...Why will no one write of these things in the United States...

...l o * ~ ~176 ~ ~ o**o~ ooo~176 ~ ~ ooQ~ ~ ~ I*****o~ ~ e** THE TALKIES POPULAR CULTS Movies cease to be movies in only three cases...

...Thus L'Express ran a story in which Chahin Bavafa was quoted as imploring the journalists: "Cry out about what you have seen...

...The real pleasure comes only in the performance of the ritual which can, without too much facetiousness, be described as a kind of Midnight Mass...

...In this phase he was not used to disseminate "disinformation...

...Immediately the hundreds in the audience open their tote bags and light little white candles, holding them aloft...

...Indeed, the religious side to the Rocky Horror cult can be seen in its fascination with ritual...

...His Frankenstein monster is a blond, tanned, and enmuscled California-type named Rocky, whose sole purpose in his new life is to provide the Doctor with bedtime company...

...And demand, I beg of you, t h a i yotlr goverllmen[ intervene to bring an end to this butchery...

...Two months earlier a pair of reporters from L'Express and a correspondent from the Sygma news agency had been smuggled into Sanandaj, the capital of the province of South Kurdistan in Iran...

...As the movie progresses, both Brad and Janet are seduced by the Doctor, a fifties rock-n-roll type comes out o f the laboratory's "Deep Freeze" compartment on his motorcycle and spirits Rock), away, and the Doctor is forced to return to his home planet, Transsexual, taking his castle with him...

...This is not as odd as it might seem...

...To those who have seen the movie one hundred times, the movie itself can no longer hold any fascination...

...In addition, he had his own publication, financed directly by covert funds from the KGB residentura in Paris: a bulletin under the letterhead of the "Center for scientific, economic and political information...

...It begins with a sequence in which a disembodied pair of l i p s , covered with purple lip-gloss, opens, revealing tobacco-stained t e e t h . A male voice then proceeds to sing the movie's opening number, ample use being made of tongue, lips, and teeth throughout the song...

...These two gentlemen are often accused of "Cold Warism" and extreme political paranoia...

...The Rocky Horror Picture Show is not the f i r s t movie to find life, and financial success, only from being shown late at night on weekends...

...9 . . All criticism of the regime by Iranians, wherever it is published, means the death of the critic...

...Option, Vie Ouvm'Ore, and others...

...His name is Pierre-Charles Pathe~, the bastard son o f Charles Path6, the great French cinema mogul of the early twentieth century...

...At its showings people can be heard proudly declaring that this is, in fact, the hundred and fiftieth time they have come t o see it, and during the movie the audience as a whole participates in what is happening on the screen in ways which do not change from week to week, and which are, I am told, roughly similar in every t h e a t e r across the country...

...El Topo, a Zen Western in which men's John Podhoretz is a member of the editorial staff of The American Spectator...

...It would be astonishing if there were none in this country...

...In fact, it is the movie's turpitude that c o n t r i b u t e s to the impression that the audience is enjoying someTHE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1980 27...

...Pierre-Charles Path6 was not one of the most important journalists in the country, but he had a fairly impressive set of credentials, having written for France-Observateur, Libdralion, Le Nouvel Oaservaleur, Realild...