Law and Order and Appeasement
MURPHY, MIKE
Law and Order and Appeasement Dick Wolf's finest hour. BY MIKE MURPHY DICK WOLF is my new hero. Wolf produces the NBC television series Law & Oi^der. Last week he did something people in...
...Wolf is not new to controversy...
...He casts his shows with reliable old workhorses from the Broadway stage who carry character parts quite well and show up for work on time...
...During an extremely productive meeting with the Puerto Rican Coalition, various suppliant apologies were offered and an NBC statement was quickly released saying the network had agreed to make the offending episode disappear, Stalin-style...
...Wolf can also be a bit of a blowhard, but compared to the cartoonish West Wing (Hogan's Heroes with Republicans as the Germans), his Law & Or^der is an honest, equal opportunity offender...
...Wolf stood up against political correctness and bit the hand that feeds him...
...It would never be re-aired on television...
...they are entirely story driven, so whenever a young starlet or star demands a huge salary increase, Wolf yawns and quickly replaces them...
...Normally in Hollywood, a controversy like this would result in an apology orgy, with entire orchards of designer fruit baskets being ung to and fro between network brass and neurotic show producers...
...The inspiration was clearly the trouble in Central Mike Murphy is a political and media consultant...
...Law & Order is solidly in the Nielsen top twenty...
...The brouhaha arose out of a recent episode of Law & Oidei...
...After seeing the NBC manifesto of apology, Wolf released his own snarling statement blasting NBCs cowardice...
...In over a decade on the air, Wolfs show has made villains out of conservatives, but also out of just about everybody else...
...Last week he did something people in Hollywood never do...
...Predictably, lots of steam started hissing out from under certain professional sombreros, and a phalanx of political correctness cops sprang into action...
...But Wolf did the opposite...
...In Wolfs case the beef has to do with prior episodes thatno surprise herepor -tray violent pro-life zealots as panting, eye-bulging stereotypes...
...Three cheers for Dick Wolf for having the courage to call them on it...
...The critics have a point, but a minor one, since the few violent pro-lifers Ive bumped into over the years in campaign politics are indeed panting eye-bulging extremists...
...His shows are a throwback to the old Hollywood studio system...
...Big TV networks of course never apologize when their shows pillory pro-lifers, Second Amendment supporters, and conservatives in general...
...While it is common for television show runners to feud with their network clients over budgets for customized star trailers and the right to go around standards and practices to titillate audiences during sweeps week by peppering scripts with brave salty language or showcasing the latest advances in plastic surgery, it is rare indeed to see a fight over actual principle...
...Normally Jay Leno has to go on strike or Survivor Island has to burn down for a group of network brass to frog-march to a conclave like that...
...Park last year after the annual Puerto Rican Day parade...
...They only fold in front of politically correct pressure groups, and they do so with shameless speed and spine-lessness...
...Some of the alleged offenders, both in real life and on the television show, were Hispanic...
...The National Puerto Rican Coalition demanded and got an immediate meeting with not one, but two network presidents: NBC West Coast president Scott Sassa and entertainment president Jeff Zucker...
...He is famous in the television production community for refusing to cater to star vanity...
...The show, which fictionalizes stories lifted from New York City headlines, dealt with a group of teenage punks on a drunken rampage in Central Park...
...And he delivers a big audience...
...Some conservatives whine about Law & Order, just as they whine about every popular TV show...
...Wolfs storyline, like the real thing, dealt with thuggish young men sexually assaulting various women...
...The network caved into the demands of a special interest group, and I am extremely disappointed with this decision, said W olf...
Vol. 6 • February 2001 • No. 21
