The best way to damage an offensive movie, book or TV show is to ignore it. The worst way is to ban it - that simply guarantees cause celebre status. Ted Turner has unwittingly done this with "Bastard Out of Carolina."
The movie, which premieres Sunday at 10 p.m. on Showtime, carries a "banned by Ted Turner" designation. Turner's TNT network commissioned "Bastard Out of Carolina," which is based on a much praised, semi-autobiographical novel by Dorothy Allison. When Turner saw the finished product, with its stomach-turning scenes of child abuse, he decreed that it would not play on his network.Champions of artistic freedom cried censorship. Major periodicals weighed in on the controversy. Turner's action came as he was about to assume the reins of HBO and Cinemax as part of the Time Warner-Turner Broadcasting merger. Fears that he would impose his personal tastes and standards on those networks, where uncut movies are staples, were exacerbated.
One thing the doomsayers overlooked is Turner's business acumen. As his media empire has expanded, he has backtracked on many things he said while running his own Atlanta-based company. He repeatedly promised not to fix what isn't broken on the premium channels. But his ostracizing of "Bastard Out of Carolina" seemed to speak louder than those words.
Lost in the cacophony of protests is the distinction between censorship and judgment. Turner exercised the latter because first-time director Anjelica Huston did not. "Bastard Out of Carolina" is a vile, repulsive, disturbing movie without entertainment value to anyone but sadists and sickos.
Turner owns it; he could have burned it. He didn't; he just said he wouldn't play it. To bar it from your network is not the same as saying it cannot be shown anywhere. That would be censorship. Turner invited the producers to shop it around. Showtime went for it.
There also were practical considerations for Turner. TNT is an advertiser-supported basic network. It is hard to imagine a sponsor who would want a product associated with the unsettling content of Bastard. Nor would viewers expect such graphically explicit material on basic cable.
Showtime, which is mired in HBO's shadow and forever seeking ways to bring attention to itself, will allow people to judge for themselves.
The story takes place in the 1950s. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Anney Boatwright, a mother of two daughters. Ruth Ann, Anney's firstborn - nicknamed Bone because she was tiny as a knucklebone at birth - came sans spouse, so the state of South Carolina has labeled the child a bastard. This classification haunts Anney.
She eventually marries a decent fellow named Lyle and they conceive a second girl. Alas, this joyous union is short-lived.
Struggling to support her children with a job as a waitress, Anney jumps at a second marriage, to a questionable character named Glen. Her family, knowing Glen better than Anney does, warns her to be wary of this ne'er-do-well with a volatile temper and a vicious streak. Blinded by love and hoping for a better life, Anney ignores the warnings.
Ron Eldard is so convincing as Glen that it will be difficult to see him again as the lovable, harmless lug he plays in the NBC sitcom "Men Behaving Badly."
Anney and Glen aren't married long before he turns into a man behaving unconscionably. Anney becomes pregnant again and on the night she goes through an arduous and tragic labor, Glen sexually abuses Bone.
He also becomes a stern disciplinarian. Any miscue by the little girl, now about age 10, elicits a savage beating. He whips her with a strap until welts swell from her legs.
On one occasion, Glen's barbaric behavior is discovered by Bone's uncles. You'll be ashamed at how good you feel when they administer their own form of justice.
Anney knows what's going on but puts her own situation ahead of her daughter's. It is up to Bone to protect herself. She does so by leaving her parents to live with an aunt.
This defiant act of self-preservation leads to an ultimate act of abuse - the scene which reportedly was the final straw for Turner. Glen catches Bone alone, smashes her face to a bloody mask, then rapes her. An argument could be made about whether having young Jena Malone, as Bone, play such a scene is a form of child abuse in itself.
Almost nothing is left to the viewer's imagination. If Huston had been more judicious, Turner would not have had to intercede. In this case, he deserves praise, not criticism.