Another controversy over adult language on network televison has erupted, and - surprise! - Steven Bochco is right at the center of it.
Bochco, of course, is the executive producer of "NYPD Blue," which broke new ground in terms of vulgar language and partial nudity in prime-time TV. Now he's bringing his brand of entertainment to television comedy, with the upcoming CBS sitcom "Public Morals," an allegedly funny show about New York City vice cops set to air at 8:30 p.m. Wednesdays beginning this fall.The pilot episode, screened by critics, contains more than a dozen uses of a particularly crude word synonymous with prostitute. There are nearly as many references to the male anatomy. There are vulgar references to lesbians.
And, in a rather startling departure from network norms, the cops are referred to as the "(expletive) posse," using a word for the female anatomy that's far too crude to include in a family newspaper.
The ever slick and condescending Bochco, of course, sees nothing wrong with anything in "Public Morals."
"I think, personally, that this is a non-issue. I think it's a silly issue," he said. "I don't genuinely get it."
Which should come as no surprise. Over the years, Bochco has consistently demonstrated that he just doesn't get it. He doesn't understand why anyone would be offended by anything he does. He just doesn't get it that there are millions of viewers who find his brand of entertainment inappropriate for broadcast television, which goes into nearly every home in America.
Bochco is so self-absorbed and arrogant that he doesn't listen to anyone - including, oddly enough, himself. He held up to critics the example of "Barney Miller" as a sitcom that real-life cops loved. But don't point out to him that "Barney" didn't need bad language to create believable television.
"So did `Hill Street Blues' in 1980 without using the language we use in `NYPD Blue,' " said Bochco, who produced both shows.
And, whatever happens, don't suggest that he might look to examples like "Barney Miller" and "Hill Street."
"No, there is no lesson to be learned . . . The issue is whether, 20 years later, you want to be doing a show that is reflective of the culture of today," Bochco said. "Our choice was saying let's do this show as a reflection of 1996, not as a reflection of 1971."
(Oddly enough, swearing had been invented in 1971 - but it wasn't done much on television.)
The excuses for the strong language in "Public Morals" ring hollow.
"I think you have to say the word `whore' in this show," said executive producer Jay Tarses. "You could say, `We busted a woman who accepts money for giving sexual favors' . . . but it would take a long time."
Well, how about the word hooker?
"There is a certain appropriate use of language to enhance the reality of the environment. Cops don't say `prostitutes.' They just don't," Bochco insisted - adding that, if more benign words were substituted, he would have been criticized for toning down the show.
Then there's the "it could have been worse" defense.
"There's a lot of things in the show that we took out because they were a little bit too distasteful," Tarses said.
And there's the "the other guys are even worse" defense. Bochco compared "Morals" to an episode of "Cybill" in which the two characters were making jokes about a nude male statue.
"I didn't find it offensive. I just found it interesting that something like that, which is loaded with innuendo and fairly crude anatomical references, doesn't raise an eyebrow and this little line of dialogue in a show that's exactly about that causes something of a stir," he said.
Oddly enough, Bochco even defended himself by saying his other show is worse.
"The language in `NYPD Blue' is a thousand times rougher than the language in `Public Morals.' And that's a choice," he said. "That's an absolute choice. I don't think that the language we use in a gritty hour drama is appropriate for the language that we're using in `Public Morals.' I think the language that we're using in `Public Morals' is a very watered-down version of what we do in an hour. But, for a half-hour comedy, it does have a certain reality to it that I think enhances this show.
"Do we have to do it? No. It's a choice. If people like it and they respond to it, it was a good choice. If they don't, it was a poor choice."
As to that posse reference, Tarses seemed genuinely surprised that it made anyone blink.
"I didn't make up the term. . . . It's an actual term that they use in the public morals division," Tarses said.
(Of course, by extension he could say he didn't make up that four-letter word that earns movies an R rating - but would he put that in a network sitcom?)
"I thought it showed a little bit about the characters of those two people. I didn't use it for shock value," Tarses said. "I didn't know that it was the first time that that word had ever been said in the history of America."
"We didn't think it was particularly shocking," Bochco said. "When you go back and talk to all these vice cops in New York, that's a sort of a time-honored cliche of the profession . . . We sort of were amused by it."
Bochco later offered a hint as to exactly the sort of thing he finds amusing.
"If you think (this) is kind of racy - I'll tell you, the funniest stories I've ever heard I couldn't tell you or put on television if you put a gun to my head," Bochco said.
Of course, what Tarses and Bochco are incapable of seeing is that they have lost touch with most American viewers. Just don't try to tell them that.
"You can't have a show that's going to please everybody . . . You wind up with the extraordinarily bland landscape that is most television," Bochco said. "Both Jay and I have made careers out of swimming upstream."
(Strange how, in Bochco's mind, the opposite of bland is vulgar.)
That crudest of the crude references in "Public Morals" even drew criticism from another CBS star, Bill Cosby.
"For me, to have nine people sitting around a table who call themselves writers, and the best they can come up with is" the posse reference, ". . . I'm serious! And that's the punch line!" Cosby said. "I do think that we have to understand at a point where a producer is using you, the audience, to satisfy some sort of adolescence and immaturity."
Tarses' rather flip response to Cosby's criticism was that there weren't nine writers - he was the sole scribe for the "Public Morals" pilot.
And while Cosby was talking about entertainment that developed characters and humor without taking the low road, Bochco returned to his tired argument that vulgarity allows him "an expanded color palette, if you will, (which) for certain kinds of shows is a very, very legitimate thing to bring to the battle to hold on to certain viewers.
"Bill has done really well doing the stuff that he does. And I've done really well doing the stuff that I do," he said. "And I think there's plenty of room for Bill Cosby and Jay Tarses and Steven Bochco on a landscape - on a large landscape. So I have no problem with anything Bill thinks about what we're doing or I'm doing. And Bill's not my audience."
Whether the "Public Morals" pilot airs as is remains a point of debate. Bochco said it could go on CBS without making any changes, but CBS executives indicated otherwise.
"I'm very concerned about the phrase," said CBS Entertainment President Leslie Moonves. "I don't want to take away Mr. Bochco's license as a creator. We are in discussions, and that's as far as I will go right now."
And Moonves' boss, CBS President and CEO Peter Lund, admitted that he is "concerned about the language in that show" and said that CBS is having "ongoing" discussions with Bochco. Moonves went so far as to say that Carol Altierie, the head of the network's standards and practices department, is "probably occupying half of her waking moments in dealing with it."
On the other hand, Bochco said, "We didn't actually get any notes from broadcast standards on our pilot show. I don't anticipate, week in and week out, that we're going to have a broadcast standards problem with CBS."
One thing is certain. Moonves vowed that, whatever form the end product takes, "Public Morals" will carry a parental advisory every week.
The good news in all of this is that "Public Morals" isn't going to be around for long. If there's one show critics have come to a consensus about this season it's this one - and the consensus is that it's dreadful. It's the least funny new show of the season.
"NYPD Blue" got a big boost in the ratings from the controversy over its content. Although the Bochco denies it, it would surprise no one that he's trying to do the same thing with "Public Morals."
But "NYPD Blue," despite its lapses into unnecessary tastelessness, it is also a quality drama. "Public Morals," on the other hand, reeks of stupidity and failure. Or, so we can hope.
BLOWN AWAY: Helen Hunt of NBC's "Mad About You" still doesn't know quite what to make out of the fact that the theatrical movie she starred in, "Twister," has become a huge box office blockbuster.
"I'd never been in a movie that made any more before," Hunt said with a laugh. "I was in these little, teeny movies that almost killed the studios that made them. So, for me, it's like so much abundance that I don't really have a meter for it, even."