Page 4
Daily Ncbraskan
Wednesday, February 17, 1982
Editorial
Art, entertainment
selections defined
by economic times
You can tell times are economically bad for America,
because the arts are taking it in the shorts. It's not that
people aren't going to movies and plays or reading books.
Rather, it's the books they arc buying and the perfor
mances they are going to see.
Most of the box-office-hit movies of the last four years
have been escapist; Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Hack,
Raiders of the Lost Ark, Superman and the like have
dominated the market with their comic book characters,
simple good guybad guy divisions and splashy special
effects.
Television continues to crank out an ever-growing
number of shows that seem to have come from between
the covers of a Harold Robbins novel and tend to put you
between the covers of a Serta perfect sleeper. Dallas was
the first, but Flamingo Road, Falconcrest, Dynasty and
others followed quickly, each collecting a big audience.
And even these, shows don't match the popularity of those
intellectual gems, the daytime soaps.
Literature has taken the worst tailspin of all. The
books that sell the best are either collections of comics or
self-help guides in the latter category. Check the lists of
best sellers. A few years ago, we were reading Future
Shock; now we are reading Garfield Gains Weight, Jhe
Official Preppie Handbook,, and What Color is Your Para
chute? Deep stuff.
The easy explanation is that in bad economic times,
people seek escapist entertainment; it's the same men
tality that gave us big production musicals during the
Great Depression. It's an easy explanation that sounds
more like an excuse.
This is not to suggest that a nose-to-the-grindstone,
learning-is-every thing approach to life is necessarily good.
Much is to be gained, probably, including one's sanity,
from forgetting about everything for awhile and getting
absorbed in the adventures of Indiana lones or Morgan
Fairchild or Garfield the cat. But we have stepped over
the line, and escaped to such an extent that we have only
a dim memory of that from which, we are escaping.
Some people would say the purpose of movies, tele
vision and books is escape; it would be more exact to say
that escape is a purpose, not the purpose. We have for
gotten about works that inform, anaylze and clarify, pro
voke thought or advocate actions or beliefs. Communicat
ion has become something that happens between comput
ers and their programmers more than it does between art
ists and their audience. We know 101 uses for a dead cat,
but we haven't the slightest idea why we think they are
funny. And we haven't the slightest inclination to find
out.
Pat Clark
FRANKLY, I Pill
SAFER WW A
' '
French firm on program goals
The Dutch banker, a man of impeccable English and, I
was told, impeccable French, listened. For two days the
ministers of the new French government had paraded be
fore him and other businessmen to explain the new social
ism. He was being wooed. He was being romanced. He was
being charmed. But he was not being sold.
But then, if truth be told, he would not have been
charmed had the Reagan administration done the same
thing. He admitted as much. He would have sat, as he did
cJ Richard
j Cohen
through a two-day economic conference here, and listen
ed. But he would have found no answers to the problems
that seem to have bound both sides of the Atlantic in a
community of mutual misery: high unemployment, high
inflation, high interest rates and no apparent answers.
Here, though, the French are trying something differ
ent. About five months after the Reagan administration
came into power with its new conservatism, the Socialists
came to power in France. America went right and France
went left. The results have been about the same. Despite
some grand rhetoric, the Socialists have not been able to
put much of a dent in either inflation or unemployment.
And despite some even grander rhetoric, the Reagan ad
ministration has had much the same record. What it did to
lower inflation, it more than compensated for with high
er unemployment.
The banker, properly portly, acknowledges this. He
just feels more comfortable with American Republicans
than with French Socialists. The Socialists, after all, plan
to nationalize the bulk of the banking industry and eight
other key industries. Already, they have reduced the work
week from 40 to 39 hours, and plan to reduce it four
more hours by 1985. That, plus the history and traditions
of European socialism, have made the business communi
ty nervous. And so a procession of key government mini
sters, including the prime minister, came forward to reas
sure them that things would not change so radically.
In fact, they heard some of the same sort of rhetoric
that they might have heard in America. The Socialists talk
of decentralization, of moving decision-making away from
Paris. This is their version of the New Federalism. They
talk, too, of bureaucracies, although to the Socialists the
worst bureaucracy of all can be found within stodgy cor
porations and not necessarily within the government.
But if you came to the conference to hear talk of spe-
Continued on Page 5
Business majors: Robots of study
SCENE: A typical college cafeteria at
the end of a particularly brutal Monday.
The characters, three business majors, are
drinking coffee at one of the tables after
finishing an accounting exam.
KATHY: Well, Bill, how did the test go?
BILL: (burying his head in his hands)
Not good, Kathy, not good. I think I'm
A Mary L.
p Knapp
only going to make it out of that class with
an A minus.
KATHY: Gee, Bill, that's bad news. I
hope your average is better in the rest of
your classes, or you're going to have prob
lems when you graduate.
BILL: 1 graduate. I was supposed to
get out of here in two years with an MBA
degree, but now it looks like three. That's
really going to look bad on my resume.
BETTY: (plucking nervously at her
tweed lapel) I'm really worried about this
test. If I don't do well on it, IH lose my
4.0. 1 figure 111 have to get at least a 99
percent to keep up.
KATHY: You'd better get with it,
Betty. The competition's really stiff out
there, and you can't afford to fall behind.
Not meaning to be critical, but I haven't
seen you in the library lately. Can't let
yourself slip, you know!
BETTY: (nervously) Well, my parents
were here from California last week, and I
wanted to see them, and then Bob wanted
to take me skiing Saturday . . .
BILL: That's disgusting! I never have
any spare time! What kind of pud courses
are you taking, Betty, anyway?
KATHY: Really. I don't have any time
to see my parents at all this year, as busy as
I've been, let alone have time for socializ
ing. How many hours are you taking?
BETTY: (weakly) Fifteen ... but I have
a part-time job.
BILL: Hm! Pretty light load, wouldn't
you say? How many centuries is it going to
take you to get out of here?
BETTY: I was planning on four years,
maybe four-and-a-half - with summer
school, that is.
KATHY: You ought to step it up. No
sense in hanging around this place any
longer than you have to. Get out there and
start producing, that's my philosophy!
BILL: I'm carrying 24 hours, plus three
part-time jobs. You think you got it bad,
Betty, just look at me. I never get any
sleep. I quit eating, too. Saves time so I can
work on my computer programs.
KATHY: I haven't slept for a week.
You look pretty well-rested though, Betty!
Of course, some people actually have time
for that kind of stuff!
BILL: (with heavy sarcasm) Yeah. Some
people have all kinds of time to lounge
around! You know where I saw Betty the
other day?
KATHY: No. Where?
BILL: At the film theater!
KATHY: Oh, Betty, I'm just sure you
did that. You know you can't afford to
take time out from your accounting!
BETTY: (wringing her hands) It was for
a class, Kathy ...
KATHY: Well, I'm sure! You know, I
bet it wasn't for a class at all. You just did
it to entertain yourself!
BETTY: Oh, Kathy, please don't say
that. You know I'm as competitive as any
one else. Don't I have job interviews lined
up with IBM? Don't I own six brown
tweed suits? Didn't I stay up all last night
studying, even after the library closed?
Don't ruin my reputation for a silly film!
BILL: (meditating) Well, Betty, I guess
we'll let it go this time. But I want to see
you in the library every night this week!
No excuses.
BETTY: Thanks, Bill. I won't forget
this. (To herself) I wonder if I should have
gone into trade school ...
Nebraskan
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