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Page 4, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 1992 = Ee SS Se Our opinion : Silly PC moves making enemies out of friends by Darren MacDonald Ever hear of a movie called Heaven's Gate? Most people never saw it, but most people have heard about it. It was a film released in 1980 that cost nearly $40 million to produce. Even in the age of the Terminator and Batman films, that's a lot of money. The director, Michael Cimino, was the hotshot movie mogul of the period since his previous film, The Deer Hunter, had been a huge success with both critics and fans. So MGM gave him full artistic control of Heaven's Gate, allow- ing him to spend piles of money to realize his 'vision.' Well, his 'vision' turned out to be a three hour western, with a baffling plot line, poor cinematography and long, bor- ing scenes during which the movie's characters stare into the distance. Out of the $40 million MGM spent on the picture, they took in less than $400,000 during Heaven's Gate's initial release. The film was quickly pulled, edited down to two hours, given an explanatory voice over and re-released. But it was too late. MGM went bankrupt, and Michael Cimino never really recovered. : Heaven's Gate has since become a symbol of the danger of giving too much power to well-intentioned but inexperienced people. Like a kid in the candy store , the young director end- ing up making everyone sick. Michael Cimino's disaster was on my mind last weekend as I read my Globe and Mail. Buried in the back pages was a story entitled ""Warning stickers considered for movies and videos." It seems that Ontario's censors--the Film 'Review' Board--is considering warning us when a video release is "sexist" or "racist" by placing politically correct warning labels on them. Dorothy Christian, a native who has been nominated to become the next head of the censor board, has come out in favour of the idea. The idea, Christian says, is.to provide con- sumers with more 'information' about what they're viewing. Hold on a minute. The only 'information' the board should be providing are recommendations about what movies are suitable for specific age groups--children, teenagers and adults. While those kinds of decisions are also debatable--for - example, the censor's tolerance of violence over sex--they are a reasonable imposition. But sexism? Who knows for sure what's sexist? Put four people in a room, show them a movie, and you'll get four different opinions. For example, is June Cleaver cooking supper for Ward, Wally and the Beaver sex- ist? After all, they can cook for themselves. Is every single cowboy and Indian movie made before Dances with Wolves racist? After all, natives were anything but the murderous sav- ages these movies portray them as. I have no problem with governments telling me I must be a certain age to watch a movie. Children have rights, but adult continued on page 7 \ : eTweeN A PILE OF ROCKS--- AVDA HARD PLACE , LIOOIIIOPCILL 4 4 . 7 ENS , < ES S SSSA SS -- : R\ WS SSN SSX SSN \ : \ = \ SS SS The Nipigon-Red Rock Gazette and the Terrace Bay-Schrelber News are members of Laurentian Newspapers Limited 158 Elgin Street, Sudbury, Ontario P7E 3N5 (705) 673-5667 John Thompson, Vice President Gu ) & 18 Lamd G25 Members of the Canadian Community Newspapers Association and the Ontario Comminity Newspapers Asscoiation EDITORS ADVERTISING PRODUCTION Cindy Laundry Ad. Manager & Quality Control Darren MacDonald Linda Harbinson Supervisor | OFFICE / ADMIN. Ad. Consultant Heather Michon & Circulation Clara Dupuis Cheryl Kostecki PUBLISHER...A. Sandy Harbinson Local offices are located at 145 Railway Street, Nipigon, Ontario POT 2J0 (807) 887-3583 fax 887-3720 and Highway 17 & Mill Road, Terrace Bay, Ontario POT 2W0 (807) 825-3747 fax 825-9233 2nd. class mailing permit 0867 One year subscriptions are available by contacting your local newspaper at one of the addresses listed above. Rates are:- Local seniors $12 Other local $18 Outside 40 mile radius $29 USA $38. GST must be | added to all subscription purchases. Factoids appeal mostly to politicians, scaremongers I thought I'd drop a new word on you today. Actually, it's not brand new, but it is young. No more than a teenager. Spawned, as near as any- one can figure, in a festering slime bog within spitting distance of Washington's capital hill, back in the mid-1970s. : The word is factoid. It's so new that a lot of dictionaries don't yet list it. But if you find one that does, it'll say something like: fac-toid (fak'toid) n. something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact because of constant repetition. Yup, that's the factoid alright. You hear all kinds of factoids in sports--you know the ones I mean. ' You're watching a duller- than-average Blue Jays game on TV. No score, bottom of the third, Kelly Gruber's at the plate. Suddenly the colour commentator murmurs "Y'know Don, it's interesting to realize that over his career, Gruber's got himself on base 87.5 per cent of the time when facing a left-handed pitcher chewing tobacco in the second half of the third inning..." Scaremongers love to throw factoids around too. "Canadians," someone will intone omi- nously, "drink enough beer each year to fill 312 Olympic swimming pools." Or "If all the cigarettes smoked from 1979 to 1992 by North American females between the ages of 13 and 63 were laid end-to-end, they would reach from Vancouver to St. John's and back to Trois Riviéres, Quebec." The factoid has great appeal to public rela- tions flacks, politicians and hog-lazy journal- ists. For one thing, it usually provides a colour- ful visual image (can't you just picture some bean counter from the Dominion Bureau of Statistics carefully laying out a trail of Roth- mans from Vancouver to Newfoundland and < Arthur Black half-way back again?) For another thing, the factoid is almost always original. What other idiot would waste his time converting cigarettes into kilometres or beer bottles into swimming pools? But.the most delicious attribute of the fac- toid is that it is virtually uncheckable. You think anybody's going to sit down and verify Kelly Gruber's lifetime at-bats against cud- chewing left-handers? Or how many bottles of Molson's Ex it takes to fill 312 swimming pools? Not likely. But not impossible either. Last year, a Pittsburgh pub- lic relations firms issued a press release claiming that the average American, in the course of a 73.5 year lifetime, spends seven full years in the bathroom. The New York Times duly reported this 'statistic'. As did the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and who knows how many lesser journals. Only one publication--Spy Magazine --said "Say what?" and embarked on a little factoid-checking. The folks at Spy calculated that the average Ameri- can would have to spend two hours, 20 minutes in the little room every day, seven days a week. Which is a tad ridiculous. Even for those of us who like to read in there. Ah, but that's the problem when you start tossing figures around as arguments. Many's the sailor who's drowned in a stream only six inches deep--on average. Eventually, statistics merely mystify and confuse. The wife of Senator Robert Taft said "The only statistic I can remember is that if all the people who go to sleep in church were laid end to end, they would be a lot more comfort- able. Or as Dorothy Parker once observed at a Hollywood party: "if all the girls attending were laid end to end, I wouldn't be surprised."