Word: amerika
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...portraying a U.S. turned into a wasteland by repressive Soviet invaders, Amerika will undoubtedly provide support for conservatives who advocate constant vigilance against the Soviet threat. Indeed, the project was spurred by complaints about ABC's controversial antinuclear drama The Day After. In a 1983 newspaper column, Author and Critic Ben Stein (The View from Sunset Boulevard) proposed that to balance that film's allegedly liberal tilt the network ought to make a movie about what life in the U.S. would be like under a Soviet regime. Brandon Stoddard, then head of ABC movies and mini-series and now programming...
Back home, an estimated 150 groups have lodged protests against Amerika. "The film takes the most complicated issue in international affairs and reduces it to Soviets in black hats and Americans in white hats," says Jonathan Halperin, program director of the Committee for National Security, a liberal institute chaired by former Arms Negotiator Paul Warnke. "It reinforces stereotypes and hinders public awareness." Yet some right-wing groups are unhappy too, claiming that the mini-series is too soft on the Soviets. Says Reed Irvine, head of Accuracy in Media: "There is a total lack of realism about what a Soviet...
...Program Chief Stoddard charges that the onslaught of protest against Amerika before the show is even finished is an attempt at "precensorship of ideas." The movie, he insists, is not an anti-Soviet tract but a rumination on what it means to be American: "I think it can make people ask some questions about their behavior as citizens. It might even make them think about the responsibility part of freedom." Wrye, who describes himself as a Kennedy Democrat, says he "wasn't remotely interested in doing something anti-Soviet" and charges that opponents of the movie have a double standard...
...furor over Amerika highlights a persistent TV dilemma. Network programming is frequently derided as bland and mindless, but whenever a provocative show comes along that purveys a controversial point of view, it is assaulted by interest groups on one side or another, often scaring off advertisers and making the network less likely to try other risky ventures. The critics of Amerika, meanwhile, have their own irony to face. The attention they have focused on a program they despise has set the stage for what could be one of TV's highest-rated mini-series since Roots...
...fights off a storm of protests against Amerika, its provocative mini- series about a Soviet takeover...