Word: formulaically
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...Hollywood, a town that loves formula films about cops and buddies and fighter pilots, a hot new character has emerged. Meet a hero for the 1990s: the dead. Or nearly dead. Or just back from the dead. But don't be spooked. Hollywood believes this could be fun and meaningful at the same time. Just listen to the sales pitch for a script being peddled around the studios right now: "It's a Ghost kind of Die Hard. It's a Home Alone Ghost. Better, it's a Ghost Alone...
Hollywood's new formula neatly capitalizes on the search for spirituality that has captured America at the turn of the decade. The meaning of life and the approach of death are issues that seem pressing to a baby-boom generation in the throes of middle age. At the same time, teens who were raised on the values of the materialistic '80s now wonder what to replace them with...
...more creative minds in Hollywood fear that as the industry rushes to exploit the idea, the meaning will be lost, and only the formula will remain. "Some of these films are from the heart, but others are from the Xerox machine," says Larry Gordon, chief executive of Largo Entertainment. "The audience can tell the difference. People are looking for something that makes them feel good. We all want to believe that death...
...women are cast as pliant toys or conniving Delilahs. The male rappers who weave this image -- among them Ice Cube, Ice-T, Too Short and the Geto Boys -- spin exaggerated tales of salaciousness and violence, portraying themselves as potent, swashbuckling urban heroes. Since a macho image is a proven formula for success, rap producers were reluctant to sign female rappers. The music moguls were also fearful of challenging the form's rigid orthodoxies: in rap, as in heavy metal, feminine voices do not always supply the requisite loudness and abrasiveness...
...female rappers are creating buoyant messages that transcend the inert boasting so common in male rap. Salt-N-Pepa may have found the most satisfying and successful musical formula yet. Salt (Cheryl James), Pepa (Sandy Denton) and Spinderella (Dee Dee Roper), who met while working in a Sears department store in 1985, punctuate soul-tinged R.-and-B. melodies with teasing, street-savvy raps about maturity, independence from men and sexual responsibility. In 1988 Salt-N-Pepa, one of the first rap groups to cross over into pop radio, released a single, Push It, that sold more than 1 million...