One of the things that was actually sort of heart-warming in the wake of the September 11 attacks on America was the way the entertainment community pulled together with the rest of us. Folks in the industry actually made a brief stab at sensitivity, which may, in itself, be one of the signs of the Apocalypse. The Arnold Schwarzenegger film "Collateral Damage", which begins with the hero’s wife and kids getting killed in a terrorist bombing in a tall building, got shelved, partially at Ahhhhhnuld’s request. Radical rap group The Coup had to rework the cover of their latest album, which showed the World Trade Center exploding. Talk about your lousy timing!

There were also some heartwarming big-media moments, particularly in the first benefit concert, which raised beaucoup bucks for disaster relief in New York. I got a lump in my throat hearing Willie Nelson and the rest of the cast singing "America the Beautiful", even though after a few minutes I began to realize why no one should sing the song past the first verse. I mean, the "amber waves of grain" part is lovely, but "confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law" does not exactly trip off the tongue.

Unfortunately, the good stuff didn’t last. As so often happens in the entertainment world, things rapidly started turning to crap. NBC’s top-rated "The West Wing", usually the best show on television, rushed a "very special episode" onto the air that was so preachy, condescending, and just plain boring that it left a bad taste in my mouth for days. I mean, you just knew from the beginning that the Arab-American White House employee that was being interrogated as a potential terrorist by the Presidential Chief of Staff (yes, you read that right!) was going to turn out to be innocent and that we were all supposed to feel Really Really Bad about it. Rule of Thumb: when any show advertises an episode as "very special", prepare to witness something that stinks up the screen like a dead woodchuck.

Things quickly went from the merely hokey to the utterly ridiculous. The 20^th anniversary re-release of the movie "E.T." excised a line where someone was described as "looking like a terrorist," as if the very word was now taboo in light entertainment. The Ben Stiller flick "Zoolander" had shots of the New York skyline altered to remove the World Trade Center. "Friends" drastically cut a scene where two of the characters gripe about being stuck for a long time in an airport.

The silliness truly came to a head when the producers of "Seinfeld", now in reruns, decided to pull an episode where the fiancée of the loathsome George Costanza died from licking cheap wedding-invitation envelopes that used toxic glue. Might upset the people who are worried about anthrax in the mail, you see.

Frankly, you could pull every episode of "Seinfeld" off the air and it wouldn’t bother me, largely because of gags like that one. But get a grip, people. I refuse to believe that the psyche of American viewing public is that fragile. What’s next? Dropping the loudmouthed mailman Cliff from "Cheers" reruns because it might offend our heroic mail carriers? Banning "The Flintstones" because the show’s comic cavemen might remind us of where Osama bin Laden currently lives?

And how long are we going to be so timid with dramatic series? CBS’ CIA drama "The Agency" has pulled or postponed episodes with references to Osama bin Laden and anthrax attacks. NBC’s "UC: Undercover" apparently dropped a script dealing with terrorism. Pretty soon, these guys are going to have no villains left to fight, unless they start tasking the CIA to go after litterbugs and jaywalkers.

Have we really gotten this wimpy? I mean, look at some of the movies that came out in the Forties, when America was facing a threat that makes bin Laden and cronies look like the small-time thugs they are. Hollywood’s response was to give us films like John Wayne fighting cartoony Japanese in "Flying Tigers" and Humphrey Bogart foiling the icily evil Nazis in "Casabalanca". Did they tippy-toe around words like "Japanese" or "Stormtrooper"? Heck no. Our nation was inspired to victory by square-jawed heroes fighting off hordes of stereotypical villains. I’m sure the entertainers of today can deliver stories just that mindless if they get some backbone.

Give us our shallow entertainment back, Hollywood. We can take it.

COPYRIGHT 2001 BY JERRY D. RHOADES, JR.