Subject: Television: Abuse, Abuse Everywhere Date: Published: 5/17/93 (106 lines) Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. LEISURE & ARTS -- Television: Abuse, Abuse Everywhere ---- By Dorothy Rabinowitz Some of us out here have been wondering if it's possible for a TV magazine program (of the new breed, that is) to go three consecutive weeks without a segment on rape or sexual harassment. Impossible, you say? Not for those who believe in a place called Hope. Then there are the rest of us, less believing, who've been watching ABC's "Day One." Now it should be said at once that "Day One" started out as one of the sharper and livelier of the new magazine shows. It helped, for one thing, to have Forrest Sawyer as anchor. Mr. Sawyer has, among other virtues, a magisterial presence for a mere 43-year-old. The first show held out the promise of pace, if not polish, even some humor (with pieces by Jeff Greenfield) and variety. But thereafter it became clear that variety was -- to say the least -- not going to be "Day One's" strong suit. At the end of the first program (about a man who remorselessly infected women with the AIDS virus), a promo brought news of coming attractions. Rape and molestation, it was obvious, were going to be the main menu for "Day One." Sure enough, the next week's show took us to a women's prison in Georgia where prisoners were coerced, one way and another, into having sexual relations with the male guards. Another show shortly after took us, along with reporter Sheila MacVicar, to Kuwait. Why Kuwait? Because there is, to our TV producers, matter more priceless than oil there; because, in short, there is sexual harassment and injustice to women going on there. Why, you might ask, go all the way to Kuwait? Did we run out of home-grown harassment stories? The answer, it's clear, is that Kuwait provided new and more terrible variations on the abused-women stories. What this segment described was the maltreatment and rape of women from the Philippines and other lands who came to work for Kuwaiti familes -- crimes to which the Kuwaiti authorities apparently have turned a blind eye. It was a tale of pitiable suffering and injustice, no doubt about it. But so, too, is the far more terrible plight of the children taken from their homes and sent into slavery, as part of the Muslim war on Christians in the Sudan. In December 1992, CBS's Bob Arnot gave details of this atrocity in a report titled "The Lost Boys of the Sudan." Such arduous reporting is clearly not beyond the capacities of journalists willing to do it. Stories of this kind don't, of course, attract the attention of "Day One's" journalists, who have, after all, their hands full covering rape and harassment stories here and around the globe. That's not to say that "Day One" hasn't produced some interesting variations on the subjects. Take the show on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Dahmer, recall, had at the time of his arrest amassed a houseful of human remains -- including limbs marinating in the bathtub and such -- the better to assuage (as one of the program's commentators explained) his feelings of loneliness. To achieve greater human intimacy he sometimes ate parts of his victims -- mainly, the program reveals, their biceps -- a disarming habit. Dahmer's story fit in nicely with the show's preoccupations. Stalking and killing the objects of one's lust in order to find companionship and sustenance with their corpses is, after all, sexual molestation. Though it was much criticized for rewarding so vicious a criminal with a celebrity profile, "Day One's" portrait of Dahmer was in fact well-reported. (What undid the segment were the accompanying psychological commentaries, and the vampire mood music.) The show's producer, for instance, managed to dig up Dahmer's high-school prom date, who told a fascinating, if woeful, tale of a clumsy youth so shy he couldn't attach his date's corsage -- for fear of pricking her with the pin. In due time, Dahmer managed to get over this shyness, and became quite a dab hand at stabbing people. "Day One's" story on Michael, La Toya and all the rest of the Jacksons was naturally cheerier, as what would not be? Needless to say, a fair amount of this family portrait focused on Ms. Jackson's charges that her father assaulted her and her sister sexually, charges everyone else in question, including the sister, vigorously denies. Elsewhere on the rape watch, we had, a week ago, the story of a Florida woman assaulted by a man who had followed her as she left a health club. While the prosecutor had made many errors, the victim, reported correspondent Michel McQueen, had done everything right -- everything she was supposed to do -- to assure the rapist's conviction. In fact, she had got one thing fatally wrong. In one of the show's most memorable exchanges, reporter McQueen confronted the prosecutor after the case against the obviously innocent man had fallen apart. The prosecutor pointed out that, unfortunately, the victim made a 100%-positive identification of the wrong man. "Pardon me," Ms. McQueen snapped, "but it sounds like you're blaming her for picking the wrong photograph." This unsubtle reflexive charge suggesting that the prosecutor was blaming the victim told worlds about the mind-set at work here. The entire point of this reportorial venture, after all, was to accuse the prosecutor, not to present salient facts such as the rape victim's error. "Day One" (which returns in the fall in a new Monday-night slot) isn't alone in its addiction to rape and molestation stories. If it could get this particular monkey off its back, it could conceivably have a substantial future. It won't be easy. Perhaps the network will consider funding a 12-step recovery program for the production staff. [This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]