Culture Notes

"Good night, and God bless"

Red Skelton, who died in September, was a cultural icon who reminded us of what has been lost in contemporary culture. The son of a circus clown who died two months before his son was born, Red followed in his unknown father's footsteps and became the consummate clown of television. The characters he created-such as Clem Kadiddlehopper, Freddie the Freeloader, and seagulls Gertrude and Heathcliffe-cracked up viewers for two decades, as his show ran on CBS from 1953 to 1970. He kept clowning, with his squeaky-clean humor, until nearly the very end, both more wholesome and funnier than his more contemporary competition.

Drawing the line

The long-awaited and long-dreaded Lolita, a movie about a pedophile and his sexual relationship with a preadolescent girl, is ready-but no Hollywood distributor will touch it. The film, based on Vladimir Nabokov's notorious novel, is directed by the respected Adrian Lyne and stars the distinguished actor Jeremy Irons. Nevertheless, no major studio has picked it up, and no American distributor will market it to theaters. As a result, Lolita will not be released in the United States. Though it is scheduled to open next month in Europe, even sexually easy-going Europeans have been shocked by recent revelations of child abuse and are finding the movie controversial. While Hollywood commendably is drawing the line at the overt sexualization of children, the line against portraying homosexuality has been all but erased. A whole raft of gay-chic movies is hitting the screens: the much-publicized In & Out, with Kevin Kline; Licensed to Kill, a documentary about anti-homosexual violence; and the multicultural gay movies Kiss Me Guido about an Italian pizza maker who answers a classified ad thinking GWM means "Guy With Money," Happy Together about Hong Kong homosexuals, and Latin Boys Go to Hell about Hispanic gays.