Americans.nMichael Douglas has an affair withnGlenn Close, not because he has fallennin love or because he has a bad marriage,nbut because there is no internalnset of rules and no parent or wise friendnor community pressure to stop him.nThe old order has vanished. He is andecent but weak man. He is not reallynin command. He can’t even get hisnumbrella to open correctly; he calls forna waiter in a restaurant and no onencomes. Close, like a child angry atnbeing abandoned, proceeds to terrorizenDouglas and his family. She has lostnher femininity and become an irrationalnforce against which he, the modernnweak male, is powerless.nIt has been suggested that this movienrepresents a return to family values,nsince Douglas is happily married andnhas a child. Nothing could be furthernfrom the truth. True, his wife is lovelyn— far more beautiful than thenMedusa-faced Close—and as accommodatingnas Donna Reed, but thenmarriage is only a foil for the murderousnexchanges between Douglas andnClose. The family is a house of cards.nDouglas and his family move from thenanonymous hell of New York City tonthe isolation of the suburbs. There isnneither community nor parents —nClose’s father died of a heart attack inn1958, and the wife’s parents, thoughnpresent, play no part. The police arencompletely ineffectual, and there is nonescaping Glenn Close.nFatal Attraction has much in commonnwith The Birds (1963), Jawsn(1975), and Aliens (1986). Irrational,nviolent forces erupt and threaten orderly,nrational, civilized society. Thesenmovies seem to say that modernitynitself goes against Natural Law, andnthat when Nature’s laws are broken,nshe fights back with irrational, unappeasablenforces. The degree of thendanger, the scope of the problem, cannbe measured by the extent to whichnmale authority and protection is stillnthere. In The Birds, Rod Taylor protectsnthree generations of women fromnthe attacks of the birds. In Jaws, RobertnShaw, the representative of the oldnadult male, gets eaten by the shark,nleaving the boyish Richard Dreyfussnand Roy Scheider, who has a foot innboth camps. In Aliens, the men are allnineffectual; a woman and a robot saventhe day. In Fatal Attraction, the manncannot protect himself or his familynfrom the crazed killer with the knife.nIt is true that, like the media inngeneral, the movies are dominated bynan elite, whose views do not representnthe sentiments of millions of us. Andncertainly most movies today only addnto society’s problems — reinforcingnand legitimizing them—by presentingnthem on the screen without moralncompass.nNonetheless, I believe it is equallyntrue that movies — as part of popularnculture — unconsciously reflect currentnattitudes. Seen in this light, moviesnare cultural artifacts, signs to be interpreted,nmirrors of the society we live in.nIn this light, the past 50 years havenwitnessed an increase in male/femalenconfrontation and the fading of thenadult world. These would seem to bensymptoms of a deep spiritual malaise.nThe feminists would like to blame mennfor all the ills of the world. The evidencenfrom the movies is against thisnview. Men and women have found itnequally difficult to grow up. What thenmovies seem to be telling us is thatnpeople are living against the grain ofnhuman nature, and they are paying thenprice.nRichard Hobby has contributed filmncriticism to the Boston Globenand Maine Public Radio.nPOP CULTUREnThe War ToysnMeltdownnby Betsy ClarkenAt Circus World, Mattel’s Rattlor, anMasters of the Universe character,nglares at his potential purchasers.n”Sounds fearsome battle rattle beforenattacking,” the package advertises. Thenaction figure is an “evil snake manncreature with the quick strike head.”nPrice: $3.98. LJN Toys, Ltd., on thenother hand, offers Thundercats BerserkersnHammerhand, which comes completenwith operating instructions:n”Squeeze the powerful lever and scissorsncontrol to make HammerheadnGrab and Smash his opponent with hisnhuge ‘iron fist.'” Price: $4.98.nFifty-seven dollars will buy Mattel’snnnBravestarr Space Cowboys, whose packagenpictures two fiituristic figures blastingneach other with lasers while an evilnprisoner escapes the “planetary jail.” Anwindow, boasts the package, “blowsnout.” A bank vault “blows open.”nDown the wide corridor and aroundnthe corner of Columbia, Missouri’s,nnew mall, a better dressed crowd examinesnthe inventory of Walden Kids, annupscale toy store stocked with Fisher-nPrice and Brio and socially enlightenednreading material on Squanto, MarienCurie, and Malcolm X. Foreign languagencassettes, birdhouse building sets,nLionel trains, and “stellar explorationnsets” round out the offerings. “HelpnSave Us” tags around the necks ofnstuffed whales, koalas, and pandas advisensofthearted buyers that “a percentagenof this sale is being donated tonWorld Wildlife Fund.” The lion costsn$79.95.nAny war toys? Painted soldiers?n”No,” replied the clerk crisply.n”Everything here is technicallyngenderless.”nThe major groups opposing war toysngenerally have other issues as their mainnfoci. The War Resisters League, annintemational organization, works to promotenthe unilateral disarmament of thenUnited States and Great Britain, accordingnto Rick Gaumer, a staffer withnthe group’s New England chapter. Hensays the organization does not call onnthe Soviet Union to disarm because ofnits “complex political problems” andnbecause that country was not the first tondevelop nuclear technology. WhennColeco introduced the Rambo doll,ndovmplaying its violent attributes andnemphasizing it as a “hero and justiceseekingnindividual,” WRL was havingnnone of it. The group put out a pamphletnin a plastic bag called a “RambonDoll Body Bag” urging people to writento Coleco to protest its manufacture.nThe pamphlet’s headline reads, RambonAmerica’s Hero VV^nfe You Dead.nThe National Coalition on TelevisionnViolence, another major forcenagainst war toys, has a slightly differentnemphasis, but still sometimes addressesnits mailing list with “Dear Peace Activist.”nConcerned about the amount ofnviolence on all television shows, thengroup became especially alarmednabout the violent Saturday morningncartoons sponsored by toy companies.nBut NCTV has other concerns aboutnJUIY1988I4Sn