When drive-by shootings and unsolved murders lead the nightly news, a cackling bad guy might reassure the audience, however fleetingly, that there is a diabolical master plan behind the apparent anarchy. But you can suspend disbelief only so far. That leads to broad-brush portraits and simplistic stereotypes. Movies must not give offense lest they draw as many pickets as ticket buyers. Arabs objected to the terrorists in True Lies, and gays condemned Basic Instinct 's bisexual killer.
Controversy can sell a small, artsy picture.
It can doom a major film aiming for widespread appeal. In the '20s and '30s, Hollywood skirted trouble by setting films in darkly mythical European countries or in Russia, where U.S. film revenues were minuscule and officials were unlikely to object to film content. The cold war may have thawed, but Russians still pop up as stock villains, modified slightly into mobsters in the recent The Saint or neonationalist hijackers in this summer's Air Force One . Some old movie conventions, it seems, die hard. The film scapegoated Arabs yet managed to proclaim their innocence.