The Power of Words. At Large: It's a new world, but it isn't brave

4/19/98
At Large: It's a new world, but it isn't brave
By JOHN MARTIN
Journal-Bulletin TV Writer

       The scariest thing is that it won't mean a thing to most people.
      It simply won't matter that tonight's NBC adaptation of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is an insult to the classic novel.
      Relatively speaking, it's not a bad TV movie. Certainly more relevant than most. That Huxley gave us the dark side of genetic engineering in 1932 is amazing. That gene-tinkering could become the foundation of totalitarianism is horrifying.
      The irony -- what is most significant -- is how and why NBC has rewritten Huxley's masteriece.
      Brave New World's "civilized" 21st-century utopia is based on a caste system created by genetic engineers. Families have been abolished. Promiscuous sex (with contraceptives) is a moral duty.
Monogamy is a selfish perversion. Bonding is a crime. The words "mother" and "father" are obscenities. Life begins on an assembly line that starts with the fertilization of conscripted eggs. Babies are "decanted" and then brainwashed for 12 years, including extensive hypnopaedia -- endless repetition of state-approved axioms played through pillow speakers as they sleep.
      There are three classes of citizens, Alphas, Deltas and Gammas. Thanks to the brainwashing, laboring-class Gammas are as happy with their lowly lives as elite Alphas.
      A central character in the novel is John, a naturally born citizen raised in the wilderness whose sole link to the modern world has been The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, which he has memorized. He has been brought to London to be studied.
      Late in the novel, John, also known as the Savage, is locked in a debate with the all-powerful Controller, Mustapha Mond.       Shakespeare, whose works might ignite passions, has been banned for generations.
      But why is it prohibited? asked the Savage.
      The Controller shrugged his shoulders. "Because it's old; that's the chief reason. We have no use for anything old here."
      "But the new ones (erotic, multi-sensory movies called "feelies") are stupid and horrible . . . Why not let them see Othello instead?"
      "I've told you; it's old. Besides, they couldn't understand it."
      "Well then, something new that's like Othello, and that they could understand."
      "Because if it were really like Othello nobody could understand it, however new it might be. And if it were new, it couldn't possibly be like Othello."
      In a similar way, NBC rejects the old Brave New World, changing it from a political treatise into a sci-fi love story. It's about Lenina Crowne and Bernard Marx, who defy the law by being exclusive lovers -- even though they have no concept of love. Lenina becomes attracted to John. Though he loves her, John rejects Lenina, repulsed by her "civilized" promiscuous sex. She's confused; Bernard is vaguely jealous.
      Some of Huxley's themes survive; the rest would have the British writer spinning in his grave.
      For instance, in the book, Lenina's steady lover actually is one of Bernard's co-workers, Henry Foster. She goes on holiday to the wilderness with Bernard -- whom she rather abhors -- for show. They have nothing to do with each other after they return. Foster isn't even in the movie.
      In the book, the Savages are primitive Native American cliffdwellers; in the movie, they are a gang of very urban-looking hip-hoppers and neo-hippies. The result is a John who is more intellectual and flip than Huxley's unspoiled and naive character.
      In the movie, the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning is a villain who orders John killed -- a fabrication that adds assassins and murder to the plot.
      And here's the big one: In the book, John hangs himself.
      In the movie . . .
      You'll see what happens. But I will tell you that while John's death ends the book, the NBC screenplay winds on to an upbeat and triumphant climax.
      NBC's view is clear: If the movie was like Brave New World, people couldn't understand it.
      The network reveals a lot about the way television twists everything to fit its agenda.
      Lovers in jeopardy are essential. Suicide is a bummer. Despair scares away advertisers. People prefer happy endings. But that's no reason not to cash in on Brave New World's timeliness.
      This cloning stuff is hot.
      All you need is a little updating. Out with the old; in with the new.
      Who will notice? People who watch television don't read. And if they read the book in high school the details have been crowded out of their brains by the more important things they see and retain from TV. Like Jerry Springer.
      Television has altered our brains, if not our genes.
      When it comes to things that are important, we are dumber.
      When it comes to thinking, we don't have to think. Television keeps everything self-evident. Posing a mental challenge is a cue for the mentally challenged masses to tune out.
      Television tries to do all our thinking for us so that our minds will be ready, empty slates for the next barrage of commercials.
      What a tragedy.
      And the point of Brave New World is that in Huxley's 21st century, there's no way to put the Genie back in the bottle. Lenina and Bernard can't undo their genetic coding any more than they can break the shackles of social conditioning. John can't survive in London because he has been made emotionally and morally extinct.
      Like John, we can't go back to the old ways.
      NBC, predictably, has turned Brave New World into one of Huxley's "feelies," consisting of the elements that research and marketing say make viewers' pulses race, and leaving out all the things TV thinks people can't understand or tolerate.
      We see it hour after hour, week in and week out.
      Bernard knows the drill: One hundred repetitions three nights a week for four years, thought Bernard Marx, who was a specialist on hypnopaedia. Sixty-two thousand, four hundred repetitions make one truth. Idiots!
      Huxley had a chilling vision of life in a genetically pre-ordained totalitarian state.
      Scientists, social reformers and politicians ruled his brave new world.
      But he had no idea the role television might play.
      NBC's Brave New World, starring Peter Gallagher, Rya Kihlstedt, Leonard Nimoy, Sally Kirkland and Miguel Ferrer, airs tonight at 8 p.m. on Channels 7 and 10.

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