Newest Cop in Town Is a Stranger to Hollywood Beat

WASHINGTON —  From Hollywood, Robert Pitofsky must look like an authoritarian nightmare--the suspicious parent searching the room of his undisciplined teenager, flipping back the rugs, pulling out the drawers, hunting for something awful.

As chairman of the powerful Federal Trade Commission, Pitofsky oversees the wide-ranging investigation into whether violent entertainment is intentionally marketed to children. And for all the political fury over youth violence sparked by the Columbine High School massacre, Washington’s most concrete response may well come from him and his staff of lawyers.

This month, the inquiry turns its focus to the heart and soul of Hollywood: the studios themselves. And the man in charge is a virtual stranger to the industry.

Pitofsky, a 69-year-old antitrust scholar and grandfather of two, is quintessential East Coast establishment: former dean of Georgetown University Law School, attorney at a top-drawer New York law firm, author of the textbook President Clinton used when he taught antitrust law in Arkansas more than two decades ago.

He has spent the last quarter-century summering on Cape Cod. He would not know Pasadena from Petaluma. The total of his West Coast experience is a few months stationed at the Army’s Ft. Ord near Monterey.

But those facts fail to tell the full story of a man who grew up reading great novels and, yes, going to the movies. He’s a free-speech advocate concerned that in the world of popular culture, something went astray.

As the FTC intensifies its look into Hollywood’s marketing practices, Pitofsky will not likely be viewed as an ally to an industry that bristles at any level of government interference.

But as someone who managed to find art in “Natural Born Killers,” he may not be its archenemy either.

“Personally, I do think some entertainment today is too violent. On the other hand, government censorship is worse than the disease,” Pitofsky says from his seventh-floor office, nine blocks from the White House.

One film studio executive likens the FTC investigation of Hollywood to that scene in “Animal House” in which the tough guys ask the scrawny frat boys: “Mind if we dance with your dates?”

That is how many in Hollywood feel about the government’s “study,” a term that suggests a benign process. In fact, Pitofsky holds a big stick--the power to subpoena documents. And though a proponent of self-regulation, he has vowed to use force if necessary to get the job done.

“Our goal is to work with, not against, the entertainment industry,” he said. “In the end, however, our responsibility is to produce a full, complete record on which to base judgments, and we will use compulsory process if we find it necessary.”

The trade commission, which enforces federal antitrust and consumer protection laws, has a history of tenacity. It battled the funeral trade for 20 years until leaders of that industry agreed to comply with consumer protection standards. It was the first agency to take on Big Tobacco, requiring disclosure of tar and nicotine figures on cigarette packs and challenging the cartoonish Joe Camel ads, which eventually were discontinued.

Some critics of Hollywood believe that the FTC’s scrutiny could similarly prod the entertainment industry to reduce gratuitous violence, particularly when children are concerned.

“This agency has a history of dealing with some problems by simply putting a spotlight on them,” Pitofsky said. “Look at what has happened to the tobacco industry, mainly as the result of [government] reports.”

His unpretentious manner is at odds with Hollywood’s glitter. While Tinseltown crawls with black BMWs, Pitofsky for years drove a blue Toyota Celica that rattled. When he broke down last year and bought a Lexus, he got the stripped-down model.

He plays tennis once a week at the least exclusive clubs, shops for clothes twice a year for 15 minutes, looks forward to leftovers and always wears a tux on New Year’s Eve. The FTC chairmanship comes with a driver and an entourage, but he can often be seen walking the capital’s streets unescorted--briefcase back at the office--to give a speech without notes.

He lives in one of Maryland’s classiest neighborhoods, has been married to the same woman for 38 years and has three grown children who, like him, all studied law. His early life, though, was anything but charmed. He is less a product of upper-class Washington than of Paterson, N.J., the urban community of Jewish immigrants where he grew up.

His father worked in a silk factory, his mother in a dress shop. Neither finished high school. They lived in an apartment over a barbershop and a bar. There was never enough money to buy their only child a bike, much less send him to Harvard, although he had the grades to go. He attended New York University and lived at home.

One of those kids who never got into trouble, he hung out in the library, collected stamps and went to the movies on Saturdays. Fredric March, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable--those were the days when nobody worried about gratuitous violence. Instead, they worried about “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” Pitofsky remembers the crusade to ban the D.H. Lawrence novel, a ban which was overturned in federal district court in 1959; it started him thinking about the sanctity of the 1st Amendment.

“We will not be the modern embodiment of the thought police,” Pitofsky recently said of the FTC inquiry. “Our goal is not to deny young people any opportunity to see ‘King Lear’ or ‘Saving Private Ryan’ or to hear socially relevant rap lyrics because they contain violent material.”

Still, some wonder if the venerable chairman is too far removed from the nuances of the entertainment culture he has been asked to judge. He went to see a Bruce Springsteen concert because he wanted to hear what the kids of today are hearing, unaware that today’s kids are not listening to Bruce Springsteen.

Indeed, Pitofsky is anything but tuned in, a fact he readily acknowledges. He has read 75 of the 100 books on the Modern Library’s list of the century’s 100 greatest novels, but he would not recognize any of the top 10 pop music groups. He had never listened to rap music, so he asked his staff to pull some lyrics. FTC interns had to walk him through the controversial video game Doom.

In many ways, though, he is not unlike the typical American parent, struggling to decipher the din of new media that their children have mastered readily.

“I am as much of a movie buff as you are going to run into,” he said. He and his wife go to about one a week. He’ll see anything but horror films.

“At the other extreme, I really had to be shown how these video games work,” he said. “As for music, I didn’t listen until this project came along. I don’t know the material firsthand, but I cared about what my children were watching,” he said, recalling the family crisis when he refused to let his son, at 9, see “Jaws.”

That doesn’t mean he didn’t see it himself. “It was the stuff of kid’s nightmares,” he said. “But it was a great movie.”

A Strong Force Who Can Back Down

He was a professor of law at Georgetown in 1995 whelinton appointed him one of the nation’s top enforcers of antitrust law. Four years into his seven-year term, Pitofsky is credited with restoring the agency’s teeth. Under his leadership, the FTC has aggressively challenged a number of corporate mergers, most notably the $4.4-billion purchase of Office Depot by Staples in 1997.

“He let the marketplace know there is a cop monitoring false and deceptive practices and scams,” said Gene Kimmelman, co-director of the Consumers Union’s Washington office.

Pitofsky is viewed by many as measured and thoughtful, “not a cowboy,” said a film studio executive who was one of his students. “He’s going to make this study more restrained than it otherwise would have been.”

Perhaps too restrained, some critics fear. Pitofsky proved “less than courageous” when dealing with major media, Kimmelman said, citing the Time-Warner consolidation that some believe hurt free-market competition.

“He blinked,” Kimmelman said. “The jury is still out on how aggressive he will be when faced with a political buzz. I think companies know the FTC might be fearful of losing . . that he might be bargained down.”

Unquestionably, the professorial chairman may have been handed a firecracker.

“Movies are being advertised legally,” said Felix Kent, a New York advertising attorney. “The question Bob Pitofsky has to face is whether the advertising of movies is deceptive, and that’s a thorny issue.” As of now, the FTC is not expected to initiate any litigation when the study concludes in a year. But Pitofsky said he is watching how films are marketed--whether, for example, R-rated movies are advertised to the under-17 MTV crowd.

“I would not be embarrassed to bring that kind of a case,” he said. “I really do believe entertainment materials have an impact on the way people behave. I am convinced of it. It’s important to have a system where parents are given notice of the content of the material their kids are exposed to. . . . And if rating systems are good but retailers pay no attention to them, it seems to me Congress and the country ought to know about that.”