Hollywood's "Better Normal" World

Last week, the New York Post slapped a photo on its cover showing some of the Sept. 11 merchandise sold on the streets downtown, nifty souvenirs of the terror site that folks can bring home to the kids. T-shirts, hats, mugs, you name it. The headline fumed: "Outrage: How Street Vendors Dishonor Our Heroes at Ground Zero."

Oh, come on; that's nothing. A few street vendors making a couple of bucks is diddly-squat compared to the cynical Sept. 11 exploitation that some Hollywood stars have embarked on. No, I'm not talking about the string of war films now taking advantage of the moment in their marketing campaigns. Nor am I talking about the photo-ops that celebrities have made at Ground Zero, seemingly timed to coincide with the launch of a new project or their latest appearance on Letterman.

I'm talking instead about the most demented, most idiotic, most self-serving censorship effort to come out of Hollywood since the 1930 Production Code banned offensive language and lustful kissing. It's a campaign that puts Goldie Hawn and Tom Cruise in bed with John Ashcroft?a scary thought indeed?and that tells us that because the world has supposedly changed, we now had all better watch what we say. Time to zipper up those mouths, folks?particularly, it seems, when it comes to dishing on the stars themselves.

It was during the holidays when I first became aware of the group called Words Can Heal, a seemingly innocuous title for an eerie little organization. There was Goldie Hawn on C-SPAN late at night, giving a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, a talk that had been taped a few days before. Hawn was speaking as a representative of Words Can Heal, which describes itself on its website as "a visionary national media and educational campaign designed to reduce verbal violence and gossip." In other words, an organization that appears to be led by celebrities and whose goal appears to be to stop the press from reporting gossipy things about...celebrities. Words Can Heal portrays itself as against gossip in general?gossip used by anyone against anyone. The group has a battery of statistics in its arsenal, too: 117 million Americans listen to or share gossip with another person once or twice a week, you'll be absolutely shocked to know. But let's be real: it's not you or me who may find our personal life?or our true hair color?exposed in the National Enquirer tomorrow.

"We have seen an America that has not just gone back to normal?we have made a better normal," Hawn claimed.

A better normal. If that doesn't conjure up every chilling futuristic plotline, from Logan's Run to The Handmaid's Tale, I don't know what does.

"How are people changed by catastrophe?" Hawn asked. "We're a little bit more sentimental now, and not at all troubled by it. We want simpler dreams and simpler times and lives less complicated. We want a return, not to normal, but to a better normal. So, what does that really mean, a better normal?"

I don't know Goldie. Tell me, please.

"In a post-Sept. 11 world, we need to worry less about being clever, and more about being wise... Painful words have no place in our 'better normal' world."

Then it started devolving into 12-step speak.

"It's time to declare a 'gossip free' zone?zones in our schools, in our lives. The first step is to acknowledge that gossip and verbal abuse have real consequences. Once people admit that they have a problem with gossip, they can take steps to improve their lives and the lives of the people that they love around them."

A problem with gossip? Gee, should we send every bitchy queen, every prima donna, every wisecracking cabbie, every shrewd Wall Street stock broker, every sniping fashion editor to Gossips Anonymous? The entire city would shut down!

It gets even more twisted. As if exploiting Sept. 11 weren't bad enough, Hawn compared gossip to...slavery.

"Now, you think Americans can't reduce gossip and verbal abuse? Does it sound impossible? It's not. Big changes have to start somewhere. There was a time when slavery was considered normal in America."

Yes, Goldie?I'm sure that your own suffering over the Globe's revelations about your ugly dress at the Oscars is equivalent to the kidnapping, torture and enslavement of people from the African subcontinent.

By the end of her speech, confirming the organization's cult-like characteristics, Hawn began to recite the Words Can Heal Pledge: "I pledge to think more about the words I use. I will try to see how gossip hurts people, including myself, and work to eliminate it from my life..."

It is little wonder that Tom Cruise is on the Board of Advisors of Words Can Heal, having just battled rumors that he is gay, vehemently denying said rumors and filing lawsuits against men who'd allegedly spread the rumors. It's also not a surprise that creepy moralists like Sen. Joseph Lieberman are involved too. What is disappointing is that Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Sens. John McCain and Chuck Schumer, Gov. Pataki, Congressman Charlie Rangel and a host of other politicians are signed on as well. (Apparently George W. Bush was supposed to endorse the group in September, but the terrorist attacks postponed the event.) In late November the Senate passed a resolution establishing "National Words Can Heal Day."

Politicians obviously have as much of a stake as the Hollywood crowd in making sure sexual gossip is suppressed?just ask Gary Condit and Bill Clinton?and, perhaps more so, they definitely would like to see political gossip stopped too. I would be remiss, however, if I didn't note that it seems Words Can Heal was begun with good intentions by some religious and political leaders who were concerned about bullying in schools and incidents such as the Columbine murders. The group launched in early September with a series of tv spots, print and bus ads discussing the negative effects of gossip on communities. Packaged as such to political and civic leaders, who could have a problem with it? But by having as its public face Hollywood celebrities who appear to be on self-serving crusades against gossip, it starts to look pretty perverse. And having them use Sept. 11 is just sleazy.

It's all inspired me to write the Signorile Pledge: "I pledge to continue deliciously gossiping?including talking about Goldie Hawn's childish hairstyle (bangs just do not work on someone her age)?and I promise to never, ever, ever lead a better normal life!"

Michelangelo Signorile can be reached at [www.signorile.com](http://www.signorile.com).