Public service advocates find new roles in H'wood

The Hollywood Reporter - March 22, 2005

By Gail Schiller

In the MGM film "Be Cool," John Travolta's character Chili Palmer drives a hybrid car, while the bad guys cruise around in gas-guzzling SUVs.

In an episode of CBS' "Judging Amy" that airs tonight, a young AIDS counselor with HIV helps save a suicidal teenage girl who has just discovered that she is HIV-positive. And on an episode of UPN's "Eve" that airs in early May, the real-life AIDS counselor who inspired the "Judging Amy" character makes a cameo appearance in an episode about HIV testing.

Major elements of all three fictional story lines were not thought up by writers but inspired by advocacy and public health groups that work with Hollywood creative talent to encourage the accurate depiction of social issues including sexual heath, drug and alcohol abuse, HIV and AIDS awareness, gun violence and the environment.

Although funding pressures have recently caused several advocacy groups to scale back their efforts or completely shut down, all the buzz over branded entertainment is prompting a growing number of nonprofits to take a closer look at working with Hollywood to get their messages out.

"These advocacy organizations have got to get their messages through the clutter just like everyone else," said Andy Marks, a producer of branded content and consultant to nonprofits trying to work with Hollywood. "With all the attention on product placement, more of these organizations are realizing this is an opportunity."

But while brands are often paying exorbitant fees for integration into story lines, the nonprofits are getting their messages in for free, often just by serving as a resource to writers, producers and showrunners on vital social issues that make for dramatic programming.

"In television, when anyone brings you research around an interesting issue, you often leap at working on the idea because you're usually brain-dead after Episode 10," said veteran film and TV scribe Paul Haggis, who earned an Oscar nomination for his "Million Dollar Baby" screenplay. "We also want to be socially responsible in what we do."

Tammy Ader, executive producer and creator of Lifetime's "Strong Medicine," said working with advocacy groups is a staple of the show's story-development process.

"You can pretty much pick any episode of 'Strong Medicine' and there is an advocacy group associated with it. We consider the show's social conscience to be an integral part of the series, and advocacy groups represent a lot of real-life social issues that we are dramatizing."

Neal Baer, executive producer of "Law & Order: SVU" and a former writer and executive producer on "ER," said that while he doesn't take story ideas from public health or advocacy groups, he feels working with them is essential to ensure his shows are accurate.

"What's critical about a lot of these groups is they help writers get accurate information out there," said Baer, who also is a physician. "You might argue it's entertainment, but people still get their health information from television so I think it's incumbent on us to be as accurate as possible. We have some responsibility toward the audience."

While the motivation of corporate advertisers and advocacy groups is different, they are both trying to use the cultural clout of entertainment as well as viewers' identification with TV and film characters to sell their marketing messages to the public.

"Just like Coca-Cola may try to get their Coke brand into a show, we're trying to get a public health message into a show," said Tina Hoff, vp and director of entertainment media partnerships at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which just recently entered the third year of a partnership with Viacom on the issue of HIV/AIDS. "It really is a form of pro-social product placement."

While Kaiser works with other entertainment companies, its partnership with Viacom is unprecedented among advocacy and public health groups.

Since the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning "Know HIV/AIDS" campaign was launched in 2003, 40 broadcast and cable programs on Viacom-owned networks have incorporated HIV/AIDS into programming. In addition, Viacom has committed $600 million of media value to the public education initiative, and Know HIV/AIDS has created more than 100 public service announcements.

Kaiser is one of at least a dozen public health or advocacy groups that are extremely active in working with the Hollywood creative community. A few of the groups were started by top entertainment industry executives, many have celebrities and top industry professionals on their boards, and one — the Entertainment Industries Council — was created in 1983 to serve as an official entertainment industry clearinghouse of information designed to "bring the power and influence" of Hollywood "to bear on health and social issues."

For the most part, the nonprofits use similar approaches to encourage social placements, offering briefings, panel discussions and one-on-one meetings; providing research and experts; and sending out informational publications, e-mails and faxes. Several of the groups also hand out awards to writers and producers to recognize their work in highlighting health and social issues.

"We have found that education, resources and recognition are the three elements that tend to motivate the creative community," EIC president and CEO Brian Dyak said.

The movement of advocacy groups trying to place social messages in entertainment — often referred to as entertainment education — dates back to the 1970s. Many say Norman Lear's "All in the Family" was one of the first shows to take on major social issues and demonstrate the power of entertainment to educate, not just entertain. "In some cases, organizations grew up around the fact that we asked for some expertise, and people began to see television as a major medium for getting people to understand these problems," Lear said.

One of the most effective advocacy campaigns to take place in Hollywood since then was the Harvard Alcohol Project. A program of the Harvard School of Public Health Center for Health Communication, the campaign led to the depiction of designated drivers in more than 160 primetime episodes on the major broadcast networks over four television seasons beginning in the 1988-89 season. National polls showed a sharp rise in the use of designated drivers around the country following the launch of the campaign.

While advocacy groups work on getting story lines into both film and television productions in Hollywood, they are much more focused on the small screen. "Television reaches a broader audience, and it's faster," said Debbie Levin, president of the Environmental Media Assn. "There is less lead time between pitching and airing, so you can be more topical."

But Levin did focus on film with "Be Cool," convincing producer Michael Shamberg to put Travolta behind the wheel of a hybrid car. Not only does Travolta's Chili Palmer drive a Honda Insight throughout the film, he defends its virtues in a number of scenes, calling it "the Cadillac of hybrids" and "a small sacrifice to pay for the environment."

Similarly, Kaiser's Know HIV/AIDS campaign inspired "Judging Amy," which features a character based on the real-life work of Martinez Brown, a 25-year-old AIDS counselor who was diagnosed as HIV-positive at 18.

"We honestly wanted to do the Martinez Brown story because we thought it was so interesting, but we did our own version," "Judging Amy" executive producer Carol Barbee said.

Brown also makes a cameo appearance on an episode of UPN's "Eve" in May. "It made the episode resonate for all of us, cast and crew, to have someone on the set living with HIV," "Eve" executive producer Meg DeLoatch said.


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