Earlier this week during a speech at a film studio, Republican presidential hopeful Bob "Grumpy" Dole gave a speech lambasting the quality of movies which come out of Tinsel Town.

He must have recently been forced to sit through a Jim Carey film festival or something.

They say that if you're going to preach, it makes more sense to preach to the sinners than to the faithful. However, Dole's views were probably received by the movie moguls and similarly nefarious types in attendance about as well as members of the Major League Baseball Players Union would react to a speech about why utility infielders who hit .193 shouldn't make seven-figure salaries.

Blaming the film industry for destroying American values and culture is a practice as old as making films, and nearly as old as Dole, age 254, himself.

The claim -- as it always has been -- is that the film industry is slowly destroying American society and culture by producing films which promote everything conceivably evil. Such evilness includes, but is not limited to, violence, sexual promiscuity, faulty air conditioning units, long lines at the supermarket, ozone depletion, poor gas mileage, minor abdominal discomfort and cat abuse.

In his most recent anti-Hollywood tirade, Dole said the industry needs to make more films like the blockbuster hits "Independence Day" and "Babe."

The former film is an action-packed, make-you-proud-to-be-an-American story about aliens who attack Earth, destroy Washington, D.C. -- and with it the federal welfare system -- and then allow themselves to be quite unbelievably and easily destroyed by a group of heroic, "Star Spangled Banner"-singing defenders of freedom with no assistance whatsoever from Superman.

The other film is about a talking, singing pig -- a story idea which could only have been conceived by someone experiencing major acid flashbacks. Either that or the writer felt that Babe is what Arnold Ziffle on "Green Acres" could have been with more character development.

That's what we need out of Hollywood -- more films about patriotic and talented singing American pigs destroying evil space aliens, who, as is well-known, never vote Republican.

While Hollywood isn't responsible for all of the social ills which politicians, religious leaders and overpaid, poor-hitting shortstops accuse films of promoting, often Hollywood does dabble in the tasteless and the unnecessary.

Why, for example, must modern filmmakers interrupt an otherwise interesting and engaging story with a superfluous sex scene that adds nothing to the plot? Hollywood used to get by just fine without needing to flash hugely magnified thighs, bottoms and breasts across the silver screen.

Consider the Humphrey Bogart classic "Casablanca."

When Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) clandestinely visited the rooms of Richard Blaine (Bogart) and declared that she was still in love with him, there was no need to show them hopping into bed. Everybody knows that's what happened; it didn't need to be graphically depicted. And if it had been, it would have detracted from the power of the scene.

Still, if Hollywood ever makes a remake of "Casablanca" with, say, Mel Gibson as Rick, and Julia Roberts as Ilsa, rest assured they'll mess it all up with gratuitous sex and a bloody gun battle with Nazis in Rick's Cafe Americain.

Though not offended nor compelled to write my congressman and demand that, damn the First Amendment, something needs to be done about sex in films, I do find that most of the time it's unneeded.

There are exceptions, of course. "Basic Instinct," a film with a plot revolving around sexual intrigue and tension, would have been a dud in a PG version.

But most of the time strong innuendo serves the dramatic purpose much better than writhing, naked bodies.

Of course, many people just can't get enough of that sort of thing for their entertainment dollar.

Marc Powers is a member of the Southeast Missourian news staff.