"Ally McBeal"
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Pop culture was, of course, overshadowed by the chief executive soap opera, "As the White House Turns," in 1998. Once upon a time, didn't we look to entertainment for respite from the rigors of the real world? But this year reality served up the steamiest morality play of the century, out-watercoolering "Ally McBeal" and "There's Something About Mary" and spiritual girl Madonna and her mehndi tattoos. It was the tale of an ambitious, Gap-ified intern who gets duped by a two-faced girlfriend and the married man she calls "butthead," and we watched, and watched, and watched. No detail of the incendiary melodrama was too tawdry, from Monica Lewinsky's "Melrose Place"-like manipulations to Bill Clinton's clumsy tries at "Oprah"-like humility. It's like 'Fatal Attraction,'" Sharon Stone offered. "Ken Starr is Glenn Close."
The story went on even longer than "Titanic," the 194-minute epic that left an indelible imprint on the decade, not only the year, winning 11 Oscars and more than a billion dollars worldwide in theaters. As ''Titanic'' turned 24-year-old club rat Leonardo DiCaprio into a box-office powerhouse, and made chest-thumping Celine Dion's ''My Heart Will Go On'' into an overplayed Billboard smash, it encouraged all of Hollywood's very worst habits: Spend gushers of money to make even more money, drench the screen in awesome special effects and they will come, and whatever you do, don't let the script get too smart.
Indeed, the American IQ was called into question more than ever this year. As the country buzzed about presidential semen and a cigar that wasn't just a cigar, the lowbrow sensibility that has turned ''South Park'' into a cult TV hit began to drive the box office. ''There's Something About Mary,'' from ''Dumb and Dumber'' brothers Bobby and Peter Farrelly, rose to No. 1 after eight weeks in release, grossing more than $175 million. Many critics shed their PC biases to praise the comedy, which featured It Girl Cameron Diaz using semen as hair gel. And while Howard Stern waged battle on ''Saturday Night Live'' on the small screen, ''SNL'' alum Adam Sandler and his class-clown humor celebrated two hit movies this year, with one, ''The Waterboy,'' grossing more than $130 million, the same impressive amount as Jackie Chan's ''Rush Hour'' and ''Lethal Weapon 4.'' The year also saw popular dumbed-down action movies like ''Armageddon'' and re-movies, including a butt-joke-filled remake of ''Dr. Dolittle'' and a sequel with the lazy title ''I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.'' Re-movies hit a low as director Gus Van Sant threw away his singular vision to paste together a shot-by-shot remake of Hitchcock's ''Psycho.''
"Beloved"
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Meanwhile, adult fare like Meryl Streep's ''One True Thing'' and Oprah Winfrey's heavily promoted ''Beloved'' had only one thing in common with ''Titanic'': They tanked. ''Bulworth,'' the sly political satire about an honest politician, earned actor-director Warren Beatty his best reviews in years, but failed to attract moviegoers despite its relevance. The adaptation of the bestseller ''Primary Colors'' also bombed, paling beside the juicier real-world presidential crisis. The only box-office successes with brains were ''The Truman Show,'' Jim Carrey's first foray outside his more adolescent oeuvre, and ''Saving Private Ryan,'' a conventional war-movie reimagined with constant and unromanticized violence.
Searching for signs
And yet, while it was a sixth-grader's world at the movies, the Nielsen ratings revealed a country channel-surfing in search of intelligent life on TV. Sure, there was a boom in crass reality series like ''Busted on the Job,'' the Linda Tripping of American TV whereby cameras preserve embarrassing moments for public consumption. And the networks unveiled a fall season that was unusually loaded with mediocre dramas like ''L.A. Doctors'' and what Bill Cosby dubbed ''sexuation comedies.'' And the Viagra jokes were hard to avoid. But viewers voted with their clicker finger, leading to the early cancellation of junk like ''The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer,'' a vulgarity-based sitcom for those who embraced ''There's Something About Mary,'' and ''Fantasy Island,'' a remake of the cheesy 1970s series. The more intelligently written shows - ''Seinfeld,'' ''Frasier,'' ''ER,'' ''NYPD Blue,'' ''The X-Files,'' ''Ally McBeal'' - were the ones that consistently rose to the top of the ratings, even if many of them were not in top form. ''Frasier,'' in particular, struggled with its identity this year as it took over the visible ''Seinfeld'' time slot on Thursday nights.
David E. Kelley continued to reign as the small-screen ''king of the world,'' as his two high-quality lawyer shows from 1997, ''Ally McBeal'' and ''The Practice,'' gained both critical acclaim and viewership in 1998. ''The Practice'' took home an Emmy for best drama, and ''Ally McBeal'' became the most debated show of the year, with some calling the micro-skirted lawyer a step back for women and some wondering if bone-thin star Calista Flockhart had an eating disorder. The ever-shrewd Kelley addressed both issues in comic bits on the show.
The year in television was also marked by a series of endings, not least of all an episode of ''60 Minutes'' featuring an onscreen assisted death by Dr. Kevorkian. The most watched finale was the last ''Seinfeld,'' an episode that was almost universally disliked as it made Jerry, Elaine, Kramer, and George pay for their sins of selfishness by throwing them in a jail cell. Jimmy Smits bid a touching farewell to ''NYPD Blue,'' ''The Larry Sanders Show'' left the air with grand wit, ''Murphy Brown'' made a schmaltzy exit, and Norm Macdonald walked away from ''Saturday Night Live'' with hurt feelings. ''Ellen,'' the first lesbian sitcom, lost its great momentum from 1997, devolving into a humorless and forced half-hour. Instead of bowing out gracefully, a vocal Ellen DeGeneres blamed the cancellation of her show on homophobia, making it that much harder for producers with their own gay sitcoms in mind. But then the witty ''Will & Grace'' sneaked quietly onto the fall schedule with two gay characters center stage.
The year also marked the end of network TV as a monopoly, with cable ratings rising significantly enough to win the Nielsens one summer week. With some desperation, the networks began shuffling their top personnel and clinging to hits like ''ER,'' for which NBC agreed to pay a record $13 million per episode.
What we didn't see an end to on TV: slick ad campaigns. One starred a little Chihuahua named Gidget who only wanted a bit of Taco Bell, and another starred a little insect on wheels whose flower power managed to grab Baby Boomers by the throat (and wallet).
Searching their souls
If Ally McBeal and her dancing baby were sending negative signals to women, the music industry wasn't tuning in. It was a spectacular year for female recording artists, some mostly financially (Shania Twain, Celine Dion) and others creatively. Grunge rock, once so hot, retreated back to its more appropriate home on the fringe, as the Lollapalooza tour took the year off and releases by bands like Pearl Jam had modest sales. Courtney Love and Hole released ''Celebrity Skin,'' their first new album since Kurt Cobain's death, but with ''miles and miles of perfect skin'' covering her grief, and a new taste for '70s California rock, Love was making an almost anti-punk/grunge statement.
Madonna at 40
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Madonna, who turned 40 in August (and who is still cultivating some kind of continental accent), released upon the world the electronica-inflected ''Ray of Light'' and a new look: This time, she was the blond spiritual girl, selling her soul with talk of yoga and Hinduism. Jewel and Alanis Morissette also rode spiritual enlightenment up the charts, with Jewel casting additional lines to eternity with a book of poetry called ''A Night Without Armor.''
The album topping the critics' lists this year was ''The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,'' a powerful solo album by the former Fugee that perfectly blends rap, reggae, and soul music together with Hill's messages of self-respect and love. Liz Phair managed to equal her classic debut album with '' whitechocolatespaceegg,'' and country-folk-rocker Lucinda Williams finally broke into the mainstream with ''Car Wheels on a Gravel Road,'' a collection of moving songs about restlessness and yearning. And the uncompromising Joni Mitchell greeted her recent popularity and Grammy win with ''Taming the Tiger,'' tearing down the music industry while she embraced the courage of love.
Meanwhile, the fickle club of American celebrity gathered its new members from movies, TV, and music, like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, the ''Good Will Hunting'' Oscar winners also known as simply MattandBen. The pair won more shiny, happy magazine covers this year than even Brad Pitt, the one-time box-office dynamo whose ''Meet Joe Black'' met box-office death this fall (Leo beware). MattandBen were the poster kids of the year, next to Monica Lewinsky, Ken Starr, and Linda Tripp, who, quivering, delivered this perverse observation to the public: ''I am you.'' Indeed, American celebrity may have become more ''Twilight Zone'' than ever in 1998, as a particularly disturbing image made its way to our shores in late April: double-murder suspect O. J. Simpson pretending to stab BBC interviewer Ruby Wax with a banana.
