This past Sunday, the new Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, answered Hillary Clinton's criticism of his "more orphanages" solution to single-parent families. Ebenezer Newt's Yuletide solution ("Are there no workhouses?") was called absurd by the First Lady. Mr. Gingrich suggested that she go to Blockbuster Video and rent the film, "Boys Town". Aside from the paid commercial announcement, this is a curious solution to 1994's social problems. "Boys Town" was a hit film produced in 1938 by M-G-M. Supervising the sentimental tale of a dedicated priest finding solutions for youths at risk, was the radical right-wing Republican Louis B. Mayer, the highest paid executive in the United States at the time and owner of a formidable stable of thoroughbred horses. His daughters were married to other studio executives. The co-author of the original screenplay (for which he won an Oscar) was the studio's token New Dealer, Dore Schary. The film was among Mayer's favorites as it promoted his fantasy vision of his adopted country as a place where everyone looked alike and no child was too far gone to be won over by a good-hearted Irish priest who practiced "tough love". Of course, the story was no more accurate in 1938 than it is today. It was part of the mythical U.S.A. imagined by the immigrant geniuses who created the studios as a kind of wish fulfillment not so different from the new breed of G.O.P. "revolutionaries" we have in control of our legislature beginning in January. Of course, the likes of Mickey Rooney (whose chief problems in the film were smoking and playing pool) and Spencer Tracy, who were so susceptible to a tear in the eye in 1938, would be beaten, robbed, gang-raped and burned on a pyre by the grade of criminal we are faced with today. But nostalgic fantasy is so much more acceptable to the electorate than reality. Ask any graduate of a 1938 reformatory what relation it had to "Boys Town". In fact, today a school for young boys run by clerics is much more suspect than it was in 1938, when incest and child molestation was no more part of the fantasy than were single-parent families subsisting in sub-human conditions. The antipathy of the Right towards non-standard "families" in favor of the traditional religious-based nuclear family produces, in fact, the greater part of child abuse that we know today. While there is nothing about religion or tradition that encourage abuse, it is undeniable that it is far more common in such contexts than anyone dreamed of (or were willing to speak of) in 1938. But all this brings up an interesting concept. It is certainly cheaper to rent a video than to address a problem. So, in the interests of the Reaganomics-mortgaged economy, let us make a modest proposal that all of our current social problems could be solved by a similar Republican initiative. Perhaps Senators Thurmond, Helms and Gramm could address the race question by renting "The Birth of a Nation" or "Gone With the Wind". Newt could solve the drug problem by urging everyone to rent "Reefer Madness". Urban blight and ethical considerations could be solved by a mass viewing of "It's a Wonderful Life". Senator D'Amato could stem governmental corruption by having C-SPAN run "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington". However, my personal suggestion is right-wing Republican Cecil B. DeMille's remarkably appropriate "This Day and Age" of 1933. In that pre-Miranda, pre-defendants' rights epic, DeMille suggested that the Bill of Rights and the Rules of Evidence be eliminated. The climax of the film had teen-agers suspending some suspected criminals over a pit of hungry rats until they confessed to their crimes. This timely epic could be sponsored by Justices Scalia and Thomas in the hope that its moral might spread throughout the land. In this way, the calumny that Hollywood promoted an unrealistic view of society and its problems could be proved untrue. Or, perhaps, we could see the new Washington as it truly is: The Dream Factory. Gene Stavis, School of Visual Arts - NYC