Held Hostage to Bad Taste

Marion “Suge” Knight, no dope he, knows that the more offensive he is, the more CDs he’ll sell. So the ex-con who fancies himself the baddest rap music impresario of all is probably delighted by the reaction to the billboard he put up last week over the offices of his Tha Row Records (formerly Death Row Records) at a Wilshire Boulevard intersection. For every adult infuriated by the sign’s offensive picture and language, Knight must figure he’ll amuse and titillate at least that many kids and young adults--his customers.

But for Knight’s neighbors, and their young children, the billboard is just one more assault on the quality of life in Los Angeles and one more illustration of the impotence or unwillingness of local leaders to address the issues that drive people nuts.

The lighted billboard, at Wilshire and San Vicente boulevards, is a cartoonish drawing of a black man sitting on a toilet with his pants down around his ankles. Beneath the toilet is a phrase containing an obscenity.

The neighbors are furious. They can choose not to buy Tha Row’s albums to avoid hearing the endless stream of obscenities on them, but they can’t avoid seeing this billboard every time they leave home. They want the city, meaning their councilman, Jack Weiss, to do something. We have to wonder why he doesn’t seem to be getting any help from African American politicians, who surely would attack this offensive depiction were it posted by Disney or any other large corporation.

We’d like to blame the billboard companies for this visual garbage. After all, Eller Media’s name is on the steel frame that Knight’s sign hangs on. Eller is one of a handful of outdoor advertisers whose huge billboards junk up Los Angeles with ads for hamburgers, movies and strip clubs. But Eller claims Tha Row simply commandeered Eller’s billboard over the record company’s offices, erected its own advertisement and barred Eller staff from the premises. Moreover, Eller claims that it and the other sign companies have adopted standards--don’t laugh now--governing the content of the ads they will accept. Tha Row’s ad, Eller says, wouldn’t meet its standards.

Knight probably will pull down his billboard when it loses its shock value. Weiss and his council colleagues are still waiting for a billboard ordinance passed in February to take effect, still negotiating with the billboard industry over the ordinance’s scope and cost. This sorry episode should finally prod them to take control over the city’s ugly forest of billboards.

In the meantime, Weiss has asked the city attorney what action the city can legally take. Finding an answer will be tough, given laws protecting, in this case, a very loose definition of artistic expression. But City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and L.A. County District Atty. Steve Cooley should try to figure out whether state obscenity and local zoning ordinances can’t work to remove this affront.