The viewers would be subjected to the "subliminal advertisement of the Navy seeing Cher aboard a battleship with sailors." The video "was an opportunity for us to get national exposure and reach the lucrative recruitable youth audience that watch MTV," one Navy official told us. The Navy was at first thrilled with the publicity value of a Cher video. That was the thinking when Cher applied to use the Missouri, but now the Navy brass wonders if the recruiting benefit outweighs the criticism from veterans' groups. The Pentagon justifies it by saying that the films are good recruiting tools. If the producers are charged a fee, it rarely covers the costs. The conversion of bases, ships and planes to movie sets amounts to nothing more than taxpayer-subsidized giveaways. If they are approved, the producers must generally agree to accept suggestions from military critics. The military services get plenty of requests from Hollywood asking for their equipment, bases and people. Now a few Navy officials are wishing they could turn back time. The video, "If I Could Turn Back Time," was so risque that MTV - that arbiter of bad taste - doesn't show it until after 9 p.m. Should the Navy have allowed Cher to film a video in which she pranced around the deck of the Missouri wearing a fishnet G-string? This proud World War II vessel that hosted the 1945 surrender of Japan in Tokyo Bay has become the center of a battle over taste. If battleships could blush, the USS Missouri would be bright red.
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