So much of today’s entertainment is steeped in vulgarity and amoral violence. So much so it has dulled our senses. Movies that stunned a nation like ‘The Exorcist’ or ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ are now considered tame. Reality shows fill the screen modeling the worst of human behavior, and I fear, giving rise to a ‘new normal. What has happened to our society? It appears we are deteriorating to the basest elements of society. Why?
I lay much of the reason at the feet of a liberally progressive ‘all is relative’ Hollywood. Accidental or not, Hollywood creates impressionable images. What is depicted on screen is often taken as reality becoming a type of ‘social mirror’ far too many are influenced by. It seems real enough, but is it actually?
As we look deeper into this ‘mirror’ it becomes more like one from a carnival as it distorts rather than accurately reflect. Far too much of what comes out of Hollywood leaves little to the imagination. The Alfred Hitchcock Mysteries and morality plays of the 1960’s have been replaced. Homosexuality is promoted as normal. Adulthood seems pushed far too quickly on our children with few family programs on tv. Where such classic tv shows as the Beverly Hillbillies, Gilligan’s Island, Daniel Boone, Combat, The Carol Burnett Show or Happy Days have apparently seen their hayday, I believe there exists a strong desire for this type of programming and a lessening of the seemingly cloned detective dramas like CSI Miami, New York etc and , Criminal Minds among others. Where is the creativity? Where is the fantasy, the ‘get away from it all’ entertainment that uses our imagination? We even have cloned singing show – the Voice, the X-Factor, American Idol, etc. What has happened to American entertainment? Where have the brilliant ideas gone?
Our children need to be children, free in many ways, if not all, from the ugliness of the world especially in their formative youth for it is then that they shape their view of the world. No, we cannot and should not hide everything from them, but what good does it do to continually expose them to the cynicism of angry adults, depressed hopelessness when it is still, for many, a very beautiful world? Our parents and their parents knew creativity in their lives. They sung songs, told legends, looked up to heroes, knew good and evil. What good is there portrayed today? What is so good about the dysfunctions of the Kardashians or Miami, New York or Beverly Hills housewives? What good does it do for anyone to see ugly family brawls and hate and cursing and general chaos? Is this how we want our children to be raised? Maybe some do, I do not.
I believe children need to build their confidence. They need to believe in the good of the world, to have a secure foundation as a conditional precept in the society in which they live. They need to experience their innocence, not be robbed of it. They need to see the world with wonder and joy, not through perpetually dark colored glasses. Instead we bombard them with garbage like dysfunctional reality shows or shows that make sex the prime goal in everyone’s life, faith a thing to be dismissed, God a concept for fools and we wonder why there are so many divorces. Is there a clue here somewhere?
For years now, Hollywood has been filled with relativity. Religion is mocked and violence and sex worshipped. The good guys are weak and the bad guys heroes. There are not many examples of strong men. No Bonanza’s, no Gunsmokes, not much at all. Yes, the sixties came and went and with it much of the American ideal, at least in much of our entertainment. We have had our theatrical gems though, all is not bad. Schinder’s List, The Titanic and other movies still show up, but there is a streak of liberal bias deeply imbedded in the psychology of Hollywood and deeply expressed in their products. Creativity, to many, is only a liberal quality. Conservative values and traditional mores are quaint and outdated, yet I submit they are not and on the rise in need and desire in a quiet general public and have been for a very long time. Our nation needs a return to what has always been good. Liberal apologists say they are only giving the public what it wants, but I disagree. This is a cowardly way of running from personal responsibility. It is quite sickening.
As a parent and as a former teacher I know the innocence of children. I know, too, like many who read this that it is how children are shaped that either robs them of their innocence or allows their lives to develop toward a wholesome maturity. In fact, I believe this is also an adult need as well. So many of us suffer from the same fate. Our children, though, are thrown into a deeper cauldron of hopelessness, of despair and dysfunction and that this is all they see and know even when looking outside their immediate circumstances. This only reinforces the hopelessness and despair. The lack of morality and the existence of right or wrong in our public entertainment is wrong and can be changed. Because it is not, Adults and children often wander aimlessly embracing a pervading negativity that breeds only more, often stooping to a sense of needless victim hood instead of a healthy, independent individuality. This needs to stop and it needs to stop now.
Our future, this nation’s future, depends on the positive and life affirming maturity of our children and a society built on the good, not an obsession with the darkest parts of our nature. Yes, they exist, but so does the positive and it a choice not a fate. While families are a key to the upbringing of children and must do their part, the men and women of the entertainment industry need to ‘man and woman up’ and do a much better job.
