Television, music and film in the 21st century: What comes to mind? Exploitative depictions of any number of unsavory and private acts pervade the creative works of most of today’s art forms. While many of us fail to see what harm accompanies the violence, lewd behavior and foul language that often appears throughout some of these forms of entertainment, we can definitively say that our American culture has suffered a devastating blow as a result of our tolerance of these artists, writers and directors. Our methodic desensitization to murder, sex and verbal obscenities has been calculated carefully over the years by those who, for lack of better creativity, reduced the art of music, film and television to their foolproof formula of envelope-pushing displays.
In no way do I pretend to be “Church Lady,” but I do expect the people who oversee the content of our radio waves and television programs to demand a higher level of cultural sophistication than say, allowing an actor to urinate on a depiction of Jesus, circa a week ago on an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Yes, some individuals consider this to be comical and even socially acceptable, yet I would hope that an appeal to our need to be considerate and sensitive to all citizens’ faiths would perhaps compel a director to eliminate such a scene from his program. Thus far, such attempts have been brutally rebuffed.
Forms of entertainment serve as reflections of the overall culture of our country whether people would like to accept it or not. What the global community sees when they wish to better understand the American way of life is a blatant disregard for the ideals of some groups while others are bestowed with the respect they rightfully deserve.
Other countries see that Americans have lost the way toward a better society and have instead stumbled upon a path that only reveals how shallow, offensive and irreverent our culture has become. How did we arrive at a juncture where the sincere gifts of very talented men and women have been forgotten and replaced by the fast buck, quick and slick manner with which we treat entertainment and thus our culture?
I refuse to entertain the notion that women and men today simply are incapable of producing the same talent of those individuals of yesteryear. I would, however, argue that Americans have decided to accept “less than adequate” in exchange for “plentiful and profitable.” Somewhere along the lines of churning out CDs, films and television programs as quickly as possible to produce as much money as possible, the directors and producers forgot to see if the performers actually had talent. If the natural ability of an entertainer did come under fire, they were offered an alternative option of forgoing all moral scruples in exchange for fame and fortune. Here is where we went wrong: In the process of lowering the aptitude bar, we also lowered the moral standard so low that it seems to not even exist any longer.
Sidney Poitier, Gregory Peck and Jimmy Stewart all refused to compromise their grace and poise for the pressures of Hollywood and the demands of those who saw the quick route to success because frankly, they did not have to. If our current vulgar way of life had always been the norm, would we even have such sensational works such as “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “To Sir with Love”? Reaching for the deeper roots of culture, these works strived to maintain a certain set of standards while provoking us to think about society on a more multifaceted level.
As we have seen throughout the history of our country, each generation consistently works to abolish the boundaries of the generation before it. I shudder to think what the newest group of morally repugnant Americans will produce in the future. I hope that we can perhaps turn the tides of rudimentary progress backwards and return to the trend of the groundbreaking works of yesteryear that addressed those issues that truly progressed the course of social history, and did not simply test our stomachs for the obscene and truly abhorrent.