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| Resources |
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Movies and the Culture
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20059 |
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EDITORIAL
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| Issue
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12 / 1992 |
594 Words |
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Morton A. Kaplan
Editor and Publisher |
The book excerpt this month is from Michael Medved's Hollywood vs. America. Medved is upset with the moral values that are made manifest in Hollywood productions. There is disagreement as to how much effect such productions have on the popular culture. My own attitude is colored by my experiences in the Soviet Union.
I walked the streets of Moscow in the 1960s and '70s. Often I would enter into conversations with ordinary Russians who spoke English. If the conversation turned to Soviet press or television, they would invariably tell me they believed nothing they saw or read. The government always lied to them. Yet, when we discussed their substantive beliefs, it turned out they almost invariably bought the government line on issues. The reason, I believe, is simple: They had no other information on which to fall back.
We would like to believe that Americans have access to alternative sources of information, both factual and cultural. This is the case to some extent. But I'm afraid that that extent is minor, particularly when it comes to cultural and moral issues. When the media are flooded with corrupt, vicious, and dissolute behavior, when antiheroes are the rule, it is bound to create the impression that this is how the world is.
While in Washington, I watched twenty minutes of the Sally Jessy Raphael show. A daughter was on with her mother. The daughter was protesting that her mother was a bar hopper who was always bedding a different man. While growing up, she often saw her mother coming home drunk with different men.
A woman in the audience lectured her. "If you believe you turned out right, your mother must have done something right." The mother had a right to enjoy herself according to her own life-style. The daughter tried to explain that she had seen good family shows on TV and observed neighbors who were not like that. But she could not convince her critic. And most of the audience thought there was a case to be made for the mother. Indeed, the TV talk show hosts encourage this by presenting their freak shows as examples of defensible behavior.
However, the daughter was correct. Unfortunately, although she had good role models, many today do not. TV and the movies have changed since she was a child. And though there are still good neighbors, there are fewer of them. Twenty years ago a police riot (over the issue of a fully civilian review board) of the sort that occurred in New York recently could not have occurred in
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