THE BAD, THE GOOD, AND THE UGLY
Brian Fitzpatrick
OneNewsNow
10/9/2008 10:10:00 AM
MS
The media-cultural scene is exploding right now, with so many
significant developments we can’t write about just one. Instead,
we’re touching on three stories, ranging from very good to very bad
to just plain awful, because of the insights they offer about the
media’s role in shaping our culture.
Let’s begin with the bad. Hollywood has been openly promoting
homosexuality at least since 1997, when Ellen DeGeneres publicly
declared her "orientation," and the entertainment networks jumped on
the bandwagon by inserting homosexual characters into their shows. This
year, the Tinseltown campaign to persuade Americans that homosexuality
is healthy and normal has reached unprecedented heights, or depths,
depending on how you look at it.
As CMI’s Colleen Raezler reports in her new Eye on Culture study,
"Lavender Propaganda" [PDF], the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against
Defamation (GLAAD) is crowing that "the 2008-2009 television season
contains a record number of homosexual, bisexual or transgendered
characters," more than double the number from last year. We’re up to
35 characters spread across 21 series. 14 of these series are aired
between 8 and 10 p.m., which includes the "family hour."
GLAAD isn’t crowing alone – they’re backed by a sizable media
chorus. Raezler cites "news" reports from CBS, Reuters, People
magazine, ABC, the New York Times and CNN singing Hollywood’s praises
for advancing "equality" or "inclusiveness" or whatever. The word
they ought to be using is "desensitization." One of the principal gay
activist political strategies is to flood the nation with sympathetic
portrayals of homosexuality, and to suppress any depictions of people
overcoming this particular temptation. The media are marching in
lockstep with this approach.
These "news" reports fail to explore what the public really needs to
know: Would accepting homosexuality be good or bad for individuals,
families and society as a whole?
On to the good. In movie theaters, Americans clearly voted with their
wallets for good values over questionable ones.
This weekend’s box office top 10 contains three movies devoted to
promoting certain cultural ideas. Of the three, the public preferred
the two commendable flicks – Fireproof and An American Carol, which
together grossed $7,879,000.
Despite heavy hyping by the news media, as documented by CMI’s
Kristen Fyfe, Bill Maher’s Religulous laid an egg. Maher’s assault
on religious faith barely made the Top 10 list, squeaking into the
No. 10 slot with a take of $3,500,000. More Americans watched the
ninth-ranked An American Carol, a star-studded parody of Michael Moore
that celebrates patriotism. Even more chose to see eighth-ranked
Fireproof, the latest low-budget, faith-affirming success produced
by a Baptist church from Georgia.
How frustrating it must be for movie moguls to watch the public turn up
its nose at the progressive Religulous, preferring a conservative film
produced for a measly half a million bucks by a flock of volunteer
fundamentalists! Especially when Fireproof received almost no free
media and had to make do with a marketing budget smaller than a
Hollywood blockbuster’s catering bill.
Finally, the ugly. Our nation’s civic virtues appear to be in serious
decline, and Big Media is promoting the decay.
American politics for decades have been a battle over values: the
traditional values of self-reliance, moral self-control and God-given
equality that animated our Founding Fathers, against a collectivist,
morally self-indulgent, leader-seeking ideology imported from foreign
shores.
We used to teach our children that government was a useful servant
but a fearful master, as George Washington warned us. We relied
on ourselves, our families and our churches, not on a government
controlled by a charismatic leader. In consequence, cults of
personality were alien to us. Now we see a cult of personality in
full flower, with the media casting aside any objectivity in their
adulation of Barack Obama.
Even more scary, on Monday the Drudge Report showed the world a video
of Kansas City junior high school students chillingly called the
"Obama Youth." We watch boys clad uniformly in camouflage pants and
dark T-shirts declare, fists clenched, that "because of Obama" they
can become chemical engineers, scientists or mechanics. The teacher
who furnished the video to the local Fox TV station has now been
suspended – not for using public funds to teach the kids to worship
Obama, but for allowing the video to be seen in public.
Another YouTube video, "Sing for Change for Obama," shows a choir of
California grade schoolers, directed by adults, singing about the hope
instilled in them by Obama. A YouTube send up of the video has renamed
it "Sing for Change for Obama, Dear Leader," pointing up the parallel
to the object of the world’s most oppressive cult of personality,
dictator Kim Jong Il of North Korea.
Now, to tie these three stories together. In college I worked for
an aged Armenian lady who was a child when the Red Army conquered
her native land. She told me that the Communists didn’t bother with
the adults as long as they didn’t resist Soviet rule. The commissars
focused instead on indoctrinating the schoolchildren, because they
represented the future.
I also studied in Germany, and lived with a German family whose mother
and father had both been members of the Hitler Youth. The mother told
me about the immense social pressure exerted on her by teachers and
peers to commit herself to Adolph Hitler.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not comparing Obama to Hitler. I am merely
suggesting that some propaganda techniques in use today are cause for
great concern. While many adults are resisting Hollywood’s efforts to
impose radical values, as suggested by their preference for movies
that promote patriotism and religion, some schoolchildren are being
taught to worship the leader. The media’s shameful, one-sided coverage
of Barack Obama is not far removed from the worshipful videos of
star-struck kids.
Defenders of traditional values need to understand that the battle
for the country will be won not by the side that prevails in today’s
political squabbles, but by the side that captures the imagination
of the generation to come.
Brian Fitzpatrick, a frequent contributor to OneNewsNow, is senior
editor for the Culture and Media Institute. This article is printed
with permission.
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