Ed Vitagliano
AFA Journal news editor
Last in a series of articles on prime-time network TV. (Part 1 and Part 2)
June 1998– Television has become the flashpoint in America’s culture wars, between the evaporating remnants of those advocating a more restrained moral code and the hedonistic barbarians who are now well within the gates.
In the last of this series, AFA Journal focuses on the desperate attempts to rein in a reprobate Hollywood running rampant with the power to shape the culture in its own image.
A whole different world
The culture of any nation is shaped by the ideas it embraces, ideas which often compete with each other for acceptance in the marketplace. And the sights and sounds of television have become a major force in this competition, dominating the American cultural debate by the sheer breadth of its exposure.
Yet the worldview portrayed by the images on the TV screen is no accident. They are reflective of the attitudes and beliefs of the people that make television happen. These dramas,sitcoms and made-for-TV movies, full of sex, violence and profanity, give ample demonstration of the principle stated by Jesus Christ, when He said that evil thoughts proceed “from within, out of the heart of men” (Mark 7:21).
In his book, The View from Sunset Boulevard, Ben Stein detailed the results of his interviews with Hollywood writers and producers. He concluded that “…the attitudes of the people who create television coincide almost exactly with the picture on television.”
Most Americans see those attitudes as being different from their own. According to a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, 75% of respondents believe that Hollywood is out of touch with their lives. Simply put, the so-called media elite believe differently about life, morality and even the purpose of television than does the public at large.
That intuitive assessment was born out in striking fashion in 1986, when sociologists at George Washington University and Smith College conducted a study of the backgrounds and attitudes of some of the most powerful figures in Hollywood. Published originally in Public Opinion Magazine, the study by Linda S. Lichter, S. Robert Lichter, and Stanley Rothman interviewed a large cross-section of the most influential television writers, producers, and executives, all of whom had been associated with the development, production or selection of two or more prime-time series.
When the dust had settled, viewer suspicion was vindicated: those in Hollywood were different. They were generally from a wealthier background, were less religious and far more liberal than most people in the U.S. More revealingly, the moral views of this elite cadre were radical as well: 97% believed that a woman has a right to abort her child; 80% disagreed with the statement that “homosexuality is wrong;” 86% believed that homosexuals should be allowed to teach in schools; and 51% refused to condemn adultery as being wrong.
The origin of these extreme moral views is not difficult to ascertain, since the Lichter-Rothman study revealed a dearth of religious influence. Ninety three percent of the Hollywood elite said they seldom or never attended religious services. When asked to determine what groups they preferred to see influencing American society, this group ranked religion second from the bottom, with only the military below it.
Crushed by Hollywood imperialism
Although media mogul Ted Turner has said many controversial things over the years, perhaps none was so arrogant or revealing as the statement made to broadcasters at the National Press Club in 1994. “Your delegates to the United Nations are not as important as the people in this room,” Turner said. “We are the ones that determine what the people’s attitudes are. It’s in our hands.”
Like a despotic aristocracy, the media elite use their immense cultural power, not as a personal plaything, but as an instrument of philosophical subjugation. Viewers are not simply being entertained, they are being evangelized.
“According to television’s creators, they are not just in it for the money. They also seek to move their audience toward their own vision of the good society,” the Lichter-Rothman study said. Turner’s comments were merely echoing what the survey found to be true, that 66% of the Hollywood power structure said they either “agree” or “strongly agree” with the statement, “TV should promote social reform.”
George Gerbner, a professor at Temple University who has been studying the impact of media on children for 30 years, calls the media elite an “invisible, unelected, unaccountable, private Ministry of Culture making decisions that shape public policy behind closed doors.”
Remembering some of the radical moral underpinnings of Hollywood’s vision of America, that’s a frightening thought, indeed.
Stopping the juggernaut
If Hollywood insists on using its immense cultural power to promote values that deviate from the mainstream, what can be done to stop, or at least slow down this juggernaut?
In an L.A. Times poll last fall, most respondents – almost 60%of adults – said they felt the television industry should be the one to impose stricter standards on itself. Kay Koplovitz, chairman of the USA Networks, admitted, “People would rather see the industry do it. I think what people are asking for is self- restraint from the industry.”
Otherwise, though parents are certainly frustrated by TV fare, they feel powerless as instruments of change. Linda Ellerbee, a former network reporter and now an advocate for safer programming for children, sees this feeling of powerlessness in parents when faced with escalating onscreen violence.
“The sad truth is that many parents feel helpless and don’t act because they see the problem [of TV violence] as overwhelming,” she said. “But the stakes are very high, and parents should act.”
Most recommended courses of action, however, center on parents learning to effectively use the ratings system, ratings guides to individual programs, and the V-chip.
But such suggestions essentially let Hollywood off the hook. “To shift the responsibility to the parents is wrong,” said Gerbner. “It’s like saying that if the air is polluted, let the parents get gas masks for their children.”
Besides, says AFA President Donald E. Wildmon, that’s a heavy burden to place on parents who already feel helpless. “Parents are tired when they get home from work, and patrolling the media wasteland is yet another job to do when they walk in the door,” he said. “Why won’t Hollywood give parents a break and just not produce the junk to begin with?”
As far as the role government is to play in sorting out the onscreen mess, America seems evenly divided. In the Times poll, 26% of respondents wanted the government “more involved,” while 34% said they wanted Washington “less involved.” Another 33% favored the current level of government action.
Bringing in the big gun
If parents are calling upon Hollywood to end the excessive trash on TV, the demand has fallen on deaf ears.
That may leave one option for parents who want further reforms: pressuring advertisers to stop spending their money on shows that are offensive.
Dick Wolf, executive producer of NBC’s Law & Order, spent a decade producing commercials for Proctor & Gamble (P&G). He said companies are always extremely concerned about what customers think.
“I can guarantee you that all P&G needs [from viewers] is an organized letter-writing campaign to the chairman of P&G saying, ‘I’m not going to buy your products until you get out of...all V-rated [for violent content] shows,’” Wolf said.
When viewers send such letters, the result is that the company puts pressure on the networks. “What if Proctor & Gamble says it won’t advertise on any show that has a TV-D rating [for suggestive dialogue]? Then the network says, ‘We’d better not make any shows that have TV-D, because we won’t have our major advertisers.’ And they may pull their advertising off other shows,” he said (emphasis his).
Conclusion
Although Wolf doesn’t like the idea of companies demanding restraint from the networks, that may be the only option left to parents.
Hollywood’s obstinate refusal to change its ways may simply be the result of its cock-sure confidence that it really does know what’s best for America. Or maybe in their own world of cultural isolation, the media elite simply can’t hear the distant din of the complaints.
Perhaps, though, the darkness in much of what is produced in Hollywood is a result of something more fundamental to the condition of the unregenerate human heart. The heart is the source of human imagination.Thus, a heart that is unrestrained by God’s Holy Spirit, that is “set on fire by hell”(James 3:6), will give birth to that which is wicked. And the nature of unbridled evil is to become darker and more depraved.
This explanation is far more ominous for the nation’s future. America’s cultural destiny may depend on whether she is content to be entertained by Hollywood’s corrupt imaginations. And imaginations that spring from hell might just lead people into it. 
