Is Hollywood largely to blame for the nation's social problems?
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One of the greatest threats to American family values is the way our popular culture ridicules them. Our music, movies, television and advertising regularly push the limits of decency, bombarding our children with destructive messages of casual violence and even more casual sex. . . . [W]e must hold Hollywood and the entire entertainment industry accountable for putting profit ahead of common decency. . . . There is often heard in Hollywood a kind of “aw shucks” response to attempts to link societal effects with causes in the culture. It's the “we just make movies people want” response. . . . But when they go to work tomorrow, when they sift through competing proposals for their time and their money, when they consider how badly they need the next job, I want the leaders of the entertainment industry to think about the influence they have on America's children. . . . My voice and the rising voices of millions of other Americans who share this view represent more than the codgy old attempt of one generation to steal the fun of another. A line has been crossed - not just of taste, but of human dignity and decency. It is crossed every time sexual violence is given a catchy tune. When teen suicide is set to an appealing beat. When Hollywood's dream factories turn out nightmares of depravity. . . . I am not saying that our growing social problems are entirely Hollywood's fault. They are not. People are responsible for their actions. Movies and music do not make children into murderers. But a numbing exposure to graphic violence and immorality does steal away innocence, smothering our instinct for outrage. And I think we have reached the point where our popular culture threatens to undermine our character as a nation. . . . The corporate executives who dismiss my criticism should not misunderstand. Mine is not the objection of some tiny group of zealots or an ideological fringe. From inner city mothers to suburban mothers to families in rural America - parents are afraid, and growing angry. There once was a time when parents felt the community of adults was on their side. Now they feel surrounded by forces assaulting their children and their code of values. . . . My challenge to the entertainment industry is to accept a calling above and beyond the bottom line - to fulfill a duty to the society which provides its profits. Help our nation maintain the innocence of its children. Prove to us that courage and conscience are alive and well in Hollywood. |
Hollywood is so much easier to [go after] than gun control enforcement, destruction of certain types of families by cycles of poverty and welfare dependency or, perhaps most importantly, parental responsibility and adult maturity. . . . This is not to suggest that Hollywood's product is not inextricably bound up with the social problems eating away at our nation but simply to point out that evidence indicates it is not a causal factor. Politicians, always in need of a target of opportunity, have found a useful one in popular entertainment. . . . Canadians are subjected to virtually the identical popular entertainment as Americans. . . . And yet, Canada appears virtually free of the enervating social pathologies that erode American society. . . . How do the critics of Hollywood explain this? . . . If our popular culture is the cancer-causing virus, why is the annual homicide rate for all of Canada roughly the same as a tough long weekend in Los Angeles? On the other hand, it would be disingenuous to claim that popular entertainment is not a force and that there is no difference between “Andy Hardy” and “Natural Born Killers.” . . . A reasonable person would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to agree that Hollywood is at least part of the problem; so, the specific questions are: (a) is it the whole problem? and (b) can it be the solution?. . . Like most people who make their living in Hollywood, I am deeply troubled by much of our product. I cringe at some of the films and television - and, especially, “music” such as Gangsta rap . . . . I urgently hope that the current outcry will shake up the complacency that infects so much of the Hollywood community, that we will, along with the rest of America, embark on an earnest attempt to restore a sense of pride, commonality, responsibility, and even shame, to our lives and work. But it can only happen “along with the rest of America.” There is no single monster that a single stake through the heart can cure. The restoration of the glory of the American dream is a national project, not the responsibility of a single (and largely frivolous) industry. . . . Like many in Hollywood, I am willing to accept some of the blame for the wreckage I see around me - but I long for the politicians and the journalists and the victimhood specialists to acknowledge their share of responsibility. |
