Anything goes: moral bankruptcy of television and Hollywood

More often than not, situation comedies celebrate dysfunctionality by rejecting the very things that make civilized life possible: discipline, self-control, hard work, delayed gratification, faith, and a commitment to genuine families. Yet, one network executive recently claimed: "Little by little, everybody has gotten a little less afraid of die old taboos. ... It seems we're able to go a lot further than we have, even considering the conservative swing the country has taken." These executives have ravaged the roots of cultural traditions, professing not dismay, but dollar-driven self-satisfaction at the moral mud-slides that inevitably follow such deliberate destruction of America's religious roots.

The writers and producers responsible for such destruction could give their audiences much more, but they choose not to. They have opted for the dollar-laden low road, competing to see who can get away with the most first, afraid not to follow the pack for fear of being characterized as out of step with Hollywood leadership. Instead of intelligence, integrity, and inspiration, viewers get what one producer ordered: "We were told to lose the contrived plot stuff ... and [add] ... more big hair and breasts." What drives some of the most talented people in the world to such demi-moronic nihilism? These very same people have shown, time and again, they can produce laughter combined with sophistication and optimism, but they will not. Instead, we get the boobonic plague.

There are exceptions, but their ranks are thinning. Actor Michael J. Fox won't let his own children watch his new show, "Spin City." Everyone in the industry could learn a lesson from director Spike Lee: "Sometimes art should be about elevation, not just wallowing in the same old [crap].... Life is valued cheaply. I definitely wanted to offer another view."

Given time, however, those writers and executives who lower the level of intelligence and discourse with brainless sex, profanity, nudity, and vulgarity have anesthetized, and eventually will annihilate, the ability of an audience to react positively to anything higher or ennobling. "I don't think audiences know how to be audiences anymore," producer Norman Lear told Nancy Hass of The New York Times. "They just want to hoot and make sounds." Lear still doesn't get it, because he insists that television's sexual saturation is not a moral issue: "The biggest problem with how much sex there is on TV isn't whether it's offensive.... It's that most [of it] just isn't funny. It's stupid and boring." Hass agrees that "many people within the industry -- and no doubt many viewers" think that the real issue is variety, not morality. No wonder she entitled her article, "Cheap, Easy, and Moronic."

Prominent industry leaders know they are destroying the medium for those who will follow, but they simply refuse to acknowledge that reality. When they talk about "pushing the envelope," they really mean filling it. The money's too good and the audience too easy to exploit, so executives, writers, and producers follow the very same predatory practices that they, in their scripts and lives, usually attribute to business executives and religious figures. Favorite targets include corporate officials, Roman Catholic priests and nuns, and evangelical leaders.