Anything goes: moral bankruptcy of television and Hollywood

We have gone from stand-up comics Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce to the literate sophistication of Mike Nichols and Elaine May, through roundly mocked, "sugar-coated" Jackie Gleason and Lucille Ball to the brainless profanity of Dennis Miller and sexually laden and insulting racist, ethnic, and religious stereotypes. Humor on many shows has become a form of cultural and psychological violence, but no one looks at it that way because vulnerable young audiences respond, corporate sponsors chuckle and congratulate themselves, and everyone associated with the industry laughs all the way to the bank.

A half-mile wide and 27 miles long, Malibu, Calif., justifiably can claim that "nowhere in the world is there such a concentration of wealth and stardom," a belief few would refute. Those five beaches and six canyons hold the future of an art form with a generation of viewers and an important aspect of America's cultural integrity in them, but the occupants are in debt and refuse Co admit it. An entire generation of youngsters has been taken hostage and doesn't know it. There will be no ransom note, only commercials from corporations who apparently care more about market share than our children's future.

Accountability

No one has the courage to offer the "trust accounting" demanded by Newton Minow more than 35 years ago or to address his most recent concerns: "In 1961, I worried that my children would not benefit much from television, but in 1991, I worry that my grandchildren will actually be harmed by it.... In 1961, they didn't make PG-13 movies, much less NC-17. Now, a six-year-old can watch them on cable."

In his 1991 Gannett Foundation Media Center revisiting of the "vast wasteland" speech of 1961, Minow quoted journalist E.B. White's reaction in 1938 when he first saw the new technological then-oddity called television: "We shall stand or fall by television, of that I am sure. I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision, we shall discover there either a new and unbearable disturbance to the general peace, or a saving radiance in the sky."

Must television and motion pictures remain Minow's "reactive mirror of the lowest common denominator" of society? Must the men and women invested with such power pursue only their dollar-denominated death-spiral? Must they continue to degrade, deny, and eventually destroy White's "new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision"? Must there be "a new and unbearable disturbance to the general peace" because those responsible for it haven't the courage to see the source of the disturbance in their Malibu mirrors? Imagine trying to justify applying the phrase "saving radiance in the sky" to the morals of today's situation comedies.

There is plenty viewers can do to protest this trend. Just three of the 25 best-selling videos of all times have an "R" rating. Go buy the other 22 and show them repeatedly. Watch many of the classics made before the first "R" rating in 1968, because 60% of the films made after that were "R" or worse. Look for the Dove Foundation's blue-and-white label on videos the Grand Rapids, Mich., organization rates as "family friendly," or sponsor a low-cost, multi-film festival they can help you set up.