Posted on 01/13/2013 9:55:33 AM PST by WXRGina
As we are once again being inundated with that annual, bigger-than-life buzz about film awards, let’s try putting movies in some perspective.
Movies aren't real. They’re a form of entertainment. However, as such, they reflect the values of those who make them and influence the audiences who watch them. Popular values impact the content of everything we see in the media. There is little reality in “reality” shows. News networks are owned by the entertainment industry. And even so-called documentaries are less fact-filled than politically correct.
Basically, film projects and broadcast programming are determined by two factors: what do the producers want to show and what will the most people pay to see or hear? Specific eras can be defined by public acceptance and popular support for what artists of their time try to express. As the values of societies change, their art changes. What is entertaining to one generation may be boring or even outrageous to another.
Changes in values from one generation to the next used to be gradual. Now, differences seem to multiply exponentially. You may be familiar with a series of TV commercials in which one child tells younger children how good kids have it today. In one of those commercials, the older child was about 8 and the younger ones about 5. Granted, this is intended to be funny, but it illustrates how fast technology is changing the world and how it tends to segment one generation from another.
The other day I watched Life Begins For Andy Hardy. It was made in 1941 and starred Mickey Rooney. Between 1937 and 1958 sixteen movies were made about Andy Hardy and his family — an idealized, typical American family with typical, American ideals. This movie was the eleventh in the series. By the time it was made, the character of Andy Hardy was well-known to movie goers and in 1939 Mickey Rooney had been named the number one box-office draw in the nation. The values portrayed in this movie sold because they reflected the popular values of the time.
The plot of the movie centers around 18 year-old Andy, who has just graduated from high school. His parents want him to go to college and become a lawyer, as his father, Judge Hardy had before him. Of course Andy wants to get a job and experience life on his own. He sees the next ten years as being the best years of his life, and is unsure of “wasting” it on studying law. His father wisely suggests that no matter how old a man gets, he should always see the next ten years as being the best years of his life.
Early in the film, during one of their family conversations (Does that ever happen any more?), Andy asks, “What is this world coming to?” His mother explains, “It’s come to the day when a fine, manly young fellow wants to go out into the world and see if he can fly with his own wings. The same as his father did, once. The same as my father did, once. The same as your son will one day want to, Andrew.” Rather than portraying a generation gap, this movie modeled a continuity — a connectedness — between generations.
Later in the film, Judge Hardy has some advice for Andy, who is being tempted by a lady where he works. Without directly confronting his son, he speaks to him of principles:
Judge: “Well, someday you’re going to be married. And marriage is the one happiness in the world today that can be spoiled by anticipating it. Many marriages are ruined, just that way.”
Andy: “Do you mean a fella’s morality? Being moral?”
Judge: “No, I mean fidelity.”
Andy: “Fidelity to what?”
Judge: “Fidelity to the girl that someday you’re going to marry. Somewhere in the world today there’s a girl — now, perhaps only a child in pigtails."
Andy: “Well Dad, how can a fella be faithful to a girl he hasn’t even met yet?”
Judge: “Well, that’s very easy. By entering into an illicit romance you’re just inviting yourself to the habit of unfaithfulness. Infidelity is a habit — all too easy to acquire if it begins before marriage. The habit of transferring one’s affections from one girl to another is very apt to destroy the ability to bestow those same affections permanently on your wife.
"I know what you’re thinking about. You’re thinking the same thoughts I did when my father talked to me. But thanks for listening.”
There was nothing preachy about this scene. It was just wise advice from a loving father. The movie-watching public today might not be able to understand that this wasn't a religious movie. It didn't have a religious message or a religious tone. It was a secular comedy about everyday people, which appealed to everyday people. Of course, since it was made 72 years ago, most of the everyday people of that day aren't around any more. And most of the everyday people of today would probably think this movie was backward or sexually repressed. They just wouldn't get it. They belong to a different generation with different values.
Though I was born four years after the making of this movie, its values remained the social norm into the early sixties. I graduated from high school in 1963 and had been taught the same values, not from church — my family didn't go to church — but from society’s prevailing values, which happened to be Biblical values. Society accepted those Biblical values without forcing anyone to join a religion.
Then, drugs (both legal and illegal) caused the sexual revolution. In the mid-sixties, popular use of the contraceptive pill exploded, eliminating a major obstacle to “free sex”: unwanted pregnancy. Also in the mid-sixties, the use of illicit drugs exploded, eliminating another major obstacle to sex outside marriage: inhibition. Once you remove a person’s inhibitions and remove the consequence of pregnancy, then the remaining obstacles to “free sex” are moral beliefs and STDs (we called them venereal diseases back then). As a result, two things happened: STD rates exploded and morals were loosened.
Most people who are comfortable with their sexually liberated attitudes consider themselves enlightened, and people like me as old-fashioned and backward. But I’d rather point to the Bible as the ultimate source for my values, than to what amounts to a drug-induced frenzy. I’d rather respect previous generations for the wisdom they handed down, than to hold them in contempt for not being fresh or “new”. I’d rather watch an old Andy Hardy movie any day than a show like Family Guy, which mocks anything traditional, has characters devoid of genuine concern for others and is set in a world without shared meaning.
I’d rather laugh with than laugh at. I’d prefer no one be put down, but everyone be lifted up. I’d rather believe in an ideal that I may fail to live up to, than to abandon all standards by saying, “whatever”. It’s not that I’m too old to change. I don’t want to change. After living a lifetime, I’ve learned the older generations got some things right. We tried to pass them down to the next generation, but they were too busy re-inventing everything to pay any attention.
The murder rate in 1941, interestingly, was a bit higher than it is today. So much for movie values.
As a kid watching the old movies on the afternoon theater or late-shows, a lot of my initial interest came from the visuals, like the old cars, fashions, etc. But as I grew older, I began to appreciate the values, and how, through the protagonists, they taught the concepts of character and moral decency. Yet the films weren’t even particularly self-conscious about doing so. It was just a reflection of an American culture that aspired to higher levels, and actually knew the differences between right and wrong. The mirror opposite of what exists nowadays.
But on the topic of the “Andy Hardy” films, I frankly tended to find them a bit too cloying and tinselly... but that was more a symptom of MGM’s studio production style. I much preferred Paramount’s competing “Henry Aldrich” film series, which I found more breezy and amusing.
Wise words, except i wouldn’t blame later generations for rejecting them. Teenagers didn’t invent the pill or infiltrate the schools, courts and media. Teenagers where conditioned under the noses of those who watched Andy Hardy.
The commies were already invading our institutions (and Hollywood) even back then.
Was it really higher or about the same? I found a chart that shows a slow and steady uptick in the U.S. murder rates from 1900 through 1998. The highest average numbers are during the 1970s through 90s.
Ok, let's!
Movies in '41, before and up to the early 70s told a story and maintained a measure of morality, largely due to the government censors of the day.
In contrast, today's movies engage in a lot of gratuitous sex, nudity, foul language and explosions in lieu of telling a story. What movies today are not outright propaganda are outright crap!! I have a lot of movies from the 30s through the early 70s because of this and a highly select set of movies that came after the early 70s.
I don't waste either my time or money going to an overpriced movie multiplex to watch a bad movie surrounded by rude people attached to their cell phones and misbehaving children. I'd rather watch an old movie in the comfort of my home than put up with the crap that Hollyweird produces today.
"Logic is an Enemy and Truth is a Menace."
In the episode, the character who is sentence to death tells the state they cannot outlaw God ("There IS a God! You cannot erase God with an edict!"), and reads the Bible aloud during his last minutes on earth. All of this was done on national television.
My wife and I both said: "This episode would NEVER be made today; how far we have fallen."
The “murder rate” is essentially meaningless as a comparison. In the year 2012, if you are shot or stabbed, someone calls 911, on a cell phone. A paramedic crew arrives in minutes, the paramedic crew is better trained and equipped than an emergency room in 1940. But still, they take you via ambulance or even helicopter to an ER where a trauma team uses tools, techniques and medicines never imagined in 1940.
You survive the magic hour, and the infections so common in 1940 don’t hit. You don’t die from the infection a few weeks later, (a year is the standard in most states), so you were not murdered ans you would have been in 1940.
911, helicopters, expert paramedics, trauma medicine advances, infection control, etc etc, all mean that large nmbers of people who were murdered in 1940, would be aggravated battery survivors of 2012. Thats just a fact.
If you norm things, you will find that the rate of attacks with deadly weapons today FAR outstrips the numbers of 1940. It isnt even close. In fact, todays violence with deadly wapons exceeds the old west.
OK corral was famous precisely because it was very rare that such events happened.
Amateurs speak of murder rates across decades or centuries, pros will study knife and gun assaults to arrive at a more meaningful comparison.
The 1940s values were indeed superior, by far.
I’ve seen that episode a couple of times. It is terribly chilling. Burgess Meredith gives a really fine performance in it.
Movies do instill values, TV much more and much more quickly.
It is easy to indoctrinate a child sitting in their living room to political and social positions with movies and TV.
Excellent points! I’m with you.
Saving us today's problems of teeming prisons and skyrocketing child abuse, rape and illegitimacy, all of which are now much higher.
Very good advice.
Most people who are comfortable with their sexually liberated attitudes consider themselves enlightened, and people like me as old-fashioned and backward. But I’d rather point to the Bible as the ultimate source for my values, than to what amounts to a drug-induced frenzy. I’d rather respect previous generations for the wisdom they handed down, than to hold them in contempt for not being fresh or “new”. I’d rather watch an old Andy Hardy movie any day than a show like Family Guy, which mocks anything traditional, has characters devoid of genuine concern for others and is set in a world without shared meaning.
A quote:
We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive. ~ C.S. Lewis
Yep! C.S. Lewis was an amazing man.
well thought out. thank you.
Your chart doesn’t show a “slow and steady uptick” it shows two peaks in murder rates with a reduction in the 40s through early 60s, and then a sudden collapse in the murder rate from 1990 forward.
Your chart cuts off at 2000 - the murder rate continued to decline after that.
The 2010 murder rate indeed is a bit lower than 1941.
http://www.zeigen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/homicide_chart.png
One danger conservatives need to stay away from is the obsession with “continuous moral decay” arguments and a nostalgic rose-colored glasses view of the past. It’s simply not accurate. Everything hasn’t continuously gotten worse.
Unlike murder, rape and especially child abuse are subject to severe reporting bias making it largely impossible to compare historical to current rates.
There were undoubtedly an enormous amount of unreported and undiscovered child abuse in 1941. Just because you hear about something more doesn’t mean more of it is happening.
Far exceeds it as a matter of fact. As you mentioned, incidents like the gunfight at OK the Corral were quite rare in the Old West. For anyone who is tired of Libs talking about gun ownership causing "gunfights in the streets like the Wild West" should read Roger D. McGrath's "Gunfighters, Highwaymen & Vigilantes" were he points out that there were only four killings in Deadwood, SD in 1876 (one of the victims was Will Bill Hickok).
I was looking at the yearly chart down at the bottom of the page, not the line graph at the top, which is the same as your link.
I do not wear rose-colored glasses about the past, but there is indeed an overall moral decay in the U.S. that is clearly evident and that picked up warp speed in the latter half of the 20th Century. This is not to say that immorality didn’t exist in the “good old days,” not at all. Evil has lived in the hearts of men since the Fall.
But, our society has devolved from one in which common-sense morality was broadly understood, and more commonly practiced, to one in which common-sense morality is truly an endangered species. Our general society has largely embraced amorality.
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