Is Our Culture Really Coarsening?

Baltimore Sun ^ | 12/19/04 | Richard Walter

[ProtectOurFreedom]

We romanticize and idealize the 1950s. How else to treat that deplorable decade? The era of Father Knows Best and Ozzie and Harriet was also that of McCarthyism, of Jim Crow, of unspeakable kitsch in food, fashion, architecture and design. Music, too, was Guy Lombardo and Lawrence Welk until sweetly corrupting rock 'n' roll finally liberated mainstream audiences. …

Yet the notion persists that those days were solely sweet, serene and secure. Public discourse was civilized. God -- a wise and kindly old white man with a long white beard -- was not only in Heaven but at long last in the Pledge of Allegiance. …

Today's movies are viewed as uniquely violent, but are they truly so? Conflict has resided at the center of dramatic expression since its earliest days. Oedipus kills his father, and you know what he does to his mother. Medea butchers her children and feeds them for dinner to their faithless, philandering father. By the end of Hamlet there are nine corpses onstage, some poisoned, some run through on swords. …

Americans who occasionally overhear a brutal, violent rap lyric, who inadvertently stumble across some unsolicited pornographic image, ought to rejoice because it tells them they live in a free society. They will never encounter such fare in Saudi Arabia or North Korea. …

Lighten up, America. Take a deep breath. Must the nation go crazy because a pop star mutters a curse word during the Grammys? Does the exposure of a woman's nipple, for a fraction of a second, from 1,000 yards away, warrant paroxysms of rage and government sanction? Why is it OK to expose a man's nipple? It hasn't always been so. …

Chill, my fellow citizens. Will somebody tell me what is the big deal?

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Here's a hilarious and self-serving justification of the filth spewed out by Hollywood. It was written by the chairman of the graduate program in screenwriting at the UCLA film school. With people like this teaching our future screen writers, it isn't hard to tell the future direction of the drek coming out of Hollywood. He just refuses to see the steady slide of our culture into the abyss that has gone on for the last fifty years. And it's pretty easy to see why people like Mr. Walter support the Dem party with its no-holds barred cultural relativism.

[mtbopfuyn]

Why is it not ok? Because we are, or are supposed to be, a civilized and moral country. If we don't hold ourselves to certain higher values, we will be destroyed from the inside out.

[Mr. Jeeves]

It started in the 60's, but took a big turn south in the early 90's with the advent of the Clinton Administration. Certain leading Hollywood figures seemed to think that with "their guy" in office, they had license to start a race to the bottom.

There is still greatness in Hollywood, but it's gotten a lot harder to find.

[Right Wing Assault]

I would love to see this guys prediction of what his column would look like in 25, 50, 100 years at the rate we are going.

Does he think we have reached a steady-state of "freedom" or will things get "better"?

Anyone want to take a shot at writing his 2029, 2054, or 2104 column?

[Mr. Mojo]

We romanticize and idealize the 1950s. How else to treat that deplorable decade? The era of Father Knows Best and Ozzie and Harriet was also that of McCarthyism, of Jim Crow, of unspeakable kitsch in food, fashion, architecture and design. Music, too, was Guy Lombardo and Lawrence Welk

Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, muscle cars, TV westerns, Ike. .....a great decade.

[Mulder]

What passes as American "culture" is truly disgusting.

It worships money and power.

Concepts such as duty and honor have taken a back seat to vanity and dishonesty.

And most Americans really don't care about something unless it affects them directly.

Modern culture is the polar opposite of the culture that founded and build America.

[rawcatslyentist]

The 50's ....
McCarthy was correct! The Godless Commies are after US and they have positions in power to attempt it!
Jim Crow seggregated US.... Aff. Action segregates by preventing non chosen races from participation!

The more things change, the more they stay the same!

Shut down the Alphabet Channels (ABJazerra & Her Sister Stations)!
Vote with your Remote!

Christmas Heart
But, I Have A Plan
Zippo Hero
Seven Dead Monkeys Page O Tunes

[Innisfree]

By the end of Hamlet there are nine corpses onstage, some poisoned, some run through on swords. Richard III slays his nephews, boys 9 and 11.

Time to take your meds again, Richard. You cannot compare swordplay in a Shakespearean drama to scenes of gore in modern R-rated movies.

Nobody wants to see The Village of the Happy, Nice People.

No drug-addicted, debauched Hollywood writer does, but decent people actually do. The truth is, Richard, that goodness is far more interesting and profound than evil, which is actually dull and repetitive in its infinitely varied forms. Writing about goodness requires talent, however. You can't resort to cheap plot devices, graphic sex scenes and mind-numbing gore in order to divert your audiences.

All the "successful" screenwriters I've met had forms of mental illness and were drug-addicted, alcoholic or morbidly obese.

[krunkygirl]

Richard Walter does not see the problem because he IS the problem.

[Darkwolf377]

The core of drama is conflict--actually he's right, no one DOES want to see Village of the Happy People, because there is no conflict there--but how this means the endless violence in movies is somehow the same thing as seeing two actors with toy swords on a stage is beyond me. I can see why this guy teaches screenwriting instead of actually selling screenplays.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I forgot to mention the headline that this story ran under in today's Mercury News: "Lighten up, America: Our culture remains safe." Typical declaration from the Merc.

[E Rocc]

Actually, he's 100% correct. Shakespeare's plays weren't exactly sermons. Chaucer's "Miller's Tale" has provided quite a nice project for smartassed high school kids pushing the edges of acceptable English Lit projects. Benjamin Franklin loved writing ribalditries, and there are even parts of the Bible that would a stereotypical Puritan blush.

American culture is the first truly "popular" culture, based on the tastes of people in general instead of those of a "cultural elite". This is why it's spreading the globe, angering various cultural-elite wannabes along the way.

The bad news is that a culture based on such tastes can be crass and vulgar.

The good news is it does not seek to exterminate "higher" culture. Movies are based on Shakespeare's works, Metallica does CDs with the San Francisco Symphony, etc....

The better news is the fact that as this "crass" culture spreads the globe, it carries certain concepts from its home. Things like individual liberty, freedom of conscience, entreprenurialism......

-Eric

[rcocean]

"It was written by the chairman of the graduate program in screenwriting at the UCLA film school."

Good God, what an idiot. I always wondered why the movies were so full of sex and violence and had dialog so moronic even a 15 year blanches at their stupidity.

Well, now I know. There were taught by this goof.

[elbucko]

...but took a big turn south in the early 90's with the advent of the Clinton Administration.

It sure did. The Clinton legacy IS the lowering of standards in all areas of American culture, institutions and traditions. The Clinton's whizzed on America.

[oldbrowser]

Lighten up, America. Take a deep breath. Must the nation go crazy because a pop star mutters a curse word during the Grammys? Does the exposure of a woman's nipple

Cocaine will do that to your brain; the feeling that
everything is okay, nothing is a problem, everybody is happy.

[Freepdonia]

The era of Father Knows Best and Ozzie and Harriet was also that of McCarthyism, of Jim Crow, of unspeakable kitsch in food, fashion, architecture and design.

Right. Jim Crow only existed during the fifties. Father Knows Best and Ozzie and Harriet were the only types of shows on during that era.

Dumb ass.

Music, too, was Guy Lombardo and Lawrence Welk until sweetly corrupting rock 'n' roll finally liberated mainstream audiences.

Excuse me, but I'm confident to say the Lombardo and Welk were no where near being Billboard chart kings during that decade.

[MikeHu]

There you go again -- generalizing universal truths when you have not even begun to understand the significance of your own truth.

What is it with these liberals' delusions of adequacies and competence? They're starting to believe their own propaganda.

The fatal error of popular culture (mainstream media) is to find the lowest common denominator for the greatest audience -- to consolidate that base. In the age of the Internet, what is possible is to target the highest common denominator -- wherein all the intelligence might be found, and to refine that even further.

Yes, all those Hollywood/media people suck -- but that's not the whole world. That is just the people they attract and are attracted to and associate with.

[grey_whiskers]

By the end of Hamlet there are nine corpses onstage, some poisoned, some run through on swords. Richard III slays his nephews, boys 9 and 11.

What a corksucker. Shakespeare was presenting a tragedy, not endorsing this behavior as many Gangsta rappers do...and what about Pacino's Scarface?

For that matter, hasn't this genius ever heard of Titus Andronicus, if he wants blood & gore?

[Clemenza]

The 1950s s-cked! High taxes, unions running everything, bad music, worse food.

[willieroe]

You and the author both specifically mention food. Pardon the ignorance of a sixties' child, but what was so wrong about 50's food?