[Dilbert San Diego]

How crazy, that a movie could have that impact.

I’ve heard similar things about that movie with Jane Fonda, The China Syndrome, which dealt with nuclear power. I’ve heard that movie, which coincidentally was in theaters at the time of the Three Mile Island incident, helped the anti-nuclear movement, so that development of nuclear power plants was just about stopped in its tracks.

[marktwain]

How crazy, that a movie could have that impact.

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It is part of how the Mediacracy operates. In the 1950’s, the play West Side Story had a major impact on passing the Federal ban on the importation and interstate sale of switchblade knives.

No real data, just emotion and rhetoric magnified by the mass media.

http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2015/02/how-switchblades-were-banned.html

[Albion Wilde]

How crazy, that a movie could have that impact

There was also a very influential author and lecturer during that era named Thomas Szaz, a psychiatrist, who promoted his anti-establishment view of mental illness itself and of its treatment. He was worshipped by the left, eager to debunk any restrictions on human behavior whatsoever.

Thomas Szasz

He actually did recognize that modern medicine was trying to do away with the concept of sin and abomination and replace it with medical and social maladjustments for which they could prescribe treatments.

While much of what he said about the misconceptions about mental illness and treatment had value, others took his positions to extremes, attempting either to propose that there really is no such thing as mental illness, or that if someone is "crazy", it is society's fault.