Garbage in...Garbage out

So much power and so little wisdom of how to use it… That’s what I think of Hollywood and its contribution to American culture. Hollywood is the land of illusion. Everything coming out of it should be suspect. Their ‘raison d’etre’ is to make money and they’ll even fake sincerity to do so…

While I often question the psychological health of someone who would pretend to be someone else, solely for the approval of strangers, (my definition of an actor), I do like movies. I find many to be vulgar and without any redeeming values but there are some responsible producers and directors who are not only artists but responsible members of the human race with honest stories to tell.

Some stories can give us a glimpse into our fellow human beings and a greater understanding of what we hold in common. I remember watching ‘The Joy Luck Club’ for the first time. At first I thought it would be nice to see some attractive Asian women on screen. Somewhere, while watching it, I forgot they were attractive Asian women and just saw them as fellow human beings struggling to live and grow like every one else.

I recently watched ‘Antoine Fisher’, the story of a young black man growing up in America. That he was a black man became completely irrelevant to the story. He was another fellow human being trying to put the broken pieces of his life together and grow beyond the cruelty he’d known. There was no graphic sex or violence in the story, no cheap thrills, just honest human emotion. It’s a touching story of human redemption and how we need each other. Such stories should be told.

Unfortunately Hollywood, while condemning things like handgun violence, too often exploit the very things they ‘pretend’ to abhor solely for their profits. They argue that they only reflect what is really going on in society and that what happens on screen doesn’t affect the behavior of the average person. Of course that argument is reversed when they are selling commercial airtime at say, the Super Bowl. Then the power of what happens on screen to affect the publics behavior can be worth millions for a thirty second spot.

Many of us are more concerned with what goes into our mouths than what goes into our minds. It would do us well to remember a very old adage…”Hear no evil, See no evil, Speak no evil”. If we keep the garbage from coming into us…we’ll keep it from coming out of us. It can pay to turn the channel or even turn off the TV to keep the garbage out.

Hollywood would eventually get that message.