Dear Friends,
It seems to me, the reason film and television is so bad today, is that they portray people as worthless, stupid and weak… like the cultural elite. Back in the day, TV depicted people as heroes, not useless. How many emotional breakdowns did Captain Kirk have? Did Hogan whine about being a POW? How many times did you see Frank Cannon retreat into an emotional cave? They didn’t. Back then culture told us we are heroes, all we need do is act it, and that we all have that capacity. Today the message is that we are all useless, stupid and it’s normal to be emotionally weak. Back then we could save a world from itself, escape a POW camp to sabotage a train then “escape” back in again, and win a game when we are the mark. No wonder we hate modern films, TV and media.
Everyone recognizes that movies today are horrible and getting worse. The woke producers who make films and television only want drama. Everything has to boil down to emotional breakdowns. Studios want drama that pushes the envelope of what is acceptable. Not because it makes money, since it clearly doesn’t, but because of some innate desire to change the world for the worse. Our exemplars today are emotional wrecks. They are not a Kirk, Cannon or Matt Dillon. There are no real heroes in today’s culture. “Heroes” are people with severe mental illness, fighting to promote their mental illness, and have it promoted as normal. Instead of protecting widows orphans and light, movie heroes today fight, to make the wrong appear right.
Theater is about elevating us, not lowering us, Hamlet elevates the viewer, while Naked and Afraid lowers us. That is another facet of modern culture that is so destructive. There are no great themes in Survivor, no awe inspiring depth in Dancing With The Stars, and no intelligent content on CNN. When Aristophanes wrote The Clouds, he was creating a work of art that was not only topical in his day, but carries with it a sense of ethics that is lost in the world today. Plato’s Pheado then ties that great play with literature and philosophy. Theater used to entertain, awe, distract, inform and enlighten. The greatest works combine all those elements. Creating such works takes depth of character, intellect and wisdom though… and our cultural elite have the depth and clarity of a mud puddle.
No one wants to be told they are worthless, even if they think they are. We want to be told we are heroes, because in truth, we all can be. The post modernists see film as a means to manipulate, not elevate. So they teach us we are useless, stupid and rely on luck for our daily bread. There are no go getters on TV today. Everyone is a mental midget, subject to emotional breakdowns, for any slight. The toughest people are always small women, who have the superhuman ability to beat up much larger marshal men… adding absurdity to weakness. No one wants to watch that. We want to watch shows that tell us we are better than we are. That we can achieve greatness if thrust into the right situation. We want to identify with a smart hero, who earns his reward… not a loser who gets lucky.
The fundamental problem is, the cultural elite who control the purse strings, and thus what is made, seek to lower mankind through the culture. They see plays, film and television as impactful enterprises that can change attitudes, intentions and thus… the paradigm. Teaching people to be heroes is the last thing someone who wants compliant serfs would do. Instead, they would discourage people, through that media, to be emotional weaklings, incapable of thinking and who believe all good outcomes are pure luck. Such people serve the wants of an oligarchy intent on domination. Heroes are the ultimate enemy of a tyrant. So movies today suck snot from a sewer. Not because there are no good scripts, but because those who choose what is made, want film, TV and plays… to orally vacuum effluent.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
