Even if I want to grant Stu Rothenberg that Arnold and Willis Jackson, Maude, Meathead, and Will & Grace destroyed traditional culture, and even if I am willing to acknowledge vastly different media reactions to last week’s two 5-4 Supreme Court decisions (one, bad, that gutted the Voting Rights Act, one, good, that undermined that Defense of Marriage Act), his conclusion doesn’t follow.
Social conservatives probably see Obama, liberals on the Supreme Court and Democrats in Congress as their main adversaries. But they are wrong. The most important leaders of cultural liberalism may well be the members of the media and entertainment communities, and social conservatives simply have no strategy to deal with that.
But, Stu? What the fuck do you think Fox News is if not a strategy to combat the cultural liberalism of the media and entertainment industries? What is right-wing radio? What are voting suppression efforts? What is Citizens United? Why did they gut the Voting Rights Act? What was Birtherism all about?
And let’s not exaggerate the liberalism of the media. The vast majority of them thought that George & Dick’s Excellent Adventure in Iraq would be a swell idea. They vastly preferred John McCain’s personality to, say, Al Gore’s. Most of them are calling for Ed Snowden’s head on a pike, which in my experience in not a typical left-wing position. Yes, most national political reporters don’t live in Oklahoma or Alabama, so they don’t act like they do. That might make them culturally liberal to a degree, but it doesn’t mean that they’re aiding and abetting the great socialist revolution.
If Christian rock and “pro-family” movies were wildly popular, the media and entertainment communities would be all over them. They tend to be more driven by the profit motive than any cultural agenda. It isn’t their fault social conservatism is so boring.
It’s also not our fault that comedy doesn’t work when you punch down. You can’t get laughs for mocking the poor, disadvantaged, and destitute. The stupid? Okay, I’ll grant you the stupid.
Anti-gay, anti-black, anti-jewish, anti-women comedy all were staples for decades, centuries really. The clowns in Shakespeare are commoners. Punching down works just fine. May not look good in hindsight, but no problem getting laughs. Conservatism tends not to appeal to highly creative minds, and that’s what you need to write good comedy.
Hey, “Saved!” was a good movie. It also was exactly like my teenage years. Except I went to public school so it was only like that on Sunday.
Fixxed News is just a grift. Nothing more than Murdoch’s way of monetizing Hate Radio.
After all, one of the biggest purveyors of cultural liberalism is…. wait for it.. Fox TV/Movie studios.
Fox TV: Married w. Children/ The Simpsons/ Family Guy/ 90210/ Melrose Place/ X-Files/ In Living Color/ Ally McBeal/ Futurama/ 70s Show/ Martin/ House/ etc.
F/x: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia/ Nip & Tuck/ Louie/ Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell
Fox Movies: range from The Devil Wears Prada (feminism) to The Day After Tomorrow(global warming) to Avatar (so called “it’s a Green epic about despoiling the environment, and an attack on the war in Iraq. . . . The conclusion does ask the audience to root for the defeat of American soldiers at the hands of an insurgency.”).
Even Michael Moore’s best selling book “Stupid White Men” was published by Murdoch.
If only the viewers of Fixxed News knew Murdoch’s overwhelming business interest is cultural liberalism. It’s like the old blue haired groupies who never suspected Liberace wasn’t straight.
The liberal media is a much-mentioned myth, like that of alligators in the NYC sewers. And like the alligators, there’s not much proof. But if you keep repeating the liberal media often enough, it makes smoke where there is no fire. It gives life to the zombie myth of left leaning media.
It’s complicated. If Joe Scarborough had done his show for the last five years from Pensacola instead of Midtown Manhattan, he would not have moderated his cultural conservatism. Like anyone else, he wants to be accepted as a decent human being by his peers, and that is changing him.
But just because he’s softened a bit doesn’t mean that he has a liberal bias.
Meanwhile, most bigfoot reporters are more pro-Establishment than pro-Democrat. When Bush was in office, they deferred to him, and they do the same for Obama.
What the press is not, is rock-ribbed conservative. But that is what the GOP has become.
So, there is some liberal bias, but nothing approaching what the conservatives claim.
The establishment press doesn’t defer to Obama or Democrats in general. They constantly attack them.
For example, the establishment press couldn’t give a shit about the deficit when Bush was squandering the surplus, but the minute Obama takes office, they blame him for Shrub’s mess.
They establishment press is pro-war. So they constantly attack Obama for not invading Syria and for withdrawing from Iraq.
Pelosi was criticized for being effective. Boehner is given a pass for being inept.
Bush outs a CIA agent and received a pass. Broder, Sally Quinn, et. all demanded Clinton’s impeached for a consensual affair.
Just think about how they gave Bush a pass on all his impeachable scandals and how hard they’ve tried to manufacture fake scandals under Obama (Ben-Gahzeeeeeeee!).
When elite interests are seriously at stake, meaning economic and foreign policy issues, the media bias is conservative. They are well-off themselves, the pride themselves on being part of the establishment, and they understand the buttering of their bread. They, however, urban, well-educated, and largely humanities and social science majors. So they also have the viewpoints fitting those demographics when not overridden by the above. They also like to use this to beef up their “liberal” bona-fides to provide cover on the other issues. Hence, they are willing to do obviously biased things like have the only public image of Trayvon Martin for weeks be a picture from him at about age 12. That is genuine liberal bias. And it makes less plausible the accusations that their uncritical cheering for entitlement reform or free trade are not because of their conservative bias.
I meant “are because of conservative bias” To be clear, I am arguing that those positions are conservative bias, and liberal bias on social issues is renders this charge less plausible, but not less correct.
I hate to give any credit to Stu Rothenberg’s argument, but I don’t think you completely refute what he’s saying. His argument is that the mass entertainment complex is culturally liberal and that because most Americans are raised on this media diet, they are increasingly less likely to be freaked out by things like homosexuality.
Fox News is not a strategy to combat the cultural liberalism of the entertainment industry, exactly. It’s a strategy to combat the perceived liberalism of the news media which is not the same thing. Even with Fox News getting higher ratings than other cable networks, shows like Modern Family continue to exist and thrive. Even as Citizens United and the SCOTUS decision on the Voting Rights Act make it harder for liberals to make political gains, Rothenberg argues that we still live in a world where super religious and very conservative viewpoints are either not represented or openly mocked in the media. I think he exaggerates this effect, but it is worth thinking about this: when was the last time a movie or TV show depicted a character in a negative light because he or she supported gay marriage? Now when was the last time someone was depicted negatively because he or she opposed gay marriage?
This. I think Boo’s post misses Stu’s point entirely. Sure, news and public affairs are now packaged as entertainment and story-telling, but they are at least in theory about the real world and people that exist. Popular music, movies and TV shows with fictional characters, video games, and so on are inherently liberal – quite aside from helping ease cultural acceptance of things like strong-willed women and the humanity of gay men, the very act of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes (or imagined experience) is all about empathy. Empathy is like kryptonite to the modern (sic) conservative.
Moreover, guess who the most skilled people are at producing popular culture that promotes empathy? People who are themselves empathetic. Hollywood’s creative class (as well as the vast majority of creative musicians and authors) are overwhelmingly liberal.
You generally can’t make up stories about sympathetic characters unless you can imagine their live. You generally can’t do good comedy from a place of self-unaware privilege. And you generally can’t dance well if you got no rhythm.
Originally, when conservatives complained about “liberal media,” the cultural output was much of what they were talking about, and certainly when it came to things like endless sex and violence, I wasn’t unsympathetic. But that trope has morphed over the years so that now the news media is lumped in as part of the Great Left Wing Conspiracy – not because its coverage has a liberal bias (HA!), but because it doesn’t regurgitate the funhouse mirror “facts” that the right wing bubble now promotes endlessly.
I see what he’s saying and consider it valid. There was a time when popular culture, including movies and television, supported traditional values. I grew up on shows like “My Three Sons” which was a latter “Father Knows Best.” Earlier, we had films like “Bells of Saint Mary’s” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.” All of them emphasized socially conservative themes.
In the late 60s and early 70s, that world broke down. Film became more diverse and willing to address darker realities. Television morphed into something in which fathers became foils (think Darren on “Bewitched”) or bigots (Archie on “All in the Family), idiots (Homer Simpson) or jerks (Al Bundy, “Married with Children”). Good luck finding a Fred MacMurray.
It’s not just here. American culture has changed the world, not always for the better.
I was a kid in the “60s and 70s and I saw the good sides and the bad sides. There was a lot of hope that we could change the world in the 60s, which morphed into hope we could change ourselves in the 70s. In many ways we did, mostly for the better in my opinion. The world is way more open now than it was then.
In the 80s, Reagan came along and the watchwords were “Just Say No.” Ostensibly this was no to drugs and alcohol, but in truth it also included sex and non-traditional views of the world. It had an impact. Shows like “Touched by an Angel” got air time as did “Promised Land.”
Meanwhile, however, the tide of cultural openness could not be turned back. I’m not saying it should be. Only that I get why cultural conservatives would see themselves as having no strategy to turn the tide. They don’t. There is none.
Murdoch happily runs The Simpsons and American Dad, though. It’s exaggerating to suppose he–or Ailes–really cares that much about the culture wars, isn’t it? The media and especially TV are pusillanimous first and foremost, left or right, and follow the culture. You’re no doubt right about the cultural liberalism but you’re giving them too much credit for thinking about the economic and security issues.
Murdoch could give a fig about culture wars. If those who really held power in the Republican party cared about such things, the result would be different. Those issues are about stirring up the base. The more permissive our culture becomes, the more opportunity to motivate the base. Those folks are a very cheap date.
I DON’T READ STU BUT CAN YOU GET ME SOME OF HIS WEED? I CLEARLY NEED A BETTER CONNECTION.
FOR THAT MATTER IF HE HAS SHROOMS OR LSD THAT WOULD BE GOOD TOO, HE SEEMS TO HAVE TO THE GOOD SHIT.
I would add, what is the tea party? What is the heritage foundation? What is Family Research Council, Citizens United, Freedom Works, American Crossroads ….? These are just a few but they are all a part of the vast PR operation of the Republican party.
Stu Rothenberg is making an intra-elite argument for legitimacy. Another William Buckley and David Brooks type of whining against the corrupt elites who drive popular culture (and that likely includes Chris Dodd).
In the scheme of things going on, this is so far from being a major issue in anything. Just an arcane artifact of how out of touch the Wall Street media is from reality.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the Wall Street media, the NSA story continues to rattle around the world. But don’t tell the American people that Republican Bruce Fein is representing Snowden’s dad. Or that Clapper essentially admitted to perjury to Congress.
I always felt that the “liberal media” slander was a natural evolution of “the Jews control the media” sentiment that was so popular in generations past.