Hollywood Vs. America: Popular Culture and the War On Traditional Values

by Michael Medved (Published 1993, ISBN 0060924357)

Talk show host and self-proclaimed "cultural crusader" Michael Medved has been regarded as some as a “renegade film critic.” In Hollywood vs. America, he exposes what he perceives to be Hollywood’s singular drive to bash America, attack religion, and affront the sensibilities of average Americans, not in order to make money but in order to pursue its ideological goals and to fulfill its own narrow, warped definition of high-art.

These attacks on God, family, and country are not, argues Medved, some sort of conspiracy; rather, they are the natural result of an insulated society of actors, producers, writers, and directors who feed off the praises of one another and who are rarely, if ever, exposed to the views, thoughts, and feelings of "mainstream America." At a time when a religious revival was moving through America, and conservative Christians and Jews were gaining converts, "Hollywood ignored religion altogether, or else attacked it with unprecedented ferocity." At a time when ordinary Americans were rejoicing over the military’s victory in the Persian Gulf, "movies and television shows displayed a critical new perspective of…the armed services and America’s role in the world." And, at a time when marriage rates were increasing and divorce rates declining, "the movie business focused almost entirely on single characters and began portraying the nuclear family as an outmoded, nightmarish institution."

Medved anticipates counterarguments. If it is true that the values of mainstream America are so different from those portrayed by Hollywood, how can Hollywood be said to have negatively influenced America? Medved answers this question by discussing the "slow but steady" influence of a media that, through its very ubiquitousness, has the power to "redefine what constitutes normal behavior in this society." Others might note that Hollywood is just making money by giving people what they want. To counter this, Medved points out that only one of the top 10 hits in the 1980’s was rated R, and yet R films accounted for over 60 percent of all movies released. And, finally, to those who say, “If you don’t like it, turn it off,” Medved responds, "The popular culture is now as unavoidable as any airborne pollutant. To say that if you don’t like it you should just tune it out makes as much sense as saying that if you don’t like smog, stop breathing."

And what is the answer to the problem of an out-of-touch entertainment industry? Certainly not censorship, says Medved, which only fuels "Hollywood’s us-vs.-them mentality." What about resurrecting the voluntary code the film industry once imposed upon itself? It would never work, says the author. But what might work to "help to open their eyes" is "[s]ustained public and private pressure." Watchdog groups and boycotts may have some salutary effects. Encouraging young religious people to pursue careers in the media may also help to improve matters from the inside, as will expanding alternatives.