In my opinon media these days (tv, film etc.) is of noticeably poorer quality than it was in the past.
Look at basic cable. The more "educational" channels (History Channel, Animal Planet and Discovery Channel) rarely feature programs on World War II, The Rainforest/Africa or documentaries on lost civilizations.
These days its mostly shows on pawn shops, backwoods survival and the travails of peoples pets, quite often for hours at a time.
Look at Hollywood. Hollywood lost it's morals some time ago, but at least it's intellect,creativity and highmindedness wasn't totally squelched like it is today.
Today there are hardly any original franchises, and instead almost a desperate milking of past franchises and past Hollywood stars, whose youth and novelty has long since dissipated.
Are there any franchises equivaletn to Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or Back to the Future on the horizon any time soon? Can comedy movies without crass vulgarity still be made.?
While Hollywood wasn't exactly moral 30 years ago, it's morals seem to have become more coarsened and base.
I recently watched the first two Indiana Jones movies, made in '81 and '84. Extra marital sex was discussed, and presented is an acceptable, normal thing to do, but it seemed to treat it as a meaningful encounter. In the first movie Indy's former GF slaps him across the face and says what a jerk he was for seducing her some years earlier (before she goes back to being his gf.)
While premarital sex was OK'd 20-30 years ago by Hollywood, it also recognized it as a meaningful affair and not just an activity like the hook up culture of today would present it.
If Indiana Jones were made today, it's likely Indy's old flame would talk casually about how she enjoyed their last hook up and if he'd like to go back in the alley or public restroom to do it again (pardon my French.)
I suppose an argument is that there are more choices these days in terms of media consumption and much of the talent is migrating to Netflix/ extend cable. That may be the case and many of the new successful shows (Breaking Bad, the Americans, Game of Thrones) I think are quite good.
I think they are quality shows and enjoy them at some level but think tehy are morally hollow.
I don't think you need to be preachy, or a have a "goody two shoes" as the main cast of good guys. There is moral ambiguity in everyone. I just think the above mentioned shows seem to have nihilism and indifferentism as the driving forces behind them and don't really ever address morality, the "right thing" or even whetehr such things are important.
While they are all high quality they seem to celebrate/glorify evil a tiny bit and fear this is a trend.
My main suspicion is the reason for this is that God and religious belief in general have suffered a massive decline over the past ten years. Even many irreligious people a decade or two ago woudl claim that religion is a good thing basically and Christianity informs there world view.
This seems to be a less and less common viewpoint with each passing year.
If one isn't as connected to God, I have heard one's intellect becomes more clouded and confused. Maybe this is the reason so much junky fast food equivalent and nihilistic television is so popular. Maybe that is why there is little to no inspiration for new ideas.
Or maybe in it's 80 some years of existence, Hollywood and television are almost fresh out of ideas and can only really rehash what already has been done. Any thoughts?
Look at basic cable. The more "educational" channels (History Channel, Animal Planet and Discovery Channel) rarely feature programs on World War II, The Rainforest/Africa or documentaries on lost civilizations.
These days its mostly shows on pawn shops, backwoods survival and the travails of peoples pets, quite often for hours at a time.
Look at Hollywood. Hollywood lost it's morals some time ago, but at least it's intellect,creativity and highmindedness wasn't totally squelched like it is today.
Today there are hardly any original franchises, and instead almost a desperate milking of past franchises and past Hollywood stars, whose youth and novelty has long since dissipated.
Are there any franchises equivaletn to Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or Back to the Future on the horizon any time soon? Can comedy movies without crass vulgarity still be made.?
While Hollywood wasn't exactly moral 30 years ago, it's morals seem to have become more coarsened and base.
I recently watched the first two Indiana Jones movies, made in '81 and '84. Extra marital sex was discussed, and presented is an acceptable, normal thing to do, but it seemed to treat it as a meaningful encounter. In the first movie Indy's former GF slaps him across the face and says what a jerk he was for seducing her some years earlier (before she goes back to being his gf.)
While premarital sex was OK'd 20-30 years ago by Hollywood, it also recognized it as a meaningful affair and not just an activity like the hook up culture of today would present it.
If Indiana Jones were made today, it's likely Indy's old flame would talk casually about how she enjoyed their last hook up and if he'd like to go back in the alley or public restroom to do it again (pardon my French.)
I suppose an argument is that there are more choices these days in terms of media consumption and much of the talent is migrating to Netflix/ extend cable. That may be the case and many of the new successful shows (Breaking Bad, the Americans, Game of Thrones) I think are quite good.
I think they are quality shows and enjoy them at some level but think tehy are morally hollow.
I don't think you need to be preachy, or a have a "goody two shoes" as the main cast of good guys. There is moral ambiguity in everyone. I just think the above mentioned shows seem to have nihilism and indifferentism as the driving forces behind them and don't really ever address morality, the "right thing" or even whetehr such things are important.
While they are all high quality they seem to celebrate/glorify evil a tiny bit and fear this is a trend.
My main suspicion is the reason for this is that God and religious belief in general have suffered a massive decline over the past ten years. Even many irreligious people a decade or two ago woudl claim that religion is a good thing basically and Christianity informs there world view.
This seems to be a less and less common viewpoint with each passing year.
If one isn't as connected to God, I have heard one's intellect becomes more clouded and confused. Maybe this is the reason so much junky fast food equivalent and nihilistic television is so popular. Maybe that is why there is little to no inspiration for new ideas.
Or maybe in it's 80 some years of existence, Hollywood and television are almost fresh out of ideas and can only really rehash what already has been done. Any thoughts?
