For the first time in years, I actually watched some of the Motion Picture Academy Award program the other night. My wife was watching it, so I obliged to sit with her for a little while before retreating to the rest of the Sunday newspaper.
That didn’t take very long, unfortunately.
As soon as actress Melissa Leo dropped the f-bomb on live broadcast television, I decided that I had had enough. Ms. Leo reminded me just exactly why I stopped watching and caring about the Oscar Awards so many years ago.
Foremost, I don’t like the cultural elitism or the stench of hypocrisy that are so much a part of Hollywood, America’s cesspool of degenerate counterculture. Why Americans tend to put gold rings in the snouts of swine and place them up on pedestals to be worshipped is beyond me. But we do this routinely with movie stars and entertainment celebrities.
No doubt Ms. Leo has a loyal fan base. Her every word, her every action is watched, listened to and scrutinized. She can and does have a profound impact on impressionable youths and young people who perhaps idolize her or will put her up on a pedestal now that she has an Oscar.
What sort of lesson is she providing a youth or a young person when she blurts out offensive language on national television for millions of viewers to hear?
Perhaps the lesson is, don’t give a s--- about what may offend someone else. Just say or do whatever you feel like saying or doing; regardless of how it affects others around you.
Great lesson, Ms. Leo.
You ought to be profoundly thankful that ABC TV caught your guffaw before it could be clearly and unmistakably heard; although I imagine that viewers who read lips had little doubt about what you said.
It is nice that Ms. Leo apologized afterward for her foul-mouthed gaffe. However, what she said and how she said it is so indicative to me of the degeneracy that permeates the media and entertainment industries. She spoke the profanity so casually as if it was just natural for her to say.
Yet, she had this to say afterward: “There’s a great deal of the English language that is in my vernacular. I really don’t mean to offend, and probably a very inappropriate place to use that particular word.”
Ms. Leo has a shaky grasp of the obvious.
Prime-time, national broadcast television an inappropriate place? You think?
An event where the pinnacle of achievement in the motion picture industry is recognized an inappropriate place? Double think.
Oscar night is like the Super Bowl for Hollywood. It is the big stage, the big show, the big dance. Ms. Leo’s profanity slip is the equivalent of Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction several years ago during a Super Bowl halftime show.
Sure, it was a mistake, but the choreography with Justin Timberlake was not. He did not unintentionally grasp Jackson’s chest as he had awkwardly claimed afterward. Footage of the incident shows quite clearly that the grab was an intentional part of the act. The only thing that went wrong was that Jackson’s breast wasn’t actually supposed to be exposed.
Otherwise, the show was a highly sexual performance from the lyrics to the choreography, and completely inappropriate even without the wardrobe malfunction. The performance of both entertainers was rather indicative of the degenerate entertainment culture of which they are both products.
Likewise, Ms. Leo’s profane gaffe may have been a mistake, but it is also indicative of the degenerate counterculture from which she has risen to stardom and in which she is so deeply entrenched.
The fact that she has a much broader repertoire of vernacular than the f-bomb, but she let it slip out so casually tells me that there were few words that she would have rather used at that time and at that moment. She just didn’t care who would hear it or how it might offend others. She evidently lacks the self-control incumbent upon a professional to exhibit and exercise in public; if not for herself to save face, then for the sake of saving face for her colleagues and her profession. She has a duty to represent herself to her fans with a certain amount of dignity that is respectful of them. She has a duty to represent her profession with a certain amount of dignity that reflects well on her colleagues and on her trade.
I am just sick and tired of hearing celebrities step up on their soap boxes and preach about how we all ought to live, what we ought to say, or how we ought to be tolerant and embrace the differences among us when their lives are often contrary to those things for which they advocate. Whether it’s going green for the sake of saving the environment, or being tolerant and accepting, or not offending others, entertainment celebrities have an uncanny propensity for not practicing what they preach.
I wonder just how much “diversity” exists in Beverly Hills or Malibu, where so many of the pretty people live in sheltered affluence conveniently away from the harsh realities that the rest of us have to live in. Is there much income disparity between celebrity neighbors? How many of them have been foreclosed on? How many homeless or low income people do they come in contact with each and every day between leaving their beachfront houses or private estates for the club, health spa, studios and ritzy restaurants? How much social ambiguity are they exposed to in their daily lives? How the heck can they rightfully preach tolerance, acceptance and understanding when their very lives are so mundanely uniformed, structured and scheduled?
They don’t have to worry about paying bills or taxes. They hire people to manage their finances for them. They don’t have to worry about child-rearing. They hire people to do that for them, too. They don’t have to worry about running a household. They hire more people to do that for them. They take everyday expenses for granted, because they don’t generally have to worry about staying on a household budget.
The very least that Ms. Leo or any other star or starlet can do to be respectful of the rest of us who will never experience the kind of luxurious lifestyle they are privileged to live is to use a little decorum around us and our children. Appropriate speech is not that hard to master. It really is a matter of having presence of mind and cognizance of one’s surroundings.
As a father of three, the very last thing I should have to worry about is what somebody says on primetime broadcast television. With everything else that I must attend to in my daily life, it is an added burden to me that I must explain to my children that saying the “f” word isn’t appropriate even if celebrities use it so casually all of the time.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Hollywood cesspool no place for role models
For decades, the culture of Hollywood has always been of somewhat questionable quality and character, going back even as far as its “Golden Age” of motion picture making in the nineteen thirties and forties.
To preface my narrative, I use the term “Hollywood” loosely to represent the entertainment industry and its popular culture in general: From motion picture film to television to music.
This said, something that has bothered me for years is why the American public insists on idolizing Hollywood in spite of its insipid popular culture and degenerate subcultures.
No matter how many times a celebrity like actor Charlie Sheen unapologetically spits in the face of all that is decent and right with mainstream America and her establishment of traditional values, Hollywood remains fixed on a pedestal of glamour to which many Americans still aspire.
No matter how low the public’s perception of entertainers may reach with every incident of misconduct, Americans are forgiving to a fault just because these cultural degenerates are glamorous, glorious, rich and famous “pretty people.” They are awarded the special treatment simply by virtue of who they are; not what they are.
No matter how debased the personal lives of celebrities become and permeate through their professional and public lives, Americans still idolize and want to be like them.
Americans seem all too willing to tolerate what amounts to a hall pass or a slap on the wrist when a celebrity breaks the law or commits a crime. They are rarely sentenced to the maximum penalty, simply because they are “pretty people” and we don’t want to tarnish the convoluted, ideal image of them that we have somehow deluded ourselves into creating in our minds. As such, these people walk where the average Joe Six Pack or Jane Q. Public would, in all likelihood, get the book thrown at them.
Consider actress Lindsay Lohan for example. How many times has she violated her terms of probation? How many times has she spit on mandates of the justice system by routinely violating court orders?
A bench warrant was sworn out for her arrest in May 2010 after she failed to appear for a review hearing following multiple DUI arrests. However, Lohan’s personal representatives posted her bail, so the judge rescinded the warrant. Money talks, in other words.
Furthermore, she was sentenced in July 2010 to 90 days in jail for her offenses, but she only ended up serving just 14 days due to “overcrowding” issues with non-violent offenders. Uh-huh. Sure. More than likely, Lohan was the recipient of the same special treatment that Paris Hilton received in 2007 after her arrest for a reckless driving DUI. Hilton was sentenced to 45 days in jail, but she only served half of that before being released.
Last year, Hilton was arrested in Las Vegas for felony possession of cocaine. But, she accepted a plea deal from the district attorney’s office and avoided any jail time.
Back to Lohan, her latest misconduct involves a charge of felony grand theft. She is accused of stealing a $2,500 necklace from a jewelry store. She apparently has been offered a plea deal to avoid being sentenced to prison.
Despite her multiple probation violations, and the court’s revocation of her probation, Lohan has managed to avoid any serious consequences by posting bail.
What all of this tells me is that the money of a filthy rich celebrity routinely tips the scales of justice.
Sheen is no exception to this notion, either.
Despite being convicted of assault on his girlfriend in 1996, he walked with a probation sentence. He violated his probation for cocaine related charges in 1998.
On Christmas Day 2009 Sheen was arrested on another domestic violence charge; this time for assaulting his wife, holding a knife to her throat and threatening to kill her. He accepted a plea deal eight months later that dropped the more serious felony charges and he pled guilty to misdemeanor assault instead. His sentence: 30 days in rehab and 30 days probation.
In October 2010, Sheen was arrested for destruction of property to his room at New York’s Plaza Hotel following a drinking and drug binge.
And Charlie Sheen has the nerve to say to America that he is a “rock star from Mars” who deserves to be appreciated, and that he is worth a $3 million raise per television episode? I beg to differ.
Sheen, Hilton, Lohan et al all have one thing in common: They are spoiled, screwed up degenerates who have repeatedly violated the public trust. And yet, we continue to worship and admire them after they have all but spat in our faces. Our justice system remains tilted in their favor by virtue of their celebrity and their money.
When will Americans wake up from dreamland and realize that little good is produced in Hollywood except a cheap thrill? If we want people to look up to, perhaps we ought to start looking locally in our own communities for heroes and heroines who routinely give of themselves and not for themselves. Sure, many of these folks aren’t the “pretty people” we see on television or the big screen; but real beauty runs much deeper than the skin.
Real heroes and heroines aren’t glamorous. They aren’t materially wealthy. They don’t flash us million-dollar smiles and show off a million bucks worth of pearls. They don’t give us interviews, soundbites, or other kinds of titillating stimulation. Rather, they are real people with real lives doing real things that make a real, positive difference in the small part of the world that they live.
But average people aren’t the ones who get the deserved attention; the pretty people of Hollywood are.
And for what? Just for looking pretty?
If human beings were eggs, most of the Hollywood pretty people would look perfect on the outside, but be rotten to the core. Heroes ought to be determined by what is on the inside. If the American public looked more often at what lurks beneath the flawless skin and bodies of many celebrities, there might be a different and more accurate perception of entertainers rather than the false and flattering images that are usually conjured up.
We fought a revolution more than two centuries ago against royalty, nobility and a privileged birthright. But since then, America has been intent on establishing a new culture of royalty and nobility: That of the celebrity.
Celebrities receive special treatment and attention that the average American does not enjoy simply by virtue of who and what they are. They are pop stars—singers, entertainers, movie and television actors/actresses, media personalities, professional athletes and so on—and because of what they are, America awards them a certain amount of undue and unearned respect not for what they’ve done, but rather for their celebrity and for who they are.
I am sickened to think the American nation that the founding generation struggled so hard and sacrificed so much to establish—one based on individual merit, rather than birthright—is being replaced by a social and political oligarchy.
I fear society has resorted to placing greater value on the powerful and influential few, rather than on the hardworking majority that is sweating and bleeding to preserve communities and/or to make them better places in which to live.
If we as Americans are willing to tolerate the degeneracy of their celebrity social order—and continue giving them the royal treatment in spite of their disdain for us—then we don’t deserve a country that places greater value on deed than position.
The love affair with celebrity must end before America’s beau ditches her in the gutter.
To preface my narrative, I use the term “Hollywood” loosely to represent the entertainment industry and its popular culture in general: From motion picture film to television to music.
This said, something that has bothered me for years is why the American public insists on idolizing Hollywood in spite of its insipid popular culture and degenerate subcultures.
No matter how many times a celebrity like actor Charlie Sheen unapologetically spits in the face of all that is decent and right with mainstream America and her establishment of traditional values, Hollywood remains fixed on a pedestal of glamour to which many Americans still aspire.
No matter how low the public’s perception of entertainers may reach with every incident of misconduct, Americans are forgiving to a fault just because these cultural degenerates are glamorous, glorious, rich and famous “pretty people.” They are awarded the special treatment simply by virtue of who they are; not what they are.
No matter how debased the personal lives of celebrities become and permeate through their professional and public lives, Americans still idolize and want to be like them.
Americans seem all too willing to tolerate what amounts to a hall pass or a slap on the wrist when a celebrity breaks the law or commits a crime. They are rarely sentenced to the maximum penalty, simply because they are “pretty people” and we don’t want to tarnish the convoluted, ideal image of them that we have somehow deluded ourselves into creating in our minds. As such, these people walk where the average Joe Six Pack or Jane Q. Public would, in all likelihood, get the book thrown at them.
Consider actress Lindsay Lohan for example. How many times has she violated her terms of probation? How many times has she spit on mandates of the justice system by routinely violating court orders?
A bench warrant was sworn out for her arrest in May 2010 after she failed to appear for a review hearing following multiple DUI arrests. However, Lohan’s personal representatives posted her bail, so the judge rescinded the warrant. Money talks, in other words.
Furthermore, she was sentenced in July 2010 to 90 days in jail for her offenses, but she only ended up serving just 14 days due to “overcrowding” issues with non-violent offenders. Uh-huh. Sure. More than likely, Lohan was the recipient of the same special treatment that Paris Hilton received in 2007 after her arrest for a reckless driving DUI. Hilton was sentenced to 45 days in jail, but she only served half of that before being released.
Last year, Hilton was arrested in Las Vegas for felony possession of cocaine. But, she accepted a plea deal from the district attorney’s office and avoided any jail time.
Back to Lohan, her latest misconduct involves a charge of felony grand theft. She is accused of stealing a $2,500 necklace from a jewelry store. She apparently has been offered a plea deal to avoid being sentenced to prison.
Despite her multiple probation violations, and the court’s revocation of her probation, Lohan has managed to avoid any serious consequences by posting bail.
What all of this tells me is that the money of a filthy rich celebrity routinely tips the scales of justice.
Sheen is no exception to this notion, either.
Despite being convicted of assault on his girlfriend in 1996, he walked with a probation sentence. He violated his probation for cocaine related charges in 1998.
On Christmas Day 2009 Sheen was arrested on another domestic violence charge; this time for assaulting his wife, holding a knife to her throat and threatening to kill her. He accepted a plea deal eight months later that dropped the more serious felony charges and he pled guilty to misdemeanor assault instead. His sentence: 30 days in rehab and 30 days probation.
In October 2010, Sheen was arrested for destruction of property to his room at New York’s Plaza Hotel following a drinking and drug binge.
And Charlie Sheen has the nerve to say to America that he is a “rock star from Mars” who deserves to be appreciated, and that he is worth a $3 million raise per television episode? I beg to differ.
Sheen, Hilton, Lohan et al all have one thing in common: They are spoiled, screwed up degenerates who have repeatedly violated the public trust. And yet, we continue to worship and admire them after they have all but spat in our faces. Our justice system remains tilted in their favor by virtue of their celebrity and their money.
When will Americans wake up from dreamland and realize that little good is produced in Hollywood except a cheap thrill? If we want people to look up to, perhaps we ought to start looking locally in our own communities for heroes and heroines who routinely give of themselves and not for themselves. Sure, many of these folks aren’t the “pretty people” we see on television or the big screen; but real beauty runs much deeper than the skin.
Real heroes and heroines aren’t glamorous. They aren’t materially wealthy. They don’t flash us million-dollar smiles and show off a million bucks worth of pearls. They don’t give us interviews, soundbites, or other kinds of titillating stimulation. Rather, they are real people with real lives doing real things that make a real, positive difference in the small part of the world that they live.
But average people aren’t the ones who get the deserved attention; the pretty people of Hollywood are.
And for what? Just for looking pretty?
If human beings were eggs, most of the Hollywood pretty people would look perfect on the outside, but be rotten to the core. Heroes ought to be determined by what is on the inside. If the American public looked more often at what lurks beneath the flawless skin and bodies of many celebrities, there might be a different and more accurate perception of entertainers rather than the false and flattering images that are usually conjured up.
We fought a revolution more than two centuries ago against royalty, nobility and a privileged birthright. But since then, America has been intent on establishing a new culture of royalty and nobility: That of the celebrity.
Celebrities receive special treatment and attention that the average American does not enjoy simply by virtue of who and what they are. They are pop stars—singers, entertainers, movie and television actors/actresses, media personalities, professional athletes and so on—and because of what they are, America awards them a certain amount of undue and unearned respect not for what they’ve done, but rather for their celebrity and for who they are.
I am sickened to think the American nation that the founding generation struggled so hard and sacrificed so much to establish—one based on individual merit, rather than birthright—is being replaced by a social and political oligarchy.
I fear society has resorted to placing greater value on the powerful and influential few, rather than on the hardworking majority that is sweating and bleeding to preserve communities and/or to make them better places in which to live.
If we as Americans are willing to tolerate the degeneracy of their celebrity social order—and continue giving them the royal treatment in spite of their disdain for us—then we don’t deserve a country that places greater value on deed than position.
The love affair with celebrity must end before America’s beau ditches her in the gutter.
The slippery slope of degeneracy
Whenever a television or film producer decides to push the envelope of public decency further, what I commonly hear from them is that there is market demand for racy material, and that they are only producing what the public wants. Pornography producers routinely say the same thing about the smut that they are pushing. They are only responding to what the market demands.
Bologne.
What these entertainment degenerates know is how debase and carnal human nature is. They know and understand how to appeal to that nature, so that when the average person sees it, he will naturally, impulsively want to see more. What this phenomenon creates, then, is a demand to see more out of initial exposure and its shock value.
So, degenerate producers are right that there is a demand. But what they don’t say is that they are influencing this demand by putting the material out there and waiting for the anticipated human response to it.
Make no mistake: Producers of visual and audio entertainment know well the profound effects of psychology on the average viewer or listener. The material they produce is deliberate, because they know that shock value works in their favor.
Twenty years ago, it was unheard of for television to utter most profane words on prime time broadcasts. There were “bedroom scenes,” but these showed the actors and actresses under the sheets afterward; not during. Today, showing a “sex scene” in prime time is not uncommon. Such scenes show copious amounts of skin, but they fall just short of pornography, because no genitals are exposed or shown. There are sound effects, movements, motions and positioning that are not merely racy or sexually suggestive anymore, but outright explicit.
Even sexual innuendos and humor, which have existed a lot longer than near-nudity has on television, have degenerated to a point where the script might as well belong in a porno movie than on primetime, broadcast TV.
Consider the hit television show “Two and a Half Men” as an example. The prevailing theme for this program is sex. It is centered not around the two brothers and their nephew, but rather the brothers’ adult escapades.
This is probably an exaggeration on my part, but it seems like every other scene in an episode of this show is either sexual, sexually suggestive or contains an explicit innuendo.
The program glorifies casual sex, including extramarital sex. Clearly, the show appeals to carnal nature. There is little to no intellectual value contained in the script. It has thrived on shock value, the very technique discussed earlier that has succeeded in pushing the envelope on decency a little further, and lowering the bar on moral standards. People like the show for its shock value, its racy material, and its edginess in relation to the envelope. Why? Because it appeals to their innate carnal natures, and they tend to want to feed that nature once it has been teased.
Other broadcast television shows similar with high sexual content include “How I Met Your Mother,” “Desperate Housewives,” and “Cougar Town.” All of them focus on sex, because of its power and the effectiveness of its shock value.
It is no wonder that these shows are highly rated.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not blaming the entertainment industry entirely for cultural degeneracy. The public is equally to blame for consuming the material. However, the producers of debased programming are purposely, intentionally and willingly feeding the fire that they helped to start in the first place.
Moral degeneracy is invasive. It starts on the outside and infiltrates to the inside, where it then spreads, metastasizes and becomes pervasive until it permeates the very foundation of a culture, a value and, especially a person’s character.
In order for there to be a plant, there must first be a seed. The debased culture of Hollywood—used loosely to represent the entertainment industry as a whole—has been a seed for planting degeneracy in the popular culture, which, in turn, dictates and drives market demand.
The entertainment industry is thus producing what it ultimately wants to produce, because it has created that demand through the psychological seed of degeneracy.
Don’t let the Hollywood degenerates fool you into thinking that they are merely responding innocently to popular demand.
Balderdash.
They are eager, more than willing to produce debased material, and what they will never tell you is that it has been their desire to do so all along.
Bologne.
What these entertainment degenerates know is how debase and carnal human nature is. They know and understand how to appeal to that nature, so that when the average person sees it, he will naturally, impulsively want to see more. What this phenomenon creates, then, is a demand to see more out of initial exposure and its shock value.
So, degenerate producers are right that there is a demand. But what they don’t say is that they are influencing this demand by putting the material out there and waiting for the anticipated human response to it.
Make no mistake: Producers of visual and audio entertainment know well the profound effects of psychology on the average viewer or listener. The material they produce is deliberate, because they know that shock value works in their favor.
Twenty years ago, it was unheard of for television to utter most profane words on prime time broadcasts. There were “bedroom scenes,” but these showed the actors and actresses under the sheets afterward; not during. Today, showing a “sex scene” in prime time is not uncommon. Such scenes show copious amounts of skin, but they fall just short of pornography, because no genitals are exposed or shown. There are sound effects, movements, motions and positioning that are not merely racy or sexually suggestive anymore, but outright explicit.
Even sexual innuendos and humor, which have existed a lot longer than near-nudity has on television, have degenerated to a point where the script might as well belong in a porno movie than on primetime, broadcast TV.
Consider the hit television show “Two and a Half Men” as an example. The prevailing theme for this program is sex. It is centered not around the two brothers and their nephew, but rather the brothers’ adult escapades.
This is probably an exaggeration on my part, but it seems like every other scene in an episode of this show is either sexual, sexually suggestive or contains an explicit innuendo.
The program glorifies casual sex, including extramarital sex. Clearly, the show appeals to carnal nature. There is little to no intellectual value contained in the script. It has thrived on shock value, the very technique discussed earlier that has succeeded in pushing the envelope on decency a little further, and lowering the bar on moral standards. People like the show for its shock value, its racy material, and its edginess in relation to the envelope. Why? Because it appeals to their innate carnal natures, and they tend to want to feed that nature once it has been teased.
Other broadcast television shows similar with high sexual content include “How I Met Your Mother,” “Desperate Housewives,” and “Cougar Town.” All of them focus on sex, because of its power and the effectiveness of its shock value.
It is no wonder that these shows are highly rated.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not blaming the entertainment industry entirely for cultural degeneracy. The public is equally to blame for consuming the material. However, the producers of debased programming are purposely, intentionally and willingly feeding the fire that they helped to start in the first place.
Moral degeneracy is invasive. It starts on the outside and infiltrates to the inside, where it then spreads, metastasizes and becomes pervasive until it permeates the very foundation of a culture, a value and, especially a person’s character.
In order for there to be a plant, there must first be a seed. The debased culture of Hollywood—used loosely to represent the entertainment industry as a whole—has been a seed for planting degeneracy in the popular culture, which, in turn, dictates and drives market demand.
The entertainment industry is thus producing what it ultimately wants to produce, because it has created that demand through the psychological seed of degeneracy.
Don’t let the Hollywood degenerates fool you into thinking that they are merely responding innocently to popular demand.
Balderdash.
They are eager, more than willing to produce debased material, and what they will never tell you is that it has been their desire to do so all along.
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