I’m researching religion and I’m religious, so I’m biased. Nevertheless, I cannot help thinking that the mantra that religious people thrust religion down your throat is the perfect scapegoat. I believe religion/spirituality is making a come back, but it has relatively little visibility.
It is very useful to pile up one’s suspicions, fears and hatred against one general phenomenon, such as religion. Much harder is to look around and see what clogs up our minds, what causes compulsive behaviour, be it consumption, selfishness and mindless competition against others.
Religion has been a great force for evil. It has been used and abused in the atrocious ways, but to keep on thinking that religious institutions or people are brainwashing us to …. To do what exactly?
Some are reactionary, homophobic, sexist and disrespectful of other people’s opinions. They are everything but pious, but think hardly everywhere thrusting religion down our throats. Are the majority of religious people and movements brainwashing us to treat people with no respect, to consider life lived ‘to the full’ when under the influence of drugs, and to care only about ourselves?
What stops us reflecting on ourselves is the culture of emptiness propagated by the media, where entertainers are ‘stars’, make huge profits notwithstanding a distinctive lack of ability, let alone talent. They impersonate an epoch of vacuity and vanity.
We feel outrage at MPs’ fiddling of expenses, bankers’ bonuses, but no sign of displeasure with some TV personality earning millions. It’s not public money but the entertainment industry revolves around the trashing of our imagination. It also portrays life according to racial/national stereotypes, homophobia, blindness towards disability and, of course, the debasement of sex.
The commodification of sex has gone mainstream and, perhaps, it wouldn’t be so bad if there was a movement for ethical entertainment, something like the Italian Slow Food movement, which reacted against the ‘McDonaldsation’ of society.
I’m not saying all entertainment treats human relationships through the pornographic eye, but most of the love and sex in the media is false, empty and, often, debasing.
Yet, the ‘message’ of pornography, which defines us as creatures driven only by our instincts, has gone mainstream. I feel it’s so because of the lack of alternatives. As consumers, we have demanded the ‘healthy option’ from what we eat; yet, somehow, we care more about our food than how we see ourselves and how we think.
Love seems to me the most complex and yet all-encompassing experience of all, do we really want to deprive it of the spirit? Can we have an ethical entertainment movement? If we leave it to the theo-cons, we leave ourselves no options open to us.
This is a reflection from a liberal religious person who would like to think that there’s more to humanity than what entertainers give us. Of course, I’m biased.
9 comments:
The difficulty with campaigns for ethical entertainment is that they've tended to overextend themselves. The Slow Food movement is (at least so far as I understand it) just trying to ensure the existence of an alternative to McDonalds; Mary Whitehouse et al's reaction is that the bad things should not be seen by anyone (or as my favourite columnist, Gregg Easterbrook, conflated the two, "Why shouldn't I be allowed to eat steak because a baby can't chew it?")
Yes, but that's why I was saying that it should be left to the bigots. Small steps would help a lot, such as actors who are 'normal', i.e. not all white skinny and looking all the same. A couple of months ago, I was having an afternoon tea with a couple of friends, a woman from northern ireland and a man from egypt. Find a film where you get an irish, an italian and an egyptian having tea in wales or wherever. It's nothing weird, but in the media normal people like us are invisible. Better casting would be so easier!! A lot could be done by those in the industry. I wasn't arguing for legislation.
I believe religion/spirituality is making a come back, but it has relatively little visibility.
Yes it is, Francesca. No need for the hard sell but rather sound advice if it's asked for.
I'm not sure I understand your point, James. My post is about my frustration with the media, above all, replete with debasing images, with a commodified sexuality and a portrayal of life dominated by empty success. It's about reclaiming that public space for meaning, not for 'advice if it's asked for'. Am I misinterpreting you?
Without people more committed to use that public space with meaning, we will be left with pornographers and bigots.
There are people using the media to do something different, but that niche needs to develop.
I think this happens because it's one of our weakest points (I don't know if this phrase sounds clear in English).
I mean one of the weakest points for men...
and this weak point is exploited by other men and sometimes by women so there is a huge amount of economic interests (but not only economic) behind this trend.
I think the problem with bigotry is that it compels bigots to impose their idea of happiness to the others, often make them to suffer more...
but you're right that the opposite extreme is biased too.
They pretend to free men (often also women!) from bigotry and coerced happiness, which is actual suffering, but they end up just using a different mean for imposing their wish upon others: instead of superstition or inquisition they use seduction and mass media. Both the extremes bring us to a deadly conformism.
great post. thank you
you talking out institutional religion..all ya need is a bible and the word..the rest don't matter
my post was a criticism to our shallow and vulgar 'culture', not religion. To dismiss institutional religion tout court is nonsense. The point is to make 'hierarchies' accountable.
You bring up a very interesting point here. As much as I think it's great that our society gives people near total freedom, people end up getting what they want rather than what they ought to have, which has led to an explosion of shallow entertainment. Compounding the issue is the difficulty of trying to get voices heard in fiction that aren't those of straight white men, as that's who most writers privileged enough to be in the industries a while back knew how to write for, and who they still seem to perceive as being the biggest target audience.
Perhaps your best bet is to try to push the zeitgeist slowly but surely, encouraging more women to join entertainment industries as writers rather than just performers, and to encourage writers in general (even the men) to try to write for more than just the teenage male demographic occasionally. It's scary how few films pass the Bechdel test in this day and age, but bit by bit, everyone can help improve this.
So although I wouldn't really change the system of supply and demand that inevitably leads to the insane profitability of entertainment and the encouragement of fascination with base desires, I fully agree with you that we should strive to make entertainment that rises above this, at least in part.
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