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paulmcuk -> RE: "Primetime Propaganda' (6/2/2011 12:06:33 PM)
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quote:
The book makes the case that TV industry executives, writers and producers use their clout to advance a liberal political agenda.
I hope the book highlights some actual examples then or it's quite a poor case. I was an avid Happy Days watcher yet the anti-Vietnam war rhetoric seems to have passed me by (possibly because the show was set before the war started). Famously, early episodes of the show have the Fonz without his trademark leather jacket because the network execs feared it made him look like he was in a biker gang and therefore a bad example to kids. So whatever the efforts of some writers and producers, they need to be against the efforts of sometimes more conservative execs.
In fact, US (non-cable) TV is famously conservative, at least by European standards. Oh, how we chortle when we see TV networks and sponsors prostrating themselves because an actual nipple got shown on TV. Of course, it's not as bad as it was. Black people have been allowed to be portrayed as cops rather than criminals since the seventies, although it wasn't until later that they got to be the cool cops rather than the fat ones behind the desk who tell the cool cops they've only got 48 hours or they're off the case. Lordy, even homosexuals can be portrayed as people just like you and me. All these things were resisted by non-liberal forces in the industry - try looking up what black stars like Nat King Cole had to put up with.
I also hope he defines that liberal political agenda. Is it that black people (and other races) should be treated as equal citizens? That the world doesn't end if women go to work rather than stay at home raising kids? That being nice to each other is kind of a nice idea (and one that Jesus might approve of) which might be furthered by not discriminating against them? These are things that might traditionally be described as liberal - and it could be argued that TV spearheaded the advance of these ideas in shows like Sesame Street (along with the importance of education) - but I'm not aware that conservatives other then extremist loons are aginst them.
M*A*S*H wore its politics on its sleeve so could hardly be called subliminal but where was the liberal propaganda in the Waltons? Little House on the Prairie? Dallas? I Love Lucy? Cheers? Frasier positively poked fun at the "intellecual liberal". Did conservative parents object to the fact that MacGyver solved his problems without a gun? Or, for that matter, that the A-Team fired a million rounds and never actually shot anyone? Ironically, the "sanitising" of these shows was usually seen outside the US as an example of US conservatism in action. I'm annoyed to this day that we in the UK got the US-sanitised version of Battle of the Planets with the dumb, moralistic 7-Zark-7 inserted instead of cool Japanese mega-violence. And while we're on the subject, what was with that cringeingly horrible moralising at the end of every He-Man and Thundercats?
But back to shows the article actually mentions. I didn't really watch Fantasy Island so can't recall its particular form of liberal bias. Charlie’s Angels did promote women as something other than homemakers and there was that clip of Cheryl Ladd in a bikini in the opening credits of the post-Farah era...but on the other hand it WAS pro-gun and ultimately they still worked for a man. Starsky and Hutch had the aforementioned black guy as cop (in charge of the white cops yet!) but he wasn't cool and there was also Huggy Bear to even things up. Also very pro-gun of course, and pro-car. That gay rumour about S&H was unfounded.
Sure, people bring their own bias into their work. And sure, creative types in TV are probably more liberal as a group than average. But since most of us would struggle to find liberal bias in most of the shows mentioned (other than the type of liberality that is supported by most people on left OR right), where's the problem? You guys still alternate between Republican and Democrat presidents as always so it clearly hasn't turned everyone into a raving pinko.
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