Popular Culture and Shaping Public Opinion

I finally saw Avatar this past weekend. A brief synopsis in keywords: brilliant imagery, stunning cinematography, noble savage, Gaiaism, technology sucks, America sucks, and the military sucks. James Cameron embeds almost every Hollywood leftist ideal into Avatar, same as he did for Titanic, his harangue against high-class WASPs. Ironically, even with such transparent pandering, many critics found Avatar patronizing and offensive. But his main message, ostentatiously symbolized throughout the entire film, was the connected Planet with a sentient spirit guiding all life. And Cameron admits to this theme, stating his "interest in saving the world that my children are going to inhabit" and encouraging everyone to be a "tree hugger".

The importance of Avatar, now the highest grossing film ever, and Cameron's leftist proselytizing goes beyond this particular movie or those that watched it. While culture remains a complex combination of all sorts of competing social phenomena, popular culture and the corresponding ideas are of utmost importance in shaping the current zeitgeist. It is through this tacit propaganda that lies (admittedly from both the right and left, though the latter has far more PR) propagate.

Yesterday, Chuck Ross at GLPiggy discussed the saccharine display at this year's Emmys:

Unfortunately, these Hollywood types are so guilt-ridden at the ease with which they float through their lives that they must underscore their humanitarian efforts at every turn by highlighting the lives of courageous and unique individuals. And whichever academy votes for these winners almost always votes for the sympathetic underdog. It’s off-putting though.

Of course, I’d be naive if I didn’t mention the underlying issues here. Autism advocacy is a hot-button issue du juor in H-wood, and the “right to death” argument is near-and-dear to liberals’ hearts. It only makes sense that Hollywood would find a way to pay homage to their selected issues by disguising it as praise for the “pioneers” in each of these fields.

But it didn't stop there. One year after Mad Men and its implicit denunciation of 1960's chauvinism and racism dominated, Modern Family raked in the awards in 2010. The show primarily follows these interrelated people: a gay couple with an adopted Vietnamese baby, cuckolded white patriarch and a much younger Hispanic bride (she is gorgeous though), and a nuclear family with the archetypal dumb father. At the very least, the creators aren't entirely dismissive of the idea that popular culture affects change:

Backstage, Mr. Stonestreet was asked if he thought the show had influenced the same-sex-marriage debate in California. Without wading into that specifically, he said, “We get amazing compliments from kids of same-sex-marriage families”. Echoing Mr. Stonestreet in an interview, Mr. Levitan said, “We’re here to make people laugh,” but added, “I think that if people fall in love with Cam and Mitchell, then maybe they’ll be a bit more understanding when they’re thinking about those issues at the ballots or in general in life.”

Yet some people don't understand the relevancy of how gradual changes in popular culture manifest in political and social environments. "It's not real" or "I just ignore that." Remember Murphy Brown - the character lionized for being a single mother. Dan Quayle made a statement on the significance of fathers and the bad example set by the show. Of course, the media and Murphy Brown's writers self-righteously trashed him as stupid and intolerant.

There's been much talk about America's conservative renaissance in a political context; I say the few Hollywood conservatives must also focus on producing competing material for the politically incurious masses to consume.