When I was a child we were warned not to be a Peeping Tom. A Peeping Tom is defined as a voyeur - "A person who gets pleasure, especially sexual pleasure, from secretly watching others."
The West's addiction to reality TV and its second-cousins, sleaze and shock TV, reveals a sickness of the heart -- voyeurism. The subject has even become college English course work.
Pornography, homosexuality, promiscuity, immorality, hubris, decadence, and deviance are all related to the human need for titillation ... the entertainment industry is all to willing to oblige.
The object is no longer art, the object is prurient titillation because a titillated male drives the bottom-line. Add to that mix the growing market of titillated women and the ROI is vastly enhanced. Or so they believe. Yet "G" rated material continues to outsell all others.
Many involved in "the medium of sick" claim there is no measurable media influence on culture ... I guess that explains why Carl's Jr. waste hundreds of thousands having Paris Hilton simulate sex with a double cheese burger! Evidently movie trailers don't work either! Studies show significant media influence upon our culture and thus our worldviews ... even with regards to ethnic demographics.
- sex is no longer adult male-female intercourse, a private and intimate act; it is an all cumers, public free-for-all, and an American "right" (good enough for your local elementary school)
- morality is relative ... but only when convenient.
- homosexuality is gay and an "alternate" lifestyle
- normative becomes a conservative's (now a Republican's) ethical hang-up
By co-opting our vocabulary those who benefit from deviance and decadence can control the extent of media influence. What is happening is so clear that I am speechless that more people don't see it ... but like Lemmings, the march goes on!
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