Last Sunday afternoon I watched a movie on Turner Classic Movies which was first issued in the ’30s when I was in high school. Bing Crosby played Father O’Malley in “The Bells of St. Mary’s.” The movie was replete with subtle suggestions about ethical behavior: the separated mother and father reunited; the local skinflint became a benefactor; the good guys prospered and the bad guys saw the error of their ways and reformed.
Then, on the Oscar’s anniversary program, I found I had seen every winner until about 1955, when television sets became a necessity in almost every living room. Everybody went to the movies in those pre-TV days—they were cheap entertainment, and escapism opportunities from the difficulties of real life during the Depression and the World War II era. Those movies promoted virtues like loyalty, patriotism, healthy family relationships and the good guys winning.
Of course, I was struck by the promotion of cigarette smoking, but that wasn’t viewed as a health threat then. We were influenced to look sophisticated by smoking and dressing in a glamorous way, which even working girls (which didn’t mean prostitutes in those days) could afford.
Most of us didn’t realize that we were being subjected to the ‘silent sell,’ which was later labeled by Vance Packard as the ‘Hidden Persuaders,’ but the influence was largely for the benefit of ethical behavior and good citizenship.
When I look at current movies and current television from my educated perspective, I see very different influences at work. Especially those movies attended by young people (although God knows how they can afford them). They focus on lasciviousness rather than love, on crime as a profitable occupation, on the veniality of people in high places, and blood, blood, blood. The previews for most of the movies have convinced me that I don’t want to see them. Unfortunately, it is not difficult to find real-life experiences reported on TV and in the papers which validate what the entertainment media are purveying. But which came first? The chicken or the egg?
None of us, even us smarties who know what’s being done to us, can resist the influence. The other night when it was very cold and I had a meeting to go to, I wore my long fur coat and tennis shoes. Five years ago, I would have changed my shoes before going out. I still don’t wear blouses longer than my coats, although the fashion mavens tell me I can. And the new look for spring is a return to the psychedelic short skirts and violent colors of the late ’60s. When a friend told me she wished she had kept those Puccis and Guccis, I asked if she would wear them now? Her answer was, “Of course, they’re in style!”
Truly, those influences about fashion are unimportant, although my generations and several more were brought up to care about them. What I am concerned about is the influence on the young of those inescapable, violent, criminal, selfish, self-indulgent role models shown on the entertainment media. They are indeed hidden persuaders and the increasing depravity of young people is their spawn.
Since all these radical changes began with steps in freedom, which I applauded at the time—but which have progressed pendulum fashion to conditions I deplore—I can hardly wait for the pendulum to return to the middle ground. I might live that long, given my heredity!