Not in the Morality Business

By: American Decency Staff

Stanley Fish wrote a recent Op-Ed in the Los Angeles times under the observant title, "Hollywood isn't in the morality business." This, of course, is not a newsflash to those of us who are in the morality business, so to speak, but Stanley Fish is not in our ranks either. He is a literary critic and the Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School and is apparently famous, as far as literary critics go.

Fish is not chiming in with the conservative Christian voice to call Hollywood to task for its glorification of extramarital sex, pointless swearing, and gratuitous violence; he's responding to the controversy regarding the lack of black actors/actresses nominated for an Oscar award.

Professor Fish's point is that Hollywood is not paid to be social activists, they're paid to sell movies and they do that by making the movies their audience will buy.

"Like the manufacturers of any product, studios must determine what their target consumers want — what features are likely to get people to part with their money. And if they believe that moviegoers will be either turned off or unexcited by minority themed and populated films, it would be irrational to offer that product, just as it would be irrational for automobile makers to offer small, gas-efficient cars when the market demand is for SUVs.

The result might look like blatant discrimination or willful disregard of the cultural environment, but the statistics, rather than reflecting a malign intention, would reflect a reasonable, even obligatory, choice…"

Of course, that's true for ethnic and social categories, but it's equally true for religious and ethical categories.

Whether Hollywood has shaped our culture's view of morality or not (and of course they have), they are also catering to the desires of their audience. We can, and should, blame the corrupting influence of the movie and television studios, but they are only making the movies we ask them to make.

As a country in which 70% of citizens claim to be Christians, we ought to be demanding entertainment more in line with Biblical morality, but then we ought to be voting in line with those morals too, and that doesn't seem to be happening either.

There's nothing surprising any more in the fact that for all the "christians" in America, our culture is radically out of alignment with fundamental Christian virtues.

And that, as Professor Fish explains (probably not on purpose), is why we have problems like racial discrimination and movies like "Dirty Grandpa."

"I don't know of anything better to suggest, but I do know that the solution, if there is one, will not be found in the warring pieties that now command the conversation: On the one hand the piety of doing the right thing, and on the other, the piety, beloved by conservatives and some aging movie stars, that we should consider merit and only merit.

The trouble with the first piety is, as I have argued here, that doing the right thing is not the industry's business. The trouble with the second is that no one has any idea of what merit is, or — and it amounts to the same thing — that every side has its own definition. “Merit” is just a slogan whose content is always political despite the usual claims to neutrality and objectivity…"

As I mentioned, Fish is not a Christian and is probably not conservative, as we can see in his indecisive definition of "merit."

Sadly, that disdain for a definitive moral standard is representative of our postmodern culture, and so, in a practical sense, Fish is not wrong.

The only standard that film-makers have to go by, unless they are religious, is that of whichever camp represents the largest possibility for financial gain.

All of this goes to illustrate the gaping hole that Christians leave in American culture when we refuse to engage it to the best of our ability, not only in Hollywood, but in all of life.

Hollywood and politics are the easiest examples, but the economy and society are affected as well.

How different would society look if people really recognized the Imago Dei in their fellow man, regardless of gender or ethnicity or age, as the Bible teaches?

How different would the economy look if corporations were held by their customers to the Biblical standard of honesty?

What would the government look like if citizens really loved their neighbors as themselves, not as part of some government program, but from a genuine desire to help the less fortunate and share Christ's love?

How would the family look if husbands loved their wives like Christ loves the church and both parents were involved enough in their children's lives to diligently teach them the Bible?

The main message of this ministry has always been that Christians are called to be, "salt and light," and our nation and our world need more of that than ever before.

Stanley Fish may not have the solution to the film industry's problems, but Jesus does. As His hands and feet, it's our job to make sure the world knows what that solution is.

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