As if I needed another reason to NOT watch prime time television.
Premiering on ABC this fall is a sitcom called "Modern Family" (9PM, 9/23), starring Ed O'Neill (remember "Married...With Children"?). The synopsis, from ABC.com: "Today's American families come in all different shapes and sizes. Shot from the perspective of an unseen documentary filmmaker, this comedy is a modern look at the complications that come with being a family in 2009."
Sounds innocuous enough, right?
Wrong - included in the mix is a gay couple with an adopted child. Yep. Disney Studios doing their part to propel social engineering. Or rather, social re-engineering. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what some of the "complications" will be: so-called gay marriage and gay adoptions, to name the two biggies. I'm willing to bet that one or more characters on this show will be a "religious intolerant bigot", too. To show 'balance', of course.
I often wonder how much different our culture would be if shows reflected traditional families, dealing with traditional issues. Couples remaining faithful to each other in marriage. Children being respectful of their parents. Parents acting like adults. Fathers not being portrayed as ignorant airheads. Immoral behavior being rejected rather than embraced and glorified. Values such as sacrifice, prudence, modesty, chastity, God and faith being honored rather than vilified. Comes down to two words, really: Sin Sells. It's a shame the American public at large have rejected many of these ideals, replacing them with cheap laughs, scatological humor and being content with settling for the lowest common denominator. Shame on us.
This isn't new - it's been happening for decades (how many years have some of those soap operas been on tv, anyway?). And the crazy part is that we've allowed it to happen. Not all of us, but enough to send a clear message to the producers and creators of these kind of shows: Keep it coming! Push the envelope! Make us laugh! Circuses, circuses!
My bet is that this show won't survive past mid-season. Which really doesn't matter, because the end game for the networks is not individual success of any particular show. It's the eventual transformation of the culture into their perspective of What's Really Important - instant gratification, misapplied tolerance and the relentless advance of the tyranny of relativism.
Instant "Acts"ess
