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Articulating culture in the media age 105

natural set of sentiments that children today would be expected to hold
that are in turn subverted by the media and the cultural elites whose values
are represented in the media.

The problem is that kids sit there and say “Well, what should I do? If I
do this am I going to be an anti-semitist [sic], am I going to be a. . . . ”
We just get labels. And kids don’t really understand who they are.

In Chapter 3, we talked about the implicit Durkheimian boundary
between the secular world, represented by the media and a “sacred” world
that is the turf of religion and spirituality. Glenn believes in this boundary,
and on a rather profound level. In reflecting on the capacities that media
might have to contain what he calls “nuggets” of truth, he turns to an
anecdote from his own life. At an earlier point in his life, when he was
attending a church in California, another parishioner, someone in the film
industry, led a discussion group about current films.

He brought us movies and I can’t remember what they were but he
said “watch this movie” and I started watching this and there was sex,
violence, just nasty language, and then we would go back the next
Sunday and he would say “What did you guys get out of that movie?”
and I was saying “That was an awful movie, it was terrible.” He said,
“No, what did you really get out of it?” And then we had to start
thinking and he would show clips and he said, “See this clip. See what
they are saying here?” They are saying don’t do this, yet they are
showing everybody to do it. It is okay to drink and get drunk. It is
okay to have sex. But he is saying “No, no, no. Look – they are really
saying don’t do those things because look at the terrible things that
happen to the characters.” So, we missed the point. It went over our
heads. I was blown away. Here we are in a Christian church and the
guy has got the blessing of the pastor and I’m going “You have me
watch this movie that has the F word every other word and says do
this and do that and shows this and shows that.” I was offended at
first. Then I went back to the class and thought “Wow, he is right.
There is a message. There is actually a decent message somewhere
here. But do I want to watch all that? I’m not attracted to that! The
secular world, they are probably attracted to that. Are they going to
see it as a subliminal? I don’t know. Is it something they are trying to
teach you through all that? I don’t think so. But somebody had a
nugget and got it in there somehow.”

Glenn obviously began by expecting that, to be appropriate, films must be
free of the derogated elements of sex, violence, and language. He clearly
agrees with the Evangelical taste culture, as described by Hendershot, 37