The Media Sells Out

Review by Mike Gange

Vulgarians at the Gate

by Steve Allen

Prometheus Books, $26, 399 pages

Televison has become too trashy, radio too raunchy and movies deliver only immature gross out films. According to Steve Allen, one of television's original funny men, our popular culture has lost its sense of values, selling more sleaze than entertainment. What was once classy, now panders to the lowest common denominator. And it is causing a fallout of unwanted pregnancies, abortions, increased drug use and violence.

Allen, the original host of the Tonight Show, died last fall. His book, Vulgarians at the Gate, published posthumously, take a dim view of today’s entertainment industries. Allen was a respected stand up performer, writer and comedian who never slipped profanity into his comedy routines in his more than 50 years of performing. He wrote more than 50 books and more than 8 000 songs as well as creating, hosting and producing several award winning television programs.

The problem, Allen wrote, comes from many sources. Because the cable television industry has stripped viewers from the original TV networks, the networks have had to resort to airing increasingly degrading programming to win the ratings war.

Meanwhile the ownership of the media corporations has shifted from family controlled firms that were headed by a recognizable individual to a corporate genealogy where profits are passed up from division to parent company. Nameless executives make decisions based on the bottom line and shareholder expectations of return on investment.

Sponsors, said Allen, are to blame too, because they want to be delivered to the largest number of eyeballs, regardless of the material, knowing that some viewers or readers don’t approve but pay attention because of the shock value in their material.

The artists are also a huge part of the problem, he said, often misinterpreting star power for an opportunity to promote their own tolerance of depravity. People like Howard Stern and Jerry Springer over emphasize sexual motives, crudeness, profanity and violence that will shape our lives for years to come, he wrote. And the profanity in lyrics recorded by artists like 2 Live Crew, Tupac Shakur, and Eminem will leave future generations as a legacy of desensitized anti-social beings that spawn misogenistic views, violence and intolerance that will be problematic for social workers, communities, schools and police to deal with, predicted Allen.

Allen saved special admonishment for pop singer Madonna, who according to Allen, markets not beauty but ugliness, but is embraced by millions as an Icon. Allen described her antics in more than 10 pages, including a transcript from her appearance on David Letterman’s show, where she embarrassed the usually glib host into wordlessness by presenting him with her underpants and then had to be continually reminded to tone down her offensive language.

All these are contributing to the crises of family disintegration, ineffective schools, negligent parenting that are part of society today, wrote Allen. "Among researchers, the proposition that entertainment violence adversely influence attitudes and behavior is no longer controversial; there is overwhelming evidence of its harmful effects," he wrote. "Numerous studies show that degrading images of violence and sex have a desensitizing effect. Nowhere is the threat greater than to our at-risk youth whose disadvantaged environments make them susceptible to acting upon impulses shaped by violent and dehumanizing media imagery."

Although Mr. Allen gives the media a good tongue lashing, he does not give the impression that all is lost. He has listed many resource organizations and media contacts actively trying to re-focus the entertainment media. These include medical professionals, media watchers, and foundations that support a more moderate approach to what is published or broadcast today. He included several of the many letters he had written to media executives as he tried to make them aware of his concerns and encouraged readers to use his ltters as a model.

This is no conservative rant at the liberal entertainment industry. Although short on supporting data, this book is long on passion, bringing forward concerns about what the media has become, from one who knows what the industry could be and ought to be.

Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism at Fredericton High.