Hollywood and Our Children

Here's more poisoned fruit produced by a culture that’s rejected the true worldview. “Over the course of the last few years, there has been a ‘dramatic change’ in Hollywood. According to the Parents Television Council, it’s been a very ‘dangerous turn.’ ‘Instead of children just being collateral damage in the way of whatever explicit content they want to deliver to adults, Hollywood now seems to be directly marketing some of the most explicit stuff to children’. . . Such shows . . . include HBO’s ‘Euphoria,’ which focuses on a drug-addicted teenager; Hulu’s ‘PEN15’; and Netflix’s shows ‘Sex Education’ and ‘Big Mouth.’ These are shows that are overtly teen-targeted and are very troubling, very pornographic, very toxic in nature,” PTC said. Interestingly, PTC also noted the “FCC publicly confirmed what the PTC has been saying for years about the TV content rating system and its inaccuracies, inconsistencies and lack of oversight in really serving the needs of parents as opposed to protecting the financial interests of Hollywood.”

Money Talks

Sadly, this state of affairs is not surprising. Not only are kids less discerning, they’re a massive target market, and once they’re won over, they’re customers for life in most cases. Hollywood doesn’t care about the destruction that ensues in the form of bad decisions, broken relationships, std’s, depression, and the like. Money talks.

Be Involved

Our response is to be hands-on proactive in our children’s lives. We have no excuse how they’re influenced if we’re not. Someone will train your children. Will it be you or Hollywood? You have to engage.

Create Culture

Beyond that, we need to talk to the next generation, not about withdrawing from the world into our fortresses, but about exerting influence in the world. God gave us a dominion mandate in Gen. 1:28 and repeated it after the flood. By way of application to this context, we subdue the earth through creation and cultivation – the creation and cultivation of good culture. We certainly seek to supplant bad culture like Hollywood’s destructive product. We do that by promoting Christ, His gospel, and the application of the gospel in our culture. We also do that by creating better culture. It’s part of how we’re to be salt and light. We need Christians to make movies with Hollywood quality and with better messages – not movies that are second rate at best. God deserves better, and so do our children.

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