The TV Show That Changed a Nation

Christians can learn much about how culture change really works in this instructive case study of Hollywood influencers shaping a nation’s opinion, and redefining God’s plan for marriage, not through voting or political action, but through storytelling. Unfortunately, we still overlook the culture changing power of TV shows, movies, books, music, and other cultural goods in hopes that voting “the right person” into office is all we need.

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“When things really begin to change is when the social culture changes. I think Will & Grace did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody has done so far.” – President Joe Biden

Have you ever fantasized about being the President? Being powerful enough to force through the culture change that you seek? Well, the above quote comes from Joe Biden, at the time the Vice President of the United States of America, to David Gregory on May 6th, 2012 on NBC’s Meet the Press, who made this statement when asked to explain his “evolving” position on same-sex marriage. Here we have arguably the second most powerful person in the country admitting that it was not he that was doing the influencing, but he was the one being influenced by a TV show on important policy decisions. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

In martial arts there is a phrase that someone is always controlling time and space, and if it’s not you then it’s your opponent, so be active, and be that someone. Similarly, in the culture, someone is always controlling the story and narrative of what the good life looks like, and if it’s not you then it’s someone else, so you must be active, and be that someone.

Christians can learn much about how culture change really works in this instructive case study of Hollywood influencers shaping a nation’s opinion, and redefining God’s plan for marriage, not through voting or political action, but through storytelling.

Politics is Downstream From Culture

Unfortunately, we still overlook the culture changing power of TV shows, movies, books, music, and other cultural goods in hopes that voting “the right person” into office is all we need. True change happens when someone reads a book that makes them see the world in a new way. True change happens when someone sympathizes with a character in a TV show like Will & Grace and begins to slowly acclimate to a different viewpoint.

If Joe Biden understands this dynamic, when will we? Withdrawing from culture has had disastrous affects for evangelical Christians. But the vacuum cannot remain for long, and so with a great rushing whoosh, there arose a tsunami of LGBTQ+ friendly media and entertainment options to fill the void. And, most educationally for our purposes, none of it was on accident.

A Culture Change “War Conference”

In 1988 a “war conference” [1] of 175 influential gay rights activists met to “establish a four-point agenda for the gay movement”. [2] Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen in Waging Peace: A Gay Battle Plan to Persuade Straight America, a piece written for the now defunct homosexual magazine Christopher Street and since turned into the classic book on using the media to further the homosexual movement, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s, said the conference established as its top priority a nation-wide media campaign promoting a positive image of homosexuals. [3]

In its final statement the group said, “We must consider the media in every project we undertake. We must, in addition, take every advantage we can to include public service announcements and paid advertisements, and to cultivate reporters and editors of newspapers, radio, and television. To help facilitate this we need national media workshops to train our leaders. Our media efforts are fundamental to the full acceptance of us in American life.” [4]

According to Ed Vitagliano, News Editor of AFA Journal, the tenor of the article and book is one of total dissatisfaction with the current strategy adopted by the gay movement. If the old strategy consisted of “urgent whispering into the ears of sympathetic liberal politicians,” [5] Kirk and Madsen said, who passed a few positive pro-homosexual measures in scattered liberal communities. The hope was that either the public wouldn’t notice or would soon become sympathetic to the “gay” movement.

Kirk and Madsen saw this as a fatal flaw because there was “no nationwide appreciation of the gay community, nor sympathy for it, nor even much tolerance toward it.” [6] As Vitagliano recounts, without widespread public support for the homosexual agenda, liberal politicians were not enough to turn the tide. Small victories became short-lived, often overturned by an explosion of public fury—and therein lay the problem.

“Any way you dice it,” the authors wrote, “the enduring obstacle is the public, not its leaders.” [7]

Public Opinion First, Then Politics

In order to truly change the culture, we must change public opinion first, and then politicians. Public opinion first, then politics. When we skip right to the top and “whisper” in “our” politician’s ears then we skip the necessary, foundational steps of winning the public over to our cause. “Most people understand imagery and symbol better than doctrine and dogma. Images touch hearts and awaken imaginations. One theologian suggested that Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love album, in which he symbolically sings of sin, death, despair, and redemption, is more important for Catholics than the Pope’s last visit when he spoke of morality only in doctrinal propositions. Troubadours have always been more important and influential than theologians and bishops.” [8]

Get Your Culture Change Score

We are all called to create for change. How well are you changing the culture around you? Take this free assessment to get your Culture Change Score and find out.

Voting Matters, But is Secondary

Does this mean that we should never advocate for the passage of an unpopular bill? Certainly not. When the tip of the iceberg moment is apparent, as with Obergefell v. Hodges, some twenty-seven years after the fateful conference, one must be willing to fight and campaign for what they believe in. But to attempt to skip the strategic and intentional creation of cultural goods like movies, TV shows, books, and other media that present your viewpoint in a favorable way over those twenty-seven years would be to skip the very groundwork that made the passage of the bill possible in the first place.

Kirk and Madsen espoused a radical, and brilliant new strategy whereby an active and vocal minority might wield the power of TV, movies, radio, books, and mainstream press in order to slowly change the social values of the majority. This changing of the social values of the mainstream should not just be one of the goals of activists, but the goal of every gay activist who wants to truly effect change.

“The gay community needs a plan to get tough on the values of the straight mainstream.” A blueprint that is “calculated and hard-hitting.” How would they achieve this? “It is time to learn from Madison Avenue, and to roll out the big guns,” the writers said. “We are talking about propaganda.” [9]

(Recommended Reading: What is Propaganda?)

Culture Change Through Media

Kirk and Madsen write that “At the core of our program is a media campaign to change the way average citizens view homosexuality.” [10] Television was to play an instrumental role. TV’s “breadth of audience is unparalleled. Because virtually every household owns a TV set and watches it daily, television reaches more of the public than any other medium.” [11]

Clearly, television is almost custom designed for propaganda, as is the Internet today. The authors said TV is “the most graphic and intrusive medium for our message. In everyday life, intrusiveness is considered impolite; but not in public communications, where nine-tenths of the challenge is simply getting people’s attention… [T]elevision is the most cogent medium, combining sight, sound, and motion to make new pictures so vivid that they can displace the old.” [12]

Now, more than thirty years later, this “media campaign” can be considered a rousing success. Without question “Gays and lesbians have used mass communications to serve their own affective and instrumental ends.” [13] Ben Shapiro demonstrates in his book Primetime Propaganda that television is the “culture’s most ardent advocate for gay marriage.” [14]

According to a recent GLAAD study, of the 857 regular characters that appeared on primetime scripted broadcast TV shows for the 2018-19 season, 75 of them identified as LGBTQ. That’s a record 8.8%, the highest number in the 14 years that GLAAD has been commissioning the study. Additionally, there are 120 LGBTQ main or supporting characters on primetime cable shows, and 75 regular LGBTQ characters on streaming shows produced by Netflix, Amazon or Hulu. [15]

Changing Hearts and Minds

President Obama recognized this degree of cultural power and influence when he praised comedian and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres, saying, “Changing hearts and minds, I don’t think anyone has been as influential on that. I really mean it.” [16] GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis, who, now that the acceptance of homosexuality is nearly universal in American culture, could with candor explain at the 27th Annual Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Media Awards in Los Angeles, “With over 100 anti-LGBT bills in state and local levels, our strategy is you: The entertainment industry… Through media and storytelling, we build awareness, galvanize action and accelerate acceptance.” [17]

What might Christians learn from this media as lever of culture change agent case study? If those who oppose Biblical values can intentionally and strategically tell stories that shape the hearts and minds of a nation, what might we do using stories that paint a picture of the true and lasting good life?

He who controls the stories controls the culture. And what better way to do this than through TV, movies, and other forms of popular entertainment?

Get Your Culture Change Score

We are all called to create for change. How well are you changing the culture around you? Take this free assessment to get your Culture Change Score and find out.

[1] Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s Plume, 1990.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ed Vitagliano Invasion of the mind snatchers: The homosexual blueprint to change America’s mind AFA Journal, September 2001 Edition. Last retrieved on July 7, 2019 https://web.archive.org/web/20160305124036/http://afajournal.org/2001/september/homosexual_agenda.asp

[4] Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s Plume, 1990.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Brennan Manning The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out Multnomah August, 2008 p. 95

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Editor, Linda Steiner; Fejes, Fred; Petrich, Kevin (1993-12-01). Invisibility, homophobia and heterosexism: Lesbians, gays and the media. Critical Studies in Mass Communication. 10 (4): 395–422

[14] Ben Shapiro, Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV  Harper Collins, 2011.

[15] Ramin Setoodah, Elizabeth Wagmeister The State of Pride: How Hollywood Is (and Isn’t) Getting Better at LGBTQ Inclusion Variety Magazine, 2019

[16] Barack Obama, quoted in Matt Wilstein, “President Obama Credits Ellen DeGeneres with Turning the Tide on LGBT Equality,” Daily Beast, February 12, 2016

[17] Fr Mark Hodges April 5, 2016 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/lgbtq-activists-tell-hollywood-our-strategy-is-you-the-entertainment-indust

 

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Joel Ohman

Joel Ohman is a serial tech entrepreneur, author, and the chief creator at Created for Change. You can connect with Joel at JoelOhman.com or via LinkedIn.