Ben Shapiro
By Ashley Andrews, 700 Club Interactive
CBN.com –Ben Shapiro is, in one word, smart. At sixteen, he enrolled in the political science program at UCLA, graduating summa cum laude four years later. At seventeen, he became the youngest nationally syndicated columnist in the US. Then at twenty-three, Shapiro earned his Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Harvard Law School. He is a lawyer turned consultant turned author. And today, at just twenty-seven years old, Shapiro host's his own show, The Ben Shapiro Show, and has authored four bestsellers, Brainwashed, Porn Generation, Project President and most recently Primetime Propaganda.
PRIMETIME PROPAGANDA
Shapiro is not one to shy away from a challenge. So, when he saw an opportunity to expose the hidden leftist agenda in the entertainment industry, that's just what he did. His book Primetime Propaganda is a detailed look into the history of television - how it began and how it evolved. But, more the point, Shapiro reveals the bigwigs behind the steady leftist slant in television. Interviewing kingpins like Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H), Fred Silverman (former president of ABC Entertainment, NBC, and vice president of programming at CBS), Marta Kauffman (Friends), David Shore (House), and Mark Burnett (Survivor), Shapiro gets honest answers from over one hundred of "the industry's biggest players."
Primetime Propaganda is Ben's attempt to prove to viewers that Hollywood's liberal crowd has been vending their ideals through television for sixty plus years, and that their influence throughout the entertainment industry has inevitably shaped America socially, politically and economically.
WHAT ABOUT THE FAMILY?
To Ben, "There is no more subversive social force than culture - and there has been no more powerful voice in our culture than television." At its start, Shapiro writes that television was "childish and immature." It "catered to the lowest common denominator" for fear of "controversy." But, over time, as America grew more liberal, programs began to mirror that "nascent liberalism, taking new risks and depicting new realities." Their reward: ratings and profits. Liberals, he contests, have "successfully merged lowbrow entertainment with liberal political messaging." Because of that, they have not only have ratings but propaganda power as well. They have "the best of both worlds." But just how did this happen? Well, according to Shapiro, it started when television shows caused breaks within the family.
In the beginning, TV was meant to bring the family together with shows like Leave it to Beaver and The Dick Van Dyke Show. Gradually though, shows began targeting family members, and this cause a break in the family home. Shapiro describes that "Breaking apart family viewing meant more than simply fracturing family time; it meant treating each individual member of the family as an adolescent, free of care and responsibility. Targeting Dad qua Dad meant producing a very different show than targeting Dad as a member of the family audience. Dad qua Dad probably watches Spike TV and enjoys sports and violence, whereas Dad as a family member probably likes Bill Cosby. Mom qua Mom watches Sex and the City rather than identifying with Debra Barone.
Without Mom and Dad there, Billy's probably watching MTV. And Jane is in the other room, checking out what's on CW." In the end, we are left with "undermined family roles" that have been "compartmentalized" by their "consumption of television."
Example? For this, Ben asks that we take a look at "Dad," inarguably the best example of an "undermined family role." Originally, there was Father Knows Best. This father was the "responsible head of the household who cared for his wife and children." He "put bread on the table." Then came All in the Family's Archie Bunker, a "benighted bigot" who was "constantly bested by his more tolerant and cleverer son-in-law." Next was Homer Simpson, the "moronic, abusive, drunk and foolish" father, which unfortunately is the daddy symbol we have today.
INCREASE IN INFLUENCE
While Ben believes that society can certainly think and reason for itself, he does insist that TV is a "heavy hitter “when it comes to cultural influences. He shares that "...culture is far too complex to be led in top-down fashion by television executives and creators. But what they can do is identify 'realistic' trends, then bring those trends to the public's attention, thereby heightening and accentuating the trend. Unsurprisingly, the trends the television executives and writers focus on are almost invariably liberal." How so?
In re-hashing the past few decades of TV programming, Shapiro proves just how leftist programs have been. In Friends, "The One with the Birth" portrayed "pregnant lesbians and three parent households as not only normal, but admirable...And it wasn't just a random episode of Friends," he writes. Just think. "While Ross was busy walking his lesbian ex-wife down the aisle for her wedding to her new lover, Samantha was chatting graphically about oral sex with Charlotte on Sex and the City; Shavonda and Sarah were going topless and French kissing each other on The Real World: Philadelphia; a gay man and a single woman were considering whether to have a baby together on Will & Grace; Kate was deciding in favor of abortion on Everwood; and the city of Springfield was legalizing gay marriage on The Simpsons."
Of course, not everything on TV is liberal. As Ben points out, we have sports and the History Channel, which is easily "apolitical." And then there is the news media, which, well...that particular subject, he mentions, has already been "exhausted by Ann Coulter and Bernie Goldberg."
THEIR DEFENSE
Today, liberals argue two points. First, "liberal creators, executives and producers argue that their shows are not liberal, but rather realistic...shows like Married...with Children; In Living Color; Beverley Hill, 90210; Melrose Place; Party of 5; and The OC 'all spoke with a more realistic voice'..." But while, they may very well "pick realistic stories that spring from their own daily lives," Ben argues that "their shows do not reflect the daily lives of those who watch them." Second, "Hollywood leftists" insists that their shows aren't necessarily produced to be so left-sided. "They simply respond to market conditions." In other words, they just give the people what they want. But Ben asserts that this way of thinking is backwards. In fact, the exact opposite is true. It's like this - "Every network must convince advertisers that its viewers are the most valuable." These networks do that by "focusing on certain segments of the viewing public." It just so happens that networks almost always favor "young, urban audiences" over "older, rural, more conservative" folk. Why? They're "younger, hipper, and wealthier." Ultimately, young'ins are easy to sell. And advertisers agree.
SIXTY-YEAR HEAD START
For sixty years, television has been a platform for the liberal movement in entertainment. During the early years of TV, Ben notes that Hollywood deity, so to speak, was "replete with liberal Jews." There was Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart and Phil Silvers - just to name a few. Ben credits this liberal Jewish majority to the fact that "artists are generally alienated from society...and assimilated Jews were alienated from both their religious heritage (making them liberal) and the broader society. Jews were already restricted from many top law schools and medical schools, but they were welcome in the artistic community, which is by definition a community of outcasts."
Today, the liberal dynasty is still running strong, but Ben ensures that that certainly doesn't give conservatives the luxury to sit back. Most liberals in Hollywood, Ben affirms, are not "insane" or "anti-conservative." In fact, there are far from it. Most are forthright, kind, and generous people who want to use their talents to benefit humanity...most are good family people with loving spouses and happy, well adjusted children. Many of them don't even try to infuse their politics into their shows, and some even bend over backward to present a conservative viewpoint. But," he warns, "There are plenty who are more than willing to shut conservatives and the conservative viewpoint out of the business. And when conservatives shut themselves out because they object to liberalism on television, they do liberals a favor."
It is time that the conservative viewpoint step up and make their presence known. As Ben sees it, the liberals have had a sixty-year head start - conservatives have some catching up to do.