Primetime Propaganda:The True Hollywood Story of How The Left Took Over Your TV as reviewed in The Phantom TollboothAn incisive, helpfully non-alarmist book, if those in positions of influence within the Church are paying attention.

Author: Ben Shapiro
Broadside/HarperCollins
 
Ben Shapiro didn't have to do anything but be himself in order to hit upon an ingenius idea. With his Jewish last name on his birth certificate and a baseball cap from the Ivy League university from whose law school he matriculated, it was easy for the columnist/author to book interviews with many of television's most renowned behind-the-scenes names for a book about the socio-political biases of the boob tube's scripted programming.
 
The signifiers of his ethnicity and academic background led his suibjects to believe they were all on the same ideological page as Shapiro. Such is not the case in the least, however, as Primetime Propaganda  reveals TV's liberal bent in its origins and current manifestations.
 
For Shaporo, there was no need to say "Gotcha!" when his subjects willingly volunteered information about just how leftward, and opposed to Chrisianity and many Godly values, their medium leans. It no dount aided the writer's cause that Holloywood types aren't generally conversant with the conservative blogging, either.
 
Any discerning viewer can easily enough pick up on TV's abunance of messaging giving tacit and overt approval to homosexuality, feminism, multi-culturalism, socialist economic policy and other concepts that don't bnecessarily jibe with the masses on whom TV's creative class realy for ratings but whose generally are disrespected by those entertainment providers.
 
For the creatives, their disregard for and vehemence against traditional American (and often Christian) values comes from a blend of liberal guilt over having "made it" while others haven't and the desire to either portray the reality of their viewership as they beliee it to be it...or as they want it to be.
 
The difference between those two leads to Shapiro's distinctions between representative and transformational programs. The latter nigh inevitably tilt toward social engineering of the left, from the generational antagonism of The Mod Squad and  All In The Family  to the approval of same-sex relations in a litany of shows that extend from Soap's '70s breakthrough to currrent hit shows so numerous that they've influenced U.S. teens' perception of just what percentage of the population swings that way (let's just say that your nearest college's Ten Pencent Society's misnamed by several degrees).
 
If TV's content leans left, the reception of conservatives in its creative community comes in gradations. Economic conservatives and military hawks have an easier time of it than those who would support traditional marriage and pro-life causes. Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry can receive peer acceptance by being homosexual and Republican, but an orthodoxly evangelical believer who'd also embrace the more rightward of the GOP's social agenda likely wouldn't stand as fair a shot as a newcomer in Hollyweird. Transferring that to the Church, Grand Rapids transplant emergent pastor Rob Bell will likely make a greater impression with his gig at ABC than, for instance, John MacArthur would have knocking on Fox's door.
 
The pervasiveness of a liberal/left agenda in TV extends not only to dramas and comedies intended for adults, but children's programming, too. Shapiro chronicles the evolution of kids' shows from the wholesome values affirmation of Howdy Doody to the psychological affirmation of Captain Kangaroo (whose chief, Bob Keeshan, was a Doody alum) and beyond to the outright green harangues of Captain Planet and some Disney Channel and/Nickelodeon fare. And if you weren't aware that the majority of TV's creative class embraced, if not involved themselves in the process electing and supporting the agenda of President Obama, you really haven't been watching much on the boob tube, have you?
 
Shaprio concludes by enouraging liberals to stop discriminating against quality contributions made by conservatives, executives to neither be so narrow minded, conservstives to engage the medium boldly as liberals have, and advertisers to rethink the strategy of sponsoring edgy shows meant at least as much to push cultural envelopes than draw high Neilsen ratings. An appendix of Shapiro's top 12 conservative shows in telly history ranges broadly enough to encompass South Park's guerilla political incorrectness and politically lib' but family-affirming The Waltons with probably expected choices such as Dragnet and Leave It To Beaver between (The Cosby Show
tops his list).
 
Regarding those instances where Christian civic and moral values coincide with those of the political right, Shapiro's written an incisive, helpfully non-alarmist book. If those in positions of influence within the Church are paying attention, Primetime Propaganda  offers a helpful diagnosis and action points for taking back some cultural ground long ceded to disagreeable, often dark forces.
 
-Jamie Lee Rake