By KEVIN M. CUSICK
It was not long ago that Hollywood paid more than lip service to the families who keep it in business. The stars’ mansions, jets, yachts, and private islands that provide great photo ops for gossip tabloids are paid for by the American families who watch Hollywood movies and buy its franchised merchandise — videos and many other products. You wouldn’t know it anymore.
Hollywood’s condescension toward ordinary Americans for years has been abundantly evident in its storylines that ridiculed parents and Christian morals and corrupted children. Now it has come to the surface in spades.
But let’s take a trip back in time almost 50 years to see just how far removed Hollywood now is from real America, going so far as to bite the hands that feed it.
What a difference a half century years makes. The Partridge Family was the hippest family-friendly show back in the 1970s when just about all of TV was still family-friendly to begin with. In one episode, David Cassidy’s character is experiencing a personal crisis due to his tentative foray into politics. He’s running for student body president and having doubts about his prospects against a girl who may be plain while he is a heartthrob, but she is definitely smarter and better qualified.
Cool as he is, the pop music icon for millions of girls and the idol of every guy who longs to be a rock star, he turns to his mom. Shirley Jones, as you may remember, plays his mother. He knocks on her door just before bed one evening and asks if he can talk. She invites him in and they have a heart-to-heart, Mom to son. He confides his doubts about running for president and his temptation to react by quitting.
This confidence leads to a parental pep talk seldom heard any more. Mrs. Partridge does not immediately concur with his plan. She tells him a story about her own experience of competition against a formidable foe, another potential cheerleader, during her own high school years. Yes, her competitor was better looking, more talented, and more popular. And, yes, Mrs. Partridge did lose the competition for the open spot on the cheer squad. But that doesn’t mean she would have done better to quit before the final vote, she avers.
She counsels him to examine his motives very closely before deciding to quit. And, if he does drop out, he should do so for the right reasons.
“If nobody ever lost,” she says, “we wouldn’t know what winning meant.”
Yes, what a difference these intervening years have seen. Today a TV parent is rarely sought out for advice by a child. Commitment is also now much less attractive than quitting.
In keeping with what happens all too often in the public schools, children are soon spiritually separated from their parents’ influence. Parents are now seen as the enemies of the best interests of the child. Gender ideology is introduced under the name “anti-bullying” and homosexuality is introduced in the guise of sex ed, often without parental permission or knowledge. This agenda is glamorized by Hollywood films and abetted by millions of dollars through Hollywood personalities.
Marital and other modes of commitment are not popular in a societal subgroup that glamorizes divorce and regularly uses the word “marriage” to describe adulterous serial monogamy.
It is a widely acknowledged sociological certainty that parents begin to lose influence over their children the moment they set foot into a public school. Children who graduate from public schools often leave the practice of the faith, which itself necessitates commitment.
Trying and losing is part of life for everyone, whether running for president of the student body or of the USA. Hollywood denizens are in the forefront of those whiners who cannot get behind the American electoral system and acknowledge that the voters have decided and that we now have a new president.
Meryl Streep was honored with an award akin to a coronation at the recent Golden Globes, an annual mutual admiration society love-in for Hollywood royalty. She took the occasion to deliver a speech indicting the president-elect and all the Americans who decided he was the best candidate for the job. Not perfect; far from it, but just the best one available at the time. Streep sought to divide in the name of uniting, insisting that Trump is against the media, Hollywood, and immigrants.
In response I tweeted: “Ha, ha #merylstreep: love you but it’s not about where we’re from but what we intend that makes us Americans. Be an actress & do that well.” Others claimed that if she and others keep this up they will only help Trump further in future elections.
Bitterness in the face of worldly loss is especially devastating for the pagans in Hollywood and politics who believe that this world is the only one. For us of faith, however, losing for real means committing sin, which can cast both body and soul into Gehenna for an eternity. Winning for us faithful means facing the true evil of sin because it can destroy our lives eternally.
Commitment to God’s mercy through accepting and loving His forgiveness in Christ comes through admitting we’ve lost the battle with evil — not by making excuses which that deny good and evil exist. We all lose when we reject the difference between the two.
To be a Christian means to admit you’ve been a loser in the battle against evil through sin and to seek true victory, which is only possible in Christ. This is the means of commitment to ourselves that Mrs. Partridge sought to impart to her pop star son, who was struggling with aspects of life where his talents came up short. Good parents encourage their children to try because it is good for building character, the strength that helps our children live in commitment to every aspect of life, including faith.
Now for the end of the story about the Partridge Family: In the end, David Cassidy’s character turns his final campaign speech into a noble appeal for the victory of his competitor. She deserves to win, he says, because of her bright ideas and ability to bring them about. He quit for the right reasons and thus shared in the victory which brought about good for all.
In politics, some win and some lose. And some go on to fight another day. In the combat of faith, however, it is only when we lose ourselves for the sake of Christ that we can win, for only in His death and Resurrection is found sure victory for all mankind.
@MCITLFrAphorism
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