What Happens When Todays Entertainment Becomes Tomorrows Culture?
Synthesis on Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:39 PM ESTNews Type: Other Since at least the 1940s, when Dr Frederic Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent argued that comic books were damaging our youth and causing juvenile delinquency, there has been an ongoing debate: does art create culture or merely reflect it? For years, the standard answer on the part of content creators has been that film, books, movies and video games reflect society rather than creating or directly influencing it: movies about gun violence reflect the fact that we live in a gun culture, rather than creating a demand for firearms on our streets; misogynist rap tunes about @!$%#es and hos and pimping reflect dysfunctional gender role understanding, they don’t exacerbate it or create roles that young men feel they need to emulate. There was a time I believed this. There was a time — as an aspiring writer, a wannabe champion of those who toil in creative pursuits — when I wanted (yearned!) to support this notion, in the name of a
