Hollyworldview

I suppose it’s a "chicken or the egg" type thing. Or maybe not. Maybe they both just started very small but quickly formed a symbiotic relationship, feeding off of each other until becoming the monster we have today.
I’m talking about the philosophy of entertainment media and the philosophy of the average American.
Yesterday I watched "Dan In Real Life" with my wife and parents. Great movie, by the way. But like so many movies, it promotes a concept for relationships that is juvenile. In fact, the overly-dramatic junior high daughter, who thinks she knows what it means to love a boy after knowing him only three days, is the character from whom we ultimately "learn our lesson." It turns out that the dad in this film was wrong the entire time to insist that his junior high daughter doesn’t know what that kind of love is. Turns out he was wrong to keep his daughter from dating this boy she "loves" until they are both a couple years older. Once again, according to Hollywood, adults are stupid and only kids in high school(or now JUNIOR high!) know anything of real value.
The film went back and forth between calling love a "feeling" and calling it an "action". At least they get credit for referring to love as an action part of the time. Of COURSE there is intense emotion that accompanies love much of the time. But if love is nothing more than a feeling, then we can’t love anyone while being angry, hurt or dissapointed with them at the same time. Does that really make sense to anyone?
Movies and songs have been telling us for decades that love is this magical feeling. We don’t want to define it, just keep it a vague warm fuzzy. And people across the US are giving up on their marriages or dating relationships because they’ve "fallen out of love", as if they had no control over it.
In an effort to create drama or "relatable" characters, we see moral standards dropping in movies at an ever increasing rate. And the parallel in the real world is hard to miss.
Now, I should say that I’m an artist. A creator of fiction. I want my characters to be relatable and realistic. I don’t see a problem with flawed characters in fiction, as long as we do not glorify or validate their flaws as acceptable and good. But with parents increasingly expecting others to teach morality to their kids, how do we keep people from gaining their sense of truth, ethics and life expectations from what they see in entertainment media?
I don’t have a clue. I guess it just has to be one parent, one friend at a time, bringing up meaningful topics, discussing the underlying philosophies of music and film over Starbucks or beer and pizza.
We’re the generation of nonconformity, right? So let’s take our place as non-conformists and be willing to discuss the philosophies presented in entertainment, and part ways with them when there’s a better option for real life.