Feature

Hollywood Doesn't Threaten Family Values

by Karen Sternheimer | October 28, 2008 | Fall 2008

Politicians have long played on the apparent disconnect between Hollywood celebrities and mainstream “family values.” While Hollywood may provide multiple examples of people who have children outside marriage or seem to be less-than-committed spouses, the real causes of these changes are far less glamorous. Rather than the decline of “family values,” cultural norms have changed to adapt to a host of economic, political, and social changes in American society.

Comments 1

mjindra

May 28, 2009

Coincidentally, the same day the Fall 2008 Contexts arrived with this article, a significant new report was released (CommonSenseMedia.org) summarizing 173 studies showing a very clear connection between media use and its influence on behaviors in a number of areas, including substance abuse, sexual behavior, and academic achievement. All of these also contribute to other social problems, such as inequality. Sure, celebrities shouldn’t be made the scapegoat for this situation, as the article points out. But we live in a media-saturated environment, and playing down its influence can only hurt efforts to limit the now well-established harmful influences that come from both media content and simply the number of hours exposed to media. -
Michael Jindra

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