Truth, Fiction, or Something in Between?
The Meaning of Television
Albert Mohler
Monday, May 15, 2006

Media critic Neal Gabler has suggested that popular entertainment is turning the nation into a giant transcontinental soap opera. Individual citizens are creating "life movies" starring themselves, and the entertainment industry has become "a force so overwhelming that it has finally metastasized into life."

Gabler's assessment comes immediately to mind in light of the way that Hollywood and the entertainment industry are repackaging reality--even when dealing with issues as intimate as realities of family life and the institution of marriage.

Columnist Lee Siegel considers the meaning of television in his recent review of the HBO series, Big Love. "Culture events such as Big Love are to the media what the doings of a mysterious new family are to gossip in a small town," Siegel explains. Thus, the appearance of the series--now under contract for a second season--provides a catalyst for many in the media to raise questions about marriage, polygamy, the Mormon movement, and a host of related issues. Nevertheless, sex and marriage are at the very center of the "gossip" about this series. the rest