"Popular Culture and the War Against Standards Michael Medved, Co-Host, Sneak Previews
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IMPRIMIS Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan 49242 February 1991 Volume 20, No. 2 "Popular Culture and the War Against Standards Michael Medved, co-host, Sneak Previews Editor's Preview: In this edited transcript of I had initially decided not to cover the film his remarks at Hillsdale's Shavano Institute on Sneak Previews, the weekly show we host for National Leadership seminar, "Faith and on PBS, because we felt that by discussing it the Free Market," held in Orange County, on the air we'd only be granting it additional California last November, PBS film critic publicity. Jeffrey Lyons and I don't always Michael Medved describes the destructive agree by any means, but we certainly saw eye character of modern films, TV, art and music to eye on The Cook, the Thief His Wife and and suggests that ordinary Americans fight Her Lover. And when some of our esteemed back. colleagues began using words like "brilliant" and "excellent" to describe this putrid, hen people meet me and they find pointless and pretentious piece of filth, we out that I make my living as a film decided that we had to respond. W critic, they often exhibit two So we did a special segment on our show spontaneous but absolutely contradictory in the course of which I transgressed one of reactions. The first comment is, "Boy, you the great unwritten rules of the so-called have a great job!" and, usually in the very critical community: I not only attacked the next breath, they add, "Aren't movies terrible film itself, but I also attacked my fellow crit- these days?" ics who had praised it so lavishly. I objected The fact is that both statements are accu- Photo: Courtesy of the Washington Times in particular to the tendency to describe the rate. I do have a great job in many ways, and picture as "a raunchy black comedy" with- yes, movies are absolutely terrible today. cheek is pierced with a fork, and an edifying out giving prospective moviegoers any hon- Ironically, it is sometimes those films that are scene with two naked bodies writhing together est indication of the vivid brutality and the most profoundly, irredeemably awful that ecstatically in the back of a truck filled with horrors it contained. I also cited the laudato- make my job most stimulating. That was rotting, maggot-infested garbage. There is, in ry response to this hateful film as an indica- certainly the case with one of the most short, unrelieved ugliness, horror and tion that Americans are absolutely justified depravity at every turn. critically praised movies of 1990, The Cook, in their deep distrust of film critics. Naturally, the critics loved it. the Thief His Wife and Her Lover. After I made such statements on nation- Caryn James of the August New York This is not a film for the faint-of-heart— wide TV, there was a minor—and entirely or the delicate of stomach. It begins with a Times hailed The Cook, the Thief His Wife and predictable—firestorm concerning my scene showing the brutal beating of a naked Her Lover as "brilliant." Two leading film comments and protesting my alleged "arro- man while the main character gleefully critics, whose approach to film reviewing I gance". and "irresponsibility" One letter from urinates all over him. It ends with that same have often considered all thumbs, called the a viewer in Oregon eloquently summarized character slicing off a piece of a carefully picture "provocative" and awarded their these protests: "I was angered and disgusted cooked and elegantly prepared human coveted "'No thumbs up" endorsement. by your unfair and savage attack on The corpse in the most vivid and horrifying scene Richard Corliss of Time magazine went Cook, the Thief His Wife and Her Lover," she of cannibalism ever portrayed in motion even further and described the film as wrote, and then went on revealingly, pictures. "excellent, exciting and extraordinary." "Though I have not seen the film, I In between, we see necrophilia, sex in a For me, this sort of critical praise proved certainly plan to do so and your toilet, the unspeakably bloody and sadistic even more disturbing than the film itself. The review was way out of line. The one mutilation of a nine year-old boy, another movie just made me sick, but the positive thing we don't need is a Jessie Helms victim smeared with feces, a woman whose reviews made me angry. My partner and clone on PBS ....If you are so full of Heaven forfend that I should discuss in any anal rape and the mutilation of female geni- old-fashioned, judgmental, right- way the message that a particular film is talia, had created a "refreshing and aston- winged bigotry, then that is your prob- sending to the movie-going public! ishing" body of work. Professor Gates went lem, but you have no right to pollute This is the very nature of the cultural bat- on to compare their achievements to those of the airwaves with your narrow-minded tle before us. It is, at its very core, a war Shakespeare, Chaucer, and James Joyce. (As against standards. It is a war against judg- the late George Orwell once commented, stupidity ....Your job is to tell us if a "There are some ideas so preposterous that only an intellectual could believe them.") "One of the symptoms of the corruption and collapse of our In film, the art form which I most regu- larly consider, the process of degradation has national culture is the insistence that we examine only the already reached levels that should lead all surface of any work of art. The politically correct, properly thoughtful critics to despair for the future of the medium. Indescribable gore drenches the liberal notion is that we should never dig deeper—to consider modern screen, even in movies allegedly whether a given work is true, or good, or spiritually made for families. And the most perverted forms of sexuality—loveless, decadent, brutal nourishing—or to evaluate its impact on society at large." and sometimes incestuous—are showing reg- ularly at a theater near you. Perhaps you haven't seen The Grifters, movie is skillful or not, but please stay ment. Its proponents insist that the worst another critical favorite of the last few off your moralistic high horse and insult you can offer someone today is to sug- months. Oscar winner Anjelica Houston co- keep to the business of reviewing gest that he or she is judgmental. stars with John Cusak in a story about the movies." One of the symptoms of the corruption sexual tension between a mother-and-son and collapse of our national culture is the team of con artists. In the climactic Ignoring Soul and insistence that we examine only the surface sequence, Houston attempts to seduce her Substance of any work of art. The politically correct, boy in order to steal his money, but this his letter represents just one very properly liberal notion is that we should heart-warming family reunion ends with small skirmish in what I would never dig deeper—to consider whether a given blood spurting endlessly from his severed T describe as the "culture wars" work is true, or good, or spiritually nourish- jugular vein. currently raging in our society, but it reveals ing—or to evaluate its impact on society at This kind of work is regularly described as very forcefully what those wars are all about. large. Contemporary culture is obsessed with high art, along with another sort of ugliness My correspondent is saying that it's fine for superficial skill and slick salesmanship while that is even more commonly celebrated on me to talk about a film being in or out of ignoring the more important issues of soul movie screens today. Film after film centers focus, about sloppy or competent editing, and substance. This is one of the conse- about a convincing or unconvincing quences of the war on standards—a war that performance, but Heaven for-fend that I is currently being waged on three fronts: the "In the visual arts, in literature, should address its moral content! glorification of ugliness, the assault on the in film, in music of both family, and the attempt to undermine orga- popular and classical variety, Michael Medved is well known to mil- nized religion. Each of these fronts is serious lions of Americans as the co-host of the enough to merit separate consideration. ugliness has been enshrined as weekly PBS television program, Sneak The Glorification of a new standard, as we accept Previews. An honors graduate of Yale, he Ugliness the ability to shock as a is the author of seven nonfiction books, verywhere around us, in every realm of including the bestsellers: What Really artistic endeavor, we see evidence of replacement for the old ability Happened to the Class of '65?, which E the rejection of traditional standards to inspire." became a bestseller and the basis for a of beauty and worth. In the visual arts, in weekly series on NBC, Hospital: The literature, in film, in music of both popular on characters who are, fundamentally, despi- Hidden Lives of a Medical Center Staff, and classical variety, ugliness has been cable—amoral losers who give us nothing to and with his brother, Harry Medved, The enshrined as a new standard, as we accept the admire, nor even to care about. Golden Turkey Awards. Mr. Medved has ability to shock as a replacement for the old Goodfellas, the winner of nearly all the been a frequent guest on "The Tonight ability to inspire.