the Hollywood movies of the 1930s place the product in the romantic landscapes of the frontier West. Father and son, mother and daughter draw closer in their common effort to plant the corn, feed the horse,
count the chickens, sing the hymn, survive the winter. The social bond loosens in
its tie to distant government but strengthens in its adherence to a near community
of friends, neighbors, and fellow countrymen. Their feeling for one another they
express as the companionable virtues—forbearance, trust, patience, forgiveness—
values also highly prized by lying real-estate salesmen and thieving politicians.
The 1950s television sitcoms shift the mise en scène to the leafy suburbs,
but the virtues in the kitchen with the Cleavers remain as they were around the
cooking fires on the old oregon trail. So have they continued to remain despite
the events of the last sixty years having demonstrated to the viewing audience
that father no longer knows best. The casting directors have kept pace with the
indexes of social and cultural change, extending the natural bond to welcome the
gay couple and the unwed mother, but the scripts don’t lose the thread of their
interior sentiment. All present are more or less resigned to their misfortunes,
accepting of one another’s flaws and prejudices, aware of the injustice loose in
the streets and entrenched in City Hall, but choosing to find their security and
their refuge under the blankets of cheerful and forgiving laughter. Not the kind
of citizens apt to run amok on the road to revolution. Folks with bills to pay
and a credit rating to maintain, mindful of surveillance cameras, dependent on
the grace and favor of the executive in charge of human resources, loaded down
with more and heavier debt than can be towed quietly out of town by even the
sturdiest pickup truck on sale from general Motors.
or so at least the custodians of the nation’s peace of mind would have it
safely understood. Which is why the presidential campaigns prescribe treating
the disease of American decline with a heavy dose of the family values that
we’ve been squandering all these years in the cash machines and divorce courts.
The message is upbeat and bipartisan, as certain of an applause moment for
President obama as it is for rick Perry. Better yet and best of all, the message is
backed with the full faith and credit of the corporate sponsors. The advertising
that supports the tV news—for the olive garden, Home Depot, or the
iPhone—comes fully equipped with the images of a loving dad, a caring mom,
a contented child, and a playful pet.
It matters not if dad is a serial killer, mom is gay, the pet an aardvark or a
snake. What matters is the substitution of sentiment for power. Let the natural
bonds draw closer as the social bond is loosened, and our monied classes remove
the obstacle of having to provide for interests other than their own. The bait
and switch is the virtual reality serving as stunt double for the reality, or, to
put it bluntly, in a rough translation from the late-eighteenth-century French,
let them eat videotape. By the dawn’s early light in oakland and Detroit, the
American dream is bursting in air, but inside Hollywood’s star-spangled studios,
our flag is still there—not flying where it might add to the sum of the public
good, but right there in your own home, online and on tV, “natural warmth of
heart” available all day, every day, in time and on demand, at the user-friendly
subscription price of ninety-nine dollars a month. rejoice in the things of the
spirit. Welcome to the nursery where everybody is still a child.
