Here’s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media & culture: 11/08/24

Change is in the air. The decisive political victory delivered by Donald Trump and the Republicans presents an opportunity to break the left-wing stranglehold on the media. As Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav puts it “It’s too early to tell, but it may offer a pace of change and an opportunity for consolidation that may be quite different, that would provide a real positive and accelerated impact on this industry that’s needed. These are great companies. If the best content is going to win, there needs to be some consolidation in order to have these businesses be stronger and have a better consumer experience.”

That’ true. There is a glut of content out there that is often dark and depressing in tone, is little-watched and has the adverse impact of actually diluting our culture by reducing our number of shared (and free) cultural experiences in the way that, say, traditional network television offered. Beyond that, a large portion of that content put promotes a Woke agenda that leaves many viewers feeling more scolded than entertained.

IMHO, The Trump victory offers an opportunity for someone with the capital to come along and takeover and reshape one of the media conglomerates (i.e. Disney, Paramount Global or Comcast) into a brand that would speak positively to faith, family and patriotic values of diverse Americans of all faiths, colors, cultural backgrounds and lifestyles. Paramount Global, for example, could be rebranded Paramount America. Cultural glut, meanwhile, could be reduced by leaning into old-style network schedules that would promote the excitement of catching programming live as it premieres that viewers can experience simultaneously as together as a community. The water cooler programming could then be available for streaming with our without commercials. What there is no need for is creating new programming for each and every platform. It’s not cost-effective and, despite the breathless hype, very few of the offerings really gain much cultural awareness.

The Trump victory was not only a repudiation of those who control our politics but also of those who control our culture. The public wants to be uplifted, not spoken down to. This would be good time for a forward-looking TV network to start opening their doors to all the talent out there that has been held at arms length (to say the least) over the past several years because they refused to go along with extreme agendas that at odds with mainstream America. So-called mainstream media is, with good reason, perceived as being more into lecturing its audience than entertaining it or uplifting it.

Speaking of speaking down to the public, I spoke with Babylon Bee Editor-in-Chief Kyle Mann about the future of political comedy in light of the election. He nailed it when he said “I’m going to say something controversial. The number-one goal of a comedian should be comedy…I think that is the problem with leftist comedy these days. It’s so focused on making a point that it completely loses all its power in being funny. Comedy is magic in so many ways. You have to respect it. Comedy doesn’t take kindly to being used as a cudgel. You ruin it in that case.”

And, as if on cue, the late night hosts delivered post-election monologues that were more preachy than the preachiest Sunday sermon and less funny than one too. Step One in rebuilding network comedy: Bring in some new voices that are less concerned with preaching to their political choirs and more concerned with following the funny and less concerned with putting down the morality and intelligence of those they disagree with.

To be fair, Jimmy Fallon – the man who dared to humanize Donald Trump in 2016 – delivered a monologue that was okay. At least it didn’t demean half of America.

But then he was followed by this sack of cultural condescension.

In the end it was probably my recent interview subject Scott Baio that delivered the funniest line about the result – and spoke for that large portion of Americans who are tired of being lectured to by elite and out-of-touch celebrities. Maybe he should get a late night show!

John W. Kennedy is a writer, producer and media development consultant specializing in television and movie projects that uphold positive timeless values, including trust in God.