That pop culture products, such as music, television and film have no impact on viewers!

I thought that all of these bumping and grinding in videos and all of these sex talk on sitcoms (Flicking through the channels last night, I happened upon one of the “family” “comedies” – I think it was the Jim Belushi one. One of those with a fat husband and thin wife. And they’re sparring about traveling or something, and he says, “You want to go to Paris? I told you what you have to do if you want to do something like that” (A true paraphrase. I don’t remember exactly what he said) – and the wife responds “I am not making out with the pretzel girl from the mall” – Hey! Laugh already!)….

Anyway…I thought that all the frankness and violence flashing before our and our children’s eyes was o-kay because:

“It doesn’t have any affect on us! We can all tell the difference between fantasy and reality! What? You think that watching it on TV is going to make you run out and want to do it? How crass. How simplistic. How absurdly reductive.”

But now….

Beware of Mel’s movie! Watch out! It might…

…have an impact?
…influence people?
…affect behavior?

Oh.

I get it now.