The Sequel

As a social scientist I’ve long been intrigued with the value of humor as a convenient metaphor in analyzing and describing human social behavior.

It seems to me that the answer to the question “Is Hollywood Ruining America?” might be found in the old joke about the psychiatrist and his sexually obsessed patient. The psychiatrist asks the patient to describe the images he sees in Rorschach cards. In each the patient sees one or more varieties of the sex act. Soothingly, the psychiatrist asks: “Tell me, why do you see sex acts in each one of these cards?” Angrily, the patient replies: “How can you ask me that? They’re your dirty pictures.”

Since the beginning of his time on Earth, Homo sapiens has found the need to deal with the inexplicable and deeply disturbing problems of existence and survival. Religious ritual, warfare and storytelling are only a few of the methods we humans have used to cope with individual psychic and group anxieties.

“Hollywood”--”The Industry”--is today’s storyteller. And, like the shaman-storytellers of 35,000 years ago, it succeeds only as long as it taps into the fantasies of the social group--as long as it has an audience.

Why not admit that we Americans love-hate-fear blood and guts, sex and violence. Oh, but we are so ashamed of our fantasies while all the while expecting and demanding that our contemporary shamans feed them. And we charge our technological storytellers with the task of providing in fantasy what our culture forbids in reality.

Wake up, America! Hollywood isn’t doing it to us, it’s only our own dirty pictures.

CAROL NAHIN

Long Beach