Recently a friend and I were discussing entertainment. She made the comment that there really isn’t any such thing as pure entertainment. All entertainment has an agenda. The author or producer has a worldview and has imprinted it into the book or movie. No book or movie can be entirely free of the author’s morals and mores. She has a point.

          That reminded me of something I read a few years ago. Apparently a major movie mogul had made a comment about creating and producing movies that influence young minds into the next century. An older gentleman commenting on this condemned it, implying it was wrong to produce entertainment with the purpose to influence. I remember wondering at the time how it could be possible to do anything else.

         I think what the man was lamenting was in fact that the principles and values that would be promoted were contrary to what he considered appropriate. I agree. The current culture promotes many views that I find offensive. Lifestyles and patterns of life are promoted that lead to destruction or exploitation. Values I hold dear are ridiculed. It is a shame that our entertainment promotes that.

         And that makes it even more imperative that those with the inclination and ability write stories that address these pathologies in our current culture. Someone should write stories of true love, real happily-ever-afters, selfless sacrifice and maybe even sappy sentimentalism. Who is composing scenes and tales of heroic deeds of valor or simple acts of kindness? Where can I find entertainment that inspires and encourages me to be a better person?

          Those stories are being written, they are being published and produced. Perhaps not in abundance, but they are there. And slowly, one story at a time, I am reading and commenting them.