How Television Entertainment Has Changed

Entertainment is always geared to the audience that will watch it. In the early years of television, for example, women were portrayed as high-heel-wearing, airheaded housewives. That was what the audience expected. The stereotype reflected the way that the world at large viewed women. Blacks and other minorities were portrayed according to the stereotypes of the day as well.

Television entertainment has changed. Some of the changes have been good changes. We now see women, blacks, and other minorities in roles that are not stereotypes of days gone by. I'd like to believe that this good change in character portrayals on television is a reflection of the attitudes of society in general. Of course, there are those narrow-minded individuals who still cling to old outdated images from the past, but I do think that the changes in the portrayal of women and minorities really does reflect a change in the attitudes of the majority out here in the real world.

Some of the changes, though, aren't so good. The lack of morals is really disheartening. If the low-to-no morals portrayed on television really are a reflection of the way that life is for the majority of people out in the real brick-and-mortar world, we're all in big trouble. I sincerely hope that the entertainment industry is simply amplifying the seedier side of life for the sole purpose of the shock value of entertainment.

Should television return to the censorship of yesteryear? Absolutely not! The "standards" were ridiculous. In the old days of television, a married man and woman being portrayed on television could not be shown even SITTING on the same bed. Fred and Wilma Flintstone were the first married couple shown sitting on the same bed, and they were cartoon characters. However, a return to a reasonable level of morality being portrayed on television isn't a bad idea.