The Heart’s Desire

A recent USA Today article set its focus on the crop of current television shows, noting the proliferation of content not merely suggestive, but downright explicit (and it would seem, unavoidable). Of note were the Caligula-like new series Spartacus on Starz, and the offerings of sexually themed shows on MTV, HBO, FX and even ABC.

In one sense, this is nothing new—that material on TV continues to push the line, or that occasionally the mainstream media will look up to take notice. In another sense, it’s good for those looking to become a part of this industry to understand the forces that drive a phenomenon that is both shocking and unsurprising.

Several times the article’s author Gary Strauss quotes industry professionals who claim the current dinner-plate of salacious and violent content is merely symptomatic of a culture that craves it. One media observer notes TV merely “mirrors life”, while a noted producer says “you have to cut through—you have to get attention.” Another NBC exec managed to tread both sides by offering “we don’t want to be out of touch with the way society is going. At the same time you have to be careful what you put on air.” But perhaps the most telling quote was from an MTV Networks exec who claimed, “you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.”

Far from being fools, these folks are experts on the response of fallen humanity. For while they do not understand the human condition, or do not care to, they do understand the magic formula of appealing to our lowest and basest instincts: it sells. Better yet, the economics of such a trade are routinely couched as being a kind of “evolution” of culture. The choicest irony is the one that claims society is evolving, when in fact so-called “emerging morals” are as old as time itself. The cravings of sinful man and the lust of his eyes will always pay big earthly dividends. We’re just at a place in time where this happens with lightning fast precision.

What’s heartening however, is that while God allows us to have this inherent craving for the world’s desires (via free will), He also gave us a redemptive response, a hard-wired DNA to long after better things, brighter, more beautiful and transcendent things, which ultimatley becomes God Himself. As a writing mentor of mine once said “if you can inspire people to be better than they are, then why don’t you?”

Maybe because it won’t sell, or be as popular?

Therein lies the challenge as entertainers and artists of the Faith. We may inevitably face the charge of deciding on what’s right and good, versus what’s popular. The two, it would seem, are often mortal enemies.

The problem is not that crude, explicit or even dark material waits at our fingertips, it’s the mob of all too willing customers. Therefore, no amount of protest or outrage will change the climate. That “genie” is out. Or to put it another way, taking a bloody steak away from a salivating lion does not stop the lion’s appetite. You must make it want something else. It is the cravings of the heart that are in question. Our challenge is to start by living a life that desires differently. As talent in the faith, I believe it is our call to live a self-examined life that asks: “What am I desiring? What am I craving?”

Thousands of years ago, the prophet Jeremiah wrote: “Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they weary themselves with sinning.” (Jer. 9:5) Sound like a world you know?

But if we, as children of the Light, truly begin to desire, even crave, works of immense quality, beauty and truth that honestly challenge us, we may find a world, weary with its own sin, peering over our shoulders with burning curiosity.

Seek to find the truth, tell the truth and live the truth in all you create, consume, and perform. It might just change the world.

You can read the full USA Today article here.