Al Mohler has an outstanding post on a new phenomenon in our culture: the increasing use of violent, antisocial male characters in prime time television. Apparently, “competition from the Internet, video games, and a vast array of cable channels has caught the attention of television producers.” Their answer: developing shows that can capture the attention of young male viewers.
Mohler shows that these TV producers are promoting a certain type of masculinity by their programming: One who uses his God-given energy, strength and drive, in a manner divorced from moral absolutes. What we’re left with is protagonists who display a strong sense of moral ambiguity—they may have left their wife and killed someone, yet the storyline is such that the audience is moved to pity him or identify with him.
An excerpt:
What kind of morality is at play here? As St. John explains, these shows reduce morality to a Darwinian principle that “in the social chaos of the modern world, the only sensible reflex is self-interest.”
Others have gone so far as to suggest that these characters and this kind of programming represent a new vision of masculinity. Gregory A. Randall, who is developing a new show for Spike TV called “Paradise Salvage,” said that the emergence and popularity of antisocial characters–even leads–can be traced to an intentional effort by the networks to attract young male viewers by mirroring their frustrations. “It’s about comprehending from an entertainment point of view that men are living in a very complex conundrum today,” he told St. John. “We’re supposed to be sensitive and evolved and yet still in touch with our neanderthal, animalistic, macho side.” Randall went on to argue that watching male characters who demonstrate such deeply flawed personalities but who nevertheless come out on top of the social hierarchy, makes young men feel better about their own character flaws and frustrations with male identity.
The entire article is worth reading. I suspect there is a connection between mainstream egalitarianism and this rising trend, along with at least two others: women outperforming men on the college campus and the decrease in male participation in mainline protestant churches.