1 00:00:02,240 --> 00:00:06,400 Imagine a group of activists so powerful that they could beam their propaganda 2 00:00:06,400 --> 00:00:08,360 directly into your brain. 3 00:00:08,360 --> 00:00:14,120 Now also imagine that they’re so sophisticated, they actually get you to pay them to do it. 4 00:00:14,120 --> 00:00:16,320 Unfortunately, you don’t have to imagine it. 5 00:00:16,320 --> 00:00:17,280 It’s real. 6 00:00:17,280 --> 00:00:18,600 It’s Hollywood. 7 00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:23,720 As big as the internet has become, Hollywood—and here, I’m talking specifically about television— 8 00:00:23,720 --> 00:00:25,060 is still king. 9 00:00:25,060 --> 00:00:29,200 Not only does it reach hundreds of millions of people with its messaging, it embeds that 10 00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:34,540 messaging in seemingly innocuous stories—stories that distract us from the hardships of daily life; 11 00:00:34,540 --> 00:00:38,020 stories that make us feel good, compassionate, and decent. 12 00:00:38,020 --> 00:00:40,880 We watch TV, in other words, because we like it. 13 00:00:40,880 --> 00:00:44,540 And just as Americans didn’t think much about the carcinogens in the cigarettes they 14 00:00:44,540 --> 00:00:48,760 smoked for decades, most Americans don’t think much about the toxic politics 15 00:00:48,760 --> 00:00:50,300 in the television they watch. 16 00:00:50,300 --> 00:00:52,760 But those who create that content do. 17 00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:57,220 They spin out hour after hour of slickly-produced left-wing propaganda 18 00:00:57,220 --> 00:00:59,160 and they give themselves awards for doing it. 19 00:00:59,160 --> 00:01:03,900 They applaud each other’s “courage,” even though all their friends think exactly as they do. 20 00:01:03,900 --> 00:01:07,880 I spoke with nearly a hundred members of the Hollywood community when I wrote my book, 21 00:01:07,880 --> 00:01:12,380 Primetime Propaganda, and many of them openly admitted they inserted “social justice” 22 00:01:12,380 --> 00:01:14,300 messages into their shows. 23 00:01:14,310 --> 00:01:17,150 How they do it is both clever and effective. 24 00:01:17,150 --> 00:01:22,110 Hollywood writers, producers, directors, actors create characters we keep wanting to spend 25 00:01:22,110 --> 00:01:26,380 time with, then have those characters act in ways most of us would judge wrong. 26 00:01:26,380 --> 00:01:31,220 Then, in effect, they ask us a question: Isn’t it really okay that Rachel from Friends decided 27 00:01:31,220 --> 00:01:33,700 to have a baby without first marrying Ross? 28 00:01:33,700 --> 00:01:36,320 After all, you like Ross and you like Rachel! 29 00:01:36,320 --> 00:01:38,620 How can what they do be bad? 30 00:01:38,620 --> 00:01:40,280 It hasn’t always been this way. 31 00:01:40,280 --> 00:01:43,340 For decades, Hollywood promoted traditional American values. 32 00:01:43,340 --> 00:01:48,240 That changed, as did so much else in the late 1960s and ‘70s, when Hollywood stopped celebrating 33 00:01:48,240 --> 00:01:51,200 American values and started transforming them. 34 00:01:51,200 --> 00:01:55,560 For example, in the early 1970s, abortion was a hotly-contested issue. 35 00:01:55,560 --> 00:02:00,400 A year before the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case, the top-rated TV sitcom, Maude, featured 36 00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:04,080 a storyline in which the title character of the show has an abortion. 37 00:02:04,080 --> 00:02:08,060 The LA Times described it as “a watershed moment” in TV history. 38 00:02:08,060 --> 00:02:08,880 Why? 39 00:02:08,880 --> 00:02:11,540 Well, because it removed the stigma of abortion. 40 00:02:11,540 --> 00:02:15,820 Millions of Americans, sitting in their living rooms, saw a beloved character do something 41 00:02:15,820 --> 00:02:18,880 they did not approve of—and felt sympathy. 42 00:02:18,880 --> 00:02:21,220 Something similar happened in the early 2000s. 43 00:02:21,220 --> 00:02:25,740 Vice President Joe Biden was right when he said that Will & Grace had a major impact 44 00:02:25,740 --> 00:02:28,520 on how Americans think about same-sex marriage. 45 00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:32,900 Before the hit NBC show, though most Americans had a live-and-let-live attitude toward private 46 00:02:32,900 --> 00:02:37,560 sexual behavior, few supported the idea of men marrying men or women marrying women. 47 00:02:37,560 --> 00:02:41,640 But seeing the charming and funny Will Truman live his life week after week paved the way 48 00:02:41,640 --> 00:02:44,650 for a much wider acceptance of same-sex marriage. 49 00:02:44,650 --> 00:02:48,430 Current shows like Orange Is the New Black and Transparent are trying to affect the same 50 00:02:48,430 --> 00:02:50,800 change on the issue of transgenderism. 51 00:02:50,800 --> 00:02:52,580 You may think these are all good things. 52 00:02:52,580 --> 00:02:54,140 Or that some are, and some aren’t. 53 00:02:54,140 --> 00:02:55,420 That’s not my point. 54 00:02:55,420 --> 00:03:00,360 My point is that Hollywood has had a tremendous influence on our culture, and that influence 55 00:03:00,360 --> 00:03:03,620 has been all to the left side of the political spectrum. 56 00:03:03,620 --> 00:03:05,260 And it isn’t just social issues. 57 00:03:05,260 --> 00:03:10,120 Chevy Chase likes to boast that he helped Jimmy Carter defeat Gerald Ford in 1976. 58 00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:11,180 He may be right. 59 00:03:11,180 --> 00:03:16,240 Week after week on Saturday Night Live, Chase portrayed Ford, probably the most athletic 60 00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:20,700 president in American history, as a bumbling, uncoordinated idiot. 61 00:03:20,700 --> 00:03:24,520 In the early 2000s, Comedy Central had a show, That’s My Bush!, that openly mocked 62 00:03:24,520 --> 00:03:25,740 the 43rd president. 63 00:03:25,740 --> 00:03:28,720 And, of course, Hollywood despises Donald Trump. 64 00:03:28,720 --> 00:03:33,000 From crime dramas to the late-night comedy shows, he’s relentlessly ridiculed. 65 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:36,560 Somehow, Hollywood managed to take an eight-year hiatus from mocking presidents 66 00:03:36,560 --> 00:03:37,880 during the Obama years. 67 00:03:37,880 --> 00:03:40,200 But maybe that’s just a coincidence. 68 00:03:40,200 --> 00:03:42,360 All of this programming has an effect. 69 00:03:42,360 --> 00:03:46,920 Scientific studies suggest that watching TV acts like a “habit-forming drug.” 70 00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:51,900 According to the market research firm Childwise, teenage boys spend 8 hours per day in front 71 00:03:51,900 --> 00:03:54,840 of screens, much of it consuming Hollywood propaganda. 72 00:03:54,840 --> 00:03:59,760 Dedicated religious parents might expose their children to two hours a week of religious instruction. 73 00:03:59,800 --> 00:04:04,380 Hands-on parents might spend thirty minutes a day discussing essential values with their kids. 74 00:04:04,380 --> 00:04:07,500 Hollywood gets up to forty hours a week. 75 00:04:07,500 --> 00:04:08,960 Every week. 76 00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:10,700 By all means, enjoy television. 77 00:04:10,700 --> 00:04:11,600 I do! 78 00:04:11,600 --> 00:04:15,400 But remember, the people making TV don’t merely want to entertain you; 79 00:04:15,400 --> 00:04:16,940 they want to influence you. 80 00:04:16,940 --> 00:04:18,880 They want you to think like they think. 81 00:04:18,880 --> 00:04:23,320 And, unless you’re aware of what they’re trying to do, chances are, you will. 82 00:04:23,320 --> 00:04:27,400 I’m Ben Shapiro, editor of the Daily Wire, for Prager University.