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The Kid Culture

For decades, perhaps since the Elvis craze began, it has been obvious that much of our culture is designed for children and teenagers. Today’s movies, television programs, popular music, video games, and gadgetry, for example, are aimed primarily at young audiences. Millions of adults spend millions of dollars trying to dress and look as though they had just graduated from junior high. Many newspapers and magazines race to dumb down their publications in order to appeal to those who routinely print and type “u r” for “you are.” Politicians and businessmen stumble over each other in the race to win the allegiance of those who think “cool” is one of humanity’s highest accolades. Two important new books discuss this general issue: Edward Jay Epstein’s The Big Picture: The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood; and Andrew Ferguson’s Land Of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe’s America. Both volumes provide evidence that will help grownups make sense out of our Kid Culture.

Epstein’s book is about the movie and television industry, stressing developments since the breakup by the courts of the studio system in 1948. During the decades in which the leading studios owned all the major theaters, enormous profits rolled in: there were 4.7 billion movie tickets sold in America in 1947, and net receipts for the major studios totaled approximately $950 million. Filmmakers were interested in creating movies for almost every taste. The post-World War II film The Best Years Of Our Lives, for example, made for adults, enjoyed profits in excess of $5 million. Elia Kazan’s Gentleman’s Agreement, which won the Oscar for the Best Motion Picture of 1947, dealt with anti-Semitism. The best historical films made by Hollywood appeared in the 1930s and 1940s. When the studio system dissolved, and television began to appear in homes, the movie industry began to change rapidly.

Today, six corporate giants—Viacom, Time Warner, NBC Universal, Sony, Fox, and Disney—rule the entertainment industry. The make all the major movies (the average film in 2003 cost $63.8 million to make), own 64 cable networks, control over 96% of the programs that carry commercial advertising during prime time, and control a large part of the entertainment media. They make much of their money from licensing their filmed entertainment for home use. In 2003, more than a billion DVDs brought in $33 billion.

The market strategy of these big six is largely about appealing to children and teens. Epstein writes, “They publish most of the books read by children, they record most of the music listened to by children—Disney alone accounting for 60 percent—they own most of the theme parks visited by children on their vacations, and they license most of the characters whose images appear in the toys, clothes, and games consumed by children.” The Big Six create products largely for kids, often pandering to their basest curiosities and tastes without a hint of shame. They are pursuing profits: One authority on youth marketing reported that in 2002, children influenced consumer sales of $650 billion in this country alone. The impact is incalculable and scary. Don’t miss Epstein’s chapter “Americanizing The World.”

Andrew Ferguson’s brilliant, important, and often amusing book about the impact of Lincoln on contemporary America describes the dumbing down of history in the new Lincoln museum in Springfield, Illinois. Bob Rogers, a former Disney employee who designed the complex (making $60 million in the process), told Ferguson that he wanted to reach young people above all, from 9 to 14, kids who were weaned on television and video games and are essentially subverbal. “Listen.” he told Ferguson, “You can do a lot worse than aim at today’s seventh-grader. Seventh-graders are damn smart these days.” Rogers saw to it as well that the seventh-graders got plenty of political correctness as they strolled through exhibits. There are no guns in sight, for example; even John Wilkes Booth’s weapon is concealed behind his cape. Perhaps the Civil War was fought with salad forks.

When Rogers consulted scholars for his project, he covered conference tables in butcher paper and presented them with crayons. “We wanted to loosen them up, get them in touch with that inner child,” Some of the scholars quickly acceded. “Others, it took a while. These were old geezers, after all.” This illustrates (as do pages on the Chicago History Museum) the surrender of many intellectuals to the powerful cultural forces determined to make “fun,” as defined by kids, more important than accurate and objective historical knowledge.

A nine-year-old who visited the museum in Springfield “loved it,” according to his aunt. He said, “It’s great! So much fun! I didn’t have to read anything!”

Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at 9:08 AM | Comments (1) | Return

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