Wednesday, June 15, 2011

TV Rights, and Lefts

Need a warm-weather diversion?  Try this: What are the most conservative television shows of all time?

NRO's Ben Shapiro tackles the question, listing, with some pretty serious constraints to be sure, his own Top Twelve.

This is very difficult for me for a couple of reasons.  First, for the past 20 or so years, aside from news and sports shows, I've watched very little TV.  So, when Shapiro includes Lost and 24 among the most conservative, I'm afraid I can't comment one way or the other.

Second, and Shapiro alludes to this, much of what we consider conservative is so because it's explicitly not political.  That is, it affirms traditional mores and habits of the heart simply by not attacking them.  This is true of television shows as well.  Shapiro on Leave It to Beaver: 
The real question isn’t why Americans loved this show the question is why liberals hate this show. The answer: It’s wholesome, clean fun and doesn’t see suburbia as a prison. It doesn’t try to paint the American dream as a nightmare. For the typical Hollywood leftist view of Leave It to Beaver, watch Pleasantville, which tries to infest the 1950s-era ethos with overt and promiscuous sexuality, injecting color into the black-and-white conservative world.
As Shapiro asked the question one way, let me ask it the other:  What are the most liberal TV shows of all time?

One quick answer:  M*A*S*H.

I loved that show at first, but the longer it ran, the preachier it got, and the sermons were always replete with left-wing bromides. 

1 comment: