There is a tendency for popular culture to neglect the hard questions of life. The unpalatable issues, and the ones that people hate think about, because they're unhappy thoughts.In the 1970's, what seemed like half the black actors in Hollywood starred in this little miniseries called Roots. In the 1980's, Lucille Ball did a movie about homelessness. Television had a social conscience, about life issues that affected too many in our society. And admittedly, racism, homelessness, and all these other things don't seem to have lost much currency in certain circles.
Except in popular culture.
The television landscape, with some exceptions, has become the vast wasteland complained of in the 1950's. "Reality" shows bring you perfectly well-fed people eating snakes and bugs. "Fantasy" shows show you whatever you want to see, particularly on cable.
And above all, there are graphics. Blazing, 3-D graphics, all in hope of catching the Lilliputian attention span of the average eyeball. Tennessee Williams and the other greats of television theatrical anthologies wouldn't recognize the place. For eyeballs on screens are all that count.The reality of life is that there are thousands of angels out there, needing our attentions, needing our help, as individual citizens, one to another.
It's easy to blow off the need to give back to our community. It's comforting to know that television shuts out the cold winds of neglect and inability. But it is even more comforting to know that we don't need to ignore what is outside our doors. When your favorite charity asks you to donate, think of the people you can help.
For even angels need help; and who better to help, than each of us?
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