Please Entertain Responsibly

Reese Witherspoon told Fox News, "I had my first baby when I was 23, so I've always been choosing roles knowing that…I have a responsibility to her and to the world to be representing women of strength…I think it's a natural extension of parenthood for you to feel like you're responsible for the worlds you create, whether they be silly or serious. I think you are responsible for the art you put in the world."

How true. Sadly, I think this concept is lost in the entertainment industry; probably due to lack of any sense of responsibility, as a whole, in our society. (The worst example: shying away from the responsibility that follows from intercourse – the care of a baby).

It continues to shock me how songs we hear or movies we see are like billboards saying, “DO WHAT YOU WANT! WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE IT! GO AHEAD! IT’S OKAY! WHO CARES ABOUT CONSEQUENCES!” Go ahead, use a person for your benefit. It’s not that selfish. Go ahead. Listen to this song or see this movie. It’s not really that bad.

Oh, yes it is. The things we see or hear – we imitate them. Perhaps not directly in our actions, but we accept it into our minds. It affects our conscious, subconscious, and especially our souls, whether we like it or not.

If you make a song or movie that glorifies immorality – something you would, in your right mind, never want to happen to you – people will reenact that. Sure, there are plenty who know it’s wrong and won’t do it, but they’re seeing it. And if they see it in a positive light, they subconsciously think, “It’s okay. This is funny.”

Steven Speilberg, when talking about his 1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a movie about a man who leaves his family to pursue aliens, "I would not have written it that way today. Now that I have seven children. Never."

You’ve all heard the Spiderman quote, “With great power comes great responsibility”. Artists in the industry have a massive power: to project a picture of reality that will echo into eternity. It can never be erased. It will touch millions’ of peoples’ lives.

They may never read this, but I beg artists to think before they act, pardon the pun. And if you, as a viewer, have to reassure yourself that what you’re listening to or seeing is “okay” or “not that bad”, I’m afraid it is.

You can't control what movie makers or singers create. But you can control what you see or hear.

Please entertain yourself responsibly.