Social Impact Entertainment
There’s a new buzzword floating around the world of media known as Social Impact Entertainment (aka SIE). The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television have an entire department dedicated to it. Even if you haven’t heard of it, you’ve been affected by it. It’s permeating every bit of media you consume in an effort to influence the thinking of the public.
Their goal? “Advancing the power of entertainment and performing arts to inspire social change.” Perhaps it wouldn’t be so concerning if they encouraged students to promote the social change of their personal convictions, but the problem is only a singular narrative is being supported which makes it in essence purely liberal propaganda.
Therefore it is no coincidence that shows and movies are increasingly showcasing LGBT and feminist characters and that the themes are escalating their preachy views on the hot topics of the day. There is very little programming to choose from anymore that has not buckled or willingly embraced the demands of the liberal media machine, even at the risk of quality and success. The message is what’s most important now, not the art. The majority of which is emphatically anti-Christian.
Music is no exception, of course. All the top artists on the major record labels are in lock-step with promoting hedonistic principals of sexual immorality, abortion on demand, recreational drug use etc. What happened to the “punk rockers”? The ones who were willing to challenge the status quo and fearless of controversy? They have either succumbed or been silenced, just as the majority of comedians and late night talk show hosts.
Freedom of thought is forbidden, as displayed most evidently in the recent Democrat presidential debates…no candidate dared deviate from the narrative, leaving it impossible to differentiate one from another and casting serious doubt on what their true convictions are (if any). Any dissenting point of view or support of president Trump is immediately scorned and done away with (remember Last Man Standing and the new Roseanne show?) Liberals are even beginning to eat their own if they don’t immediately adapt to the latest radical new ways of thinking.
Freedom of creative expression is also dead. As a musician, that has been apparent for some time but continues to be both devastating and disturbing. Devastating to the hope of any future goals of substantial success and disturbing to know that anyone who expresses a counter-viewpoint will have any career they established utterly destroyed. We’re seeing this daily as similar agendas are taking over social media as well and shutting accounts down left and right…well, mostly right.
So what’s the solution? Awareness. Seeing things for what they are and understanding the underlying intentional goals of the media and what it is we are being fed. Don’t bury your head in the sand or naively believe that any of what’s being produced is organic or authentic. We must be diligent to protect our minds from the corrupt value system we’re being sold and make sure to educate young people on Satan’s attempt to distort biblical truth!
And for those of us who still feel called to be creators, we must press on in the face of insurmountable odds. Continue doing the thing you love, speak the message of God’s Word (in love) and not what is politically correct. And do so with a willingness to sacrifice your dream for the more noble goal of exercising your freedom of speech and embracing your freedom in Christ! Submit your gifts to God and allow Him to decide how they are used and who they reach (Proverbs 16:3). Because our greatest problems arise when we allow the world to define what success actually looks like…
“The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.” -1 John 2:17
