America the Dark

Happy Days Are Here Again/Get Happy

Barbara and Judy and the Cast of Glee

Have you noticed lately that everything in our life seems to be dark?  My wife noticed it the other night watching previews for movies and television shows as well as commercials for all sorts of things.  It used to be we were optimistic, and it was reflected in our ads and movies.  Now everything is dark and foreboding.  Gone are the sitcoms that used to make us feel good and show us how life should be.  They have been replaced by faux reality shows showcasing the worst of human nature and life shouldn't be. 

Even the movies are downers.  Dark and black computer generated sets of a post industrial world, or a revisionist grim view of Grimm Fairy Tales.  Have you seen the ad for the new version of Snow White?  Have you seen the new movie about Red Riding Hood?  Have you seen the television show called Once Upon a Time?  And lets not even go to the Vampire books, movies and television programs culminating with the release this week of Tim Burton’s and Johnny Depp’s version of Dark Shadows. What ever happened to Thumper saying "if you can't say anything nice, don't say nothing at all." 

The truth of the matter is that the only uplifting commercials are the ones currently being run by Dow Chemical.  Is Dow Chemical the only true source of optimism in America today? What have done to ourselves?

When the millennium occurred we were filled with optimism.  The Soviet Empire was gone.  The promise of the digital age was in full force.  Homeownership was on the rise.  Prosperity in America abounded, and we looked forward to a future with a peace dividend balancing the budget. 

Now where is the hope?  Instead we have despair.  The space program, once the shining beacon of United States prowess and technological achievement is no more.  We have to bum rides with the Russians to get to the space shuttle.  There is a burgeoning private space industry underway, but will it be too little too late?  Putting a man on the moon was America’s achievement.  We did it as a people and have reaped technological and economic benefits way beyond those what those working on those Mercury rockets could imagine.

Now we have people abandoning United States citizenship. 1800 American citizens, some of our most financially successful, have become citizens of Singapore.  The Canadian Dollar dipped below parity with the American dollar last week.  We have lost our triple A credit rating.  We are fighting over economic scraps rather than creating an ever expanding economic pie.  We have strangled ourselves with guilt and recriminations.  We are pointing an accusatory finger at the rich like the peasants in St. Petersburg, Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. 

America needs to find its way back to the light.  It needs to begin making movies of hope, television shows of challenge, stories of success.  It’s time put away the dark images of dungeons, dragons, and post apocalyptic worlds that are dominating the airways.  It is time to replace faux celebrity with real achievement. 

I don’t like America the dark.  We need to change this.