Reader Responses

"Does art influence the culture or does culture influence arts?" a wise man recently asked me. He provoked my thinking and perhaps that is why two questions came to mind tonight as I viewed television programming.

Do writers shape the culture by their scripts? Or does culture demand certain content to programs?

I'd like to think I speak for a greater audience. I want stories and ads where women wear clothes, are not overly provocative and are not superior to males. Story lines should have a beginning, middle and an end with believability a must. Foreshadowing precedes critical events. The plots should have not more than five characters - three I can better track.

There would be NO swearing. Why? A professor once told his class, "Swearing is the attempt of a weak mind to express itself forcibly." Women and men have at least, at least, one sentence per show of obscene language.

These days I shake my head and cluck my tongue considerably in dismay. One reason is for inappropriate content. The other reason is about the rules for writing - extinguished!

Tonight Ron sat across from me in our living room. "They must have taken five stories, dumped them into a hat, pulled out strips of script and made an incomprehensible hour's entertainment."

Entertainment? I for one want refined scripts rather than the spiraling-downward rubbish currently on several networks.

Anna L. Russell
Tyler