Although generally sympathetic to Philip Jenkins’s concerns about the burgeoning giants of the “media/entertainment” complex, I found the closing paragraphs of his February essay, “The Matter of Money,” to be rather confused. Is it a desire for money that has inspired the producers of top-20 sitcoms to introduce such themes as homosexuality and even homosexual “marriage” on already successful prime-time programs? Mr. Jenkins is, in fact, worried that the new conglomerates will avoid dealing with homosexuality and other “controversial” matters which are “politically incorrect.” But actually homosexuality has become the cause du jour both in academia and in the entertainment industry—where no self-respecting actor will appear at an award show without wearing the symbolic red ribbon.

Actually, Mr. Jenkins’s quasi-Marxoid economic determinism has blinded him to a major factor in the motivation of entertainment moguls, one analyzed and fully exposed by Michael Medved in Hollywood vs. America. That factor is ideological: a twisted moral passion to use the media to subvert traditional concepts of virtue and replace them with a radical social agenda.

        —Jonathan Chaves
The George Washington University
Washington, D.C.