The subtext of this unbelievably stupid article brought to us courtesy of The Incredible Shrinking Los Angeles Times, is that adultery sells on television because our society is changing to the point where we’re now warming up to the idea of marital infidelity. This is the actual subtitle of this very poorly researched piece of cultural propaganda: Cheating spouses are prevalent on prime-time TV. Blame society’s changing views on marriage and fidelity, and the shows’ need to push boundaries to succeed.

Twice as popular as “Nurse Jackie”

In other words, television is following society, not the other way around. Whatever. Here’s a snip:

Prime-time TV is starting to look like an ad for Ashley Madison, the online dating service for married folks, where the message is, “Life is short. Have an affair.”

To be sure, bed hopping as a plot point is nothing new. In fact, it’s as old as storytelling itself (see: the Bible). But the proliferation of adultery on TV — seemingly occurring far more frequently than in real life — could be the result of a perfect storm of cultural and sociological factors, industry veterans and sociologists say.

Among those factors: Cynicism about marriage is rampant, and about half of all marriages end in divorce, a number that’s remained steady for years. “Since the ’60s and ’70s, we’ve seen a general loosening of mores in this country and a cultural shift away from the core values of marriage, fidelity and monogamy,” said Julie Albright, a sociologist at USC. “People believe marriages don’t work anyway, so seeing affairs on TV kind of serves as a model for how things can and will go bad.”

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Try to get your mind around this: In Joy Behar’s partisan-crazed world, hypocrisy is a sin worse than serial adultery. 

In other words, had Tiger Woods lectured schoolchildren on the importance of preserving the institution of marriage, marital fidelity and not being promiscuous — you know, the kind of healthy behavior that’s key to a happy life — she’d be giving him all kinds of hell right now. But, since he only cheated on his wife…

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Does that kind of thinking make any sense to you?

It does if you see the design behind it. The left wants to shut the right up, especially those trying to uphold traditional moral standards. And in order to silence those who would stand up for such things, with the help of popular culture and the media, they’ve managed to turn the world upside down into a place where you’re better off not trying to do good than risking the stigma of hypocrisy. (more…)