During the past year we’ve learned a lot about our closest primate relatives, the Neanderthals. For example we discovered the fact that they had long childhoods^, which is an indicator of intelligence (in the sense that childhood is time allowed for the brain to mature). We also learned about their social habits, most interestingly the fact that they seemed to have intimate, consensual relationships^ with members of Homo Sapiens (the two species co-existed on Earth for a long period of time).
This article puts it quite nicely. Humans didn’t outsmart Neanderthals, we just outlasted them:
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Relaxation and play constitute an important part of life. Most of us spend around half of our waking time at work. We live in a world of informational overload. As such, the breaks we can take from the daily routines are quite important. The digital age has made audio-visual entertainment cheap, easy to obtain and, for an ever-increasing number of people it became one of the main means of counteracting the stress of daily life.
Cinematography and computer games are the undisputed leaders when it comes to this sort of fun. There are a lot of excellent movies and games out there. The opposite is also true and therein lays a problem: entertainment is a highly efficient means of propagating stereotypes and ideologies. Let’s take a look at some of these effects and observe how they sometimes end up damaging our society.
The human body
Nowhere are the stereotypes more apparent than the portrayal of the human body in mainstream entertainment. The prime example is the stereotyping of the female body and the worst offender is the computer games industry. Take a look at these examples:
Females in computer games
Most action flicks spewing from Hollywood ooze the same type of intellectual pollution. Through this, not only are men trained into appreciating a stereotypical body type, but women are also subliminally directed into attempting to become exactly that. Men fall prey to images of them as muscle monsters that have to go to the gym and eat stuff like this:
The Church of the Artificially Grown Muscle – the all-mighty Protein Store
Why is this happening, who benefits from all this? On the one hand, we have the chemical nutrition industry, the cosmetics industry and of course, the pharmaceutical industry (which comes in when the chemical nutrition & cosmetics succeed in damaging the body). For these businesses, mainstream entertainment has become excellent free advertisement. The emphasis placed on the word “mainstream” is there to remind that we’re targeting the trend, rather than the exceptions.
On the other hand, we have the entertainment industry itself. With the stereotypes now in place, it is easy to create generic movies and games, all following the same template. This sort of patterned repetition generates quick income and strengthens existent stereotypes. It’s a clever system that feeds on itself and grows in size through the conversion of human intellect, not unlike religion really, which at one point was some societies’ means of escape from real or imaginary threats.
Many people try to resist this sort of programming. However, entertainment can be an insidious force. After showering the brain with sounds and images, it has the advantage of dealing with a relaxed mind that is at its most receptive to external stimuli, with most of its defenses lowered (because it’s just “fun” broadcasting). To better envision how important the state of relaxation is, simply remember how a muscle has to be before getting an injection.
Humans are relaxed when they are entertained, and it is therefore difficult to resist the poisonous messages delivered to them. The pornographic industry, for example, takes advantage of the receptivity of the brain while being entertained by erotic imagery. While in this state, the rewiring of neural pathways (obtained through repeated suggestion) is very efficient.
Devaluing beauty
The result of this “war against uniqueness” is a net devaluation of beauty. Stereotypes may be funny at times, convenient shortcuts at others, but sadly, a significant part of the entertainment industry has turned firmly against that which is unique, special and beautiful in favor of what sells. See this excellent short video^ about how men are treated in video games – like sacks of meat that should be stabbed, beat, shot and blown into oblivion.
Objectification leads to a loss of identity. When any person diverts too much attention towards physical aspects, they neglect the equally important internal world. That is not to say that physical beauty is irrelevant. Of course we should respect and take care of our bodies. However, due to the perpetual conditioning received through various forms of entertainment, many victims lose touch with the natural beauty of their bodies.
The mainstream pornographic industry is probably at the pinnacle of objectification. Taking advantage of already established stereotypes while in the same time reinforcing them, this business is one of the biggest earners in audio-visual entertainment. Many, if not most of the women performing in adult movies have done so under social pressure. There are many means of coercing, ranging from criminal (slavery) to exploiting social programming. Because of Social Contribution Inequality^, the number of vulnerable women is astonishingly high.
The advertisement business is akin to pornography
How many people have been through depression due to the way they believed their body looks? Notice here the use of the word “belief”. The human body is beautiful throughout the many changes that happen to it. But those that can influence what people see and hear love nothing more than to teach humans what to think about their and others’ bodies. The purpose is to divert people from their internal world, even abandon it in pursuit of cosmetic fixes. It’s no wonder many victims end up numbing themselves with antidepressants, filling up Big Pharma’s coffers.
In a healthy culture, there is no “ugly” person. A proof of this is that we often find ourselves in awe of a special, twisted tree. This is because we haven’t been conditioned as to what “the perfect tree” should look like. Although, it should be added that gardening is also an industry.
Devaluing life
While we’re at the subject of trees, why not look a bit further. Animals, robots, aliens, zombies, mutants, they’re all shoved into the cinema/gaming stereotype-fest in often unhealthy ways such as serving as cannon fodder during various types of massacre. Again, this is not about those beautiful productions that manage to challenge our intellect and present unique perspectives or teach us about compassion. It’s about the downward spiral towards the dark side of the survival instinct – fear.
There is little respect given to the creatures portrayed on-screen and even less compassion – which is not surprising, since the industry has reached a point where writers are demanded to produce shallow stories that satisfy consumers whose intellectual appetite has been numbed by low quality entertainment. There are exceptions to this, but they are increasingly rare.
Desensitization to violence & devaluing life
All of this devaluesour society’s inherent respect for life. It is therefore not surprising that humans are destroying their environment or subjecting other forms of life to benevolent imprisonment.
Solutions
Education is the obvious key here. Our children will be happier when they are aware of their natural beauty and even more importantly, they should know how to find and respect others’ natural beauty, how to appreciate the value of life, regardless of species.
An Intellectual Diet^ can help by getting rid of some of the toxic programming. A pro-active attitude is perhaps necessary. Boycott the companies that engage in such practices; refuse to see movies, buy games or products that sustain “dirty entertainment”.
Knowledge such as this is widely available all around us. Once incorporated, it can serve as a sort of mental immune system. I’m certainly not the first one to write on this topic and I wish others will continue to advance this discussion further. I rarely, if ever, ask anybody to share one of my articles, but if you can see value in what you just read, if you think that this is a good explanation for something that you already felt, perhaps now is the time to administer an intellectual vaccine to those that you care about.
To conclude on a positive note, here are some proposals for male costumes, if only artists would apply the same techniques used to emphasize women’s bodies.
Men Dressed Like Women
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In the past few weeks the news has been abuzz with several stories coming from zoos around the world. These articles tend to attract quite a few readers it seems, mostly because people seem to think it’s kinda cute when animals prove us they’re smart, or that they can take initiative in a given situation.
There was this octopus^ that managed to escape its prison through some pipe, much to the delight of its human wardens. Then, a bit less funny was this chimp^ who had to be tranquillized while doing what it knew best – having fun above the ground. After the chemical did its job, during some not particularly dignifying minutes, the chimp fell and was skillfully saved from hitting the pavement.
Then, things turned nasty when a tiger killed^ its keeper at yet another location. It is now when humans finally start showing compassion. Of course, its towards their fellow, a keeper, which apparently had a good bond with the tiger. And let’s not forget the deaths at SeaWorld^, a place where patrons used to eat lunch while trainers did tricks with killer whales, one of the most intelligent mammals in the world.
I deeply regret that humans have died while “working” with animals. I think that this can be prevented if we start treating these beings with the respect they deserve. This doesn’t mean that we should stop hunting animals if it is in our nature, but it does mean that we should start treating them with respect.
So then it should be of no surprise when I’m going to write that: no, it’s not cute at all when animals escape the zoo. These creatures do not belong in the zoo. Even though a zoo has the side effect of educating people about animals, it also spreads a terrible message about the way we’re running things on this planet.
Last year I’ve visited a place where they had various animals in a covered enclosure that only had two sets of windows. Three monkeys were gathered in front one of the windows, looking at the world outside. I didn’t have to be an expert in animal body language to understand that those monkeys felt miserable. Maybe I’d feel better if I could unsee that image, but I prefer to have it burned into my brain, because such a memory will help me keep my energy when advocating animal rights on this planet.
Try imagining living your entire life in a space equivalent to a football stadium and perhaps you’ll partially understand what most animals feel like in a zoo. In one place, I’ve seen three different species of felines being crammed between five glass walls. What we’re doing to our fellow life-forms is degrading and unfair.
Education about animals can happen in a myriad of ways. Television has been around for many decades. With the advent of Virtual Reality, we’ll soon be able to visit natural habitats from the comfort of our homes. It’s time to say goodbye to the concept of a prison for animals. Let’s not forget in what period of our civilization these places have been invented.
I’ll close this off with this cute series about how things would look if the roles of humans and animals would be reversed:
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Updated on April 30, 2016: no later than three days after publishing this, I’ve learned about this plan to create a dolphin park in the Arizona desert^. The builders fended off criticism with the usual claims of such entrepreneurs – that the animals will be well taken care of and that the place will offer “education” to our young. You can be well taken care of in prison, but it’s still a prison. As for education, what sort of example are we offering children when their parents cage animals for money?
Because being informed is just not enough anymore…
