Cultural Breakthroughs

A while back there was a story in the Times expressing puzzlement as to why there was so little interest this time around in the sale of the Village Voice. In years past, when the Voice changed hands there was much anxiety among the chattering classes about whether it would lose its edge as the liberal-left “conscience” of New York. But that was a long time ago, before the Times remade itself into the voice of the cultural and moral avant garde. It used to be that, on issues such as homosexuality, the role of the Times was to maintain standards or at least set limits (hence “All the news that’s fit to print”), the Voice challenged those standards and limits, and then there were the really “alternative” publications that catered to the subcultural hard core. It was a well understood division of cultural labor. But in recent years the Times has veered to the left, displacing the Voice by making it superfluous. On every issue of consequence in the cultural wars, the Times has become ever more stridently partisan, and on none, except for “abortion rights,” more shrilly so than gay liberation. Almost every week there are stories hailing new “firsts” in advancing the homosexual cause, and every week there are stories deploring the way conservatives are obsessed with the homosexual cause.

Here, for instance, is a story by Bernard Weinraub going on and on about the cultural significance of a man who won $500,000 on ABC’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire embracing his partner on camera. The story is spread over the front page of the Arts section. (On the same day, the 100,000 people in the annual march for life in Washington rated a small picture toward the bottom of page sixteen of the first section, and no story at all.) The audience of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire happily applauded, and Weinraub contrasts this with protests against homosexuality on television in decades past. This, we are instructed, is a big cultural and moral breakthrough testifying to the “acceptance” of gays and the decline of “homophobia.” Never mind that on the program nobody, including host Regis Philbin, mentions gays or homosexuality. There is no reference to the nature of the relationship between these two guys. Unlike Mr. Weinraub, the people in the audience, except for some gay friends of the two, know nothing about it. The audience goes crazy with excitement when the guy wins $500,000. That’s the point of the program. They applaud the guy who rushes up to hug his lucky friend, they applaud Mr. Philbin, they applaud themselves. That’s the way it is with game shows. There is not the slightest hint of a heavy-duty “statement” being made. But Bernard Weinraub knows a cultural breakthrough when he sees one. (The Times headline reads, “‘Millionaire’ Quietly Breaks TV Barriers.”)

The executive producer of the show offers a more sensible explanation of what is going on. “We treat everyone the same way, and there’s never been an issue about people’s personal relationships. . . . Whether somebody brings their college buddy or mother or sister or lover, we don’t care. We don’t care about ethnic things, we don’t care about sexual things. We treat everybody the same. The show broadly reflects society.” In other words, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire cares about people winning money. One could hardly want a more perfect statement of the cash nexus as the solvent of social distinctions.

There is one problem, however. It is not quite the case that the show “broadly reflects society.” There are relatively few minority and female contestants. “This bothers me,” says the producer. “I don’t know what the reason is. There may be something about trivia and the amassing of knowledge of trivia that’s essentially white and male.” His speculation is exquisitely correct. Excluded are the possibilities that white males know more or are smarter or more assertive or quicker on their feet. No, they are more inclined to waste their time amassing knowledge of trivia. This, one is invited to infer, is a character flaw characteristic of white males. Of course, the point is not pressed, lest it end up at the conclusion that Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is premised upon exploiting and encouraging a weakness of character to which white males are peculiarly prone.

As of this writing, the editors of the Times have not followed up on Mr. Weinraub’s story by proposing another of their favored causes. The unrepresentative nature of the program might be corrected by affirmative action. Women and minorities could be given easier questions, which is the approach the Times strongly supports when it comes to tests for government employment (and as is the practice with police and fire departments in New York and elsewhere). Or maybe a gender-and race-balancing handicap could be provided by wiring white males to a contraption that gives them a painful electrical shock when trying to answer a question. Mr. Weinraub notes the problem but does not address these possible solutions. It is enough that Mr. Philbin asked Mark to come up, that he bounded out of the audience and hugged his friend Rob, and that the people applauded. One big cultural breakthrough at a time.

It is the kind of story about a culture-shaking “first” that some years ago might have run in the Village Voice. No wonder nobody cares about who takes over the Voice, which is now given away free on the streets. The Times, a multibillion dollar enterprise, has taken over its market share, and that’s what really matters. The phenomenon is explained by—to paraphrase Daniel Bell—the cultural depredations of capitalism. Aided, of course, by ideologically driven editors and writers whose larger purposes neatly coincide with serving as capitalist tools. It is what happens when the very good thing that is a market economy becomes the very bad thing that is a market society, when culture is taken captive to whatever can attract a paying crowd.

Sources: On TV show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and gay man winning $500,000, New York Times, January 25, 2000.