“Why so serious?”

Why so serious?” Joker in The Dark Knight

Everyday our eyes brush over so many flatscreens everywhere, by now the one fact common to all our lives is flatworld, this sparkling alternate reality 21st century citizens are getting deported to, like it or not.

One disturbing result: for the first time in History, millions of people are growing up who do not rub shoulders often enough with reality to develop a good feel for how life works. Instead, they stare at flatscreens on the job, at home, playing games, watching TV, in the palms of their hands…

Who rules flatworld? Creators of movies and TV shows, especially, are agenda-driven conformists for one simple reason. You don’t work big on either coast if your agenda isn’t screwed on tight. Basic agenda point: A certain agreed-upon kind and shade and tone of world must always depict reality, even and especially when the shows are outright fantasies. Whatever genre of show, somehow it will dependably be “dark and edgy.”

“Dark and edgy.” That cliche sums up most of what audiences have been exposed to in the name of popular entertainment for going on decades. Decades! And, obviously, dear friends, what is being left out of a dark edge? 99% of reality, would you say?

Why? Who benefits from systematically demoralizing and frightening us? Why are people worldwide being trained by the lively arts to feel they are defeated and doomed rather than being encouraged and given heart and shown the supreme truth of love as global humanity’s traditional arts always could and did?

Instead… think back. Can you even remember? When was the last time flatworld showed us — to pick three of the most common daily occurrences in the real world — a happy marriage, a respectable priest or a good death?

Why so serious?