Are TV and Movies the New "Opium of the Masses"?

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Karl Marx in the 19th Century wrote that religion is “the opium of the masses.”

Here’s the famous quote:
Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.
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Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
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Are TV and Movies the New “Opium of the Masses”?

I imagine that Marx, if alive, would still feel that way, but I was wondering what he would think about television and movies.

TV and Movies provide comfort to some people; every day, millions of children and adults, spend a lot of hours watching television and watching movies.

I am not sure exactly when Karl Marx died (was it around 1881?); I think the movie industry started in France around 1896.

I was wondering if anyone knows what the Marxist / Neo-Marxist view of television and movies are?

Did Friederich Engels or Karl Kautsky or other Marxist / Socialist/ Neo-Marxists philosophers express any opinions or views about Hollywood or television?

Are television and movies the new “opium of the masses”?
 
They are your opium only if you let them be.

In the 1950s and the 1960s, TV was new and people still owned pianos and held house parties where TV was not that important. But after 40 years of conditioning ourselves to turn it on daily, we have created a certain level of psychological addiction. We can turn this off.

I watch maybe 15 minutes of TV a week. My radio is turned to Catholic Radio and nothing else. I see 2 maybe 3 movies a year. I am tired of the profoundly dysfunctional being marketed as entertainment. I am tired of so many things with the word Dark in the title. There are books I will not buy and most magazines are off my buy list. The constant, non-stop, hyper-sexualized media has gone too far. Lady Gaga on a magazine cover as a modernist Marxist-Pornographer’s fantasy. Nope. It’s time to dump the vast majority of the culture.

I read history. The History Channel is just too watered down for me. I pick up Popular Science on occasion. I read two pages of the Bible most days. Most of my reading is highly specialized. There is good stuff out there but you have to look for it. I have a CD player for music that interests me.

God bless,
Ed
 
My opium is HGTV. Watching Holmes on Homes right now. Love the show. I also like NCIS. Lady GaGa is nut case…she hasn’t done anything more odd than David Bowie did in my era with Ziggy Stardust.

Music after 1974…went down hill. We have digital music on TV and listen to mostly the 70’s music. HGTV, the Pickers show, the Pawn Shop in Vegas, Cake Boss…Yard Crashers are what DH and I enjoy.

We sometimes watch Modern Marvels and the History Channel and the shows like how candy and other foods are made.

Movies…Superman II, Field of Dreams, and looking forward to seeing Sorcerers Apprentice.
 
Don’t compare Miss Gaga to Bowie. I followed his career closely but he complained he was not allowed to do some of the things he wanted to do. Miss Gaga is going way over the line. Way over.

God bless,
Ed
 
edwest2 said:
Don’t compare Miss Gaga to Bowie. I followed his career closely but he complained he was not allowed to do some of the things he wanted to do. Miss Gaga is going way over the line. Way over.

God bless,
Ed
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Why Ed…I have misjudged you…:DI had no idea you even knew who Davie Bowie is…🤷 You’re one of the “straightest” people (and I mean it nicely) 😃 on CAF. When I think of Ed…I don’t think rock n roll…and certainly not David Bowie:eek:

As for Lady Gaga…she is an over the top like Madonna was/is. I have seen her videos…and maybe I’m old at 52…but I have never seen anything so degrading to women as her videos and some of the videos I have seen…
 
Lady Gaga goes to a Berlin Sex Club. I don’t think Madonna was associated with that. David Bowie had to deal with some backlash when his bisexuality was brought up. I lost interest in him the moment he made the transition to what I call vulgar culture in the late 1980s, early 90s. Right around the time George Michael was yelling “I Want Your Sex” which was banned in parts of the US and the UK.

Oh yes. People think that Christians in America had totally lost their grip long ago, but a few in the media hung on until the early 90s and then the slide continued to accelerate.

Today, most movies are about one group: The Dysfunctionals. Most TV programs as well. Where else can you have a TV program about a lovable serial killer who works at a crime lab by day and kidnaps and cuts up people at night? Season One is available at Target. What’s next? The lovable family of Cannibals next door?

The edge has been reached. Time to step away from the precipice.

God bless,
Ed
 
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