The Death of Pop Culture (in the US)

There are so many definitions of Pop Culture, I'm not even going to try to
define it. What I will say about my take on it in this essay concerns the common
American culture most of us have as it is derived primarily through television
shows, movies, and other forms of entertainment.

The dictionary defines entertainment as the action of providing or being provided
with amusement or enjoyment.

I don't see a problem with some of today's TV shows and movies being light-hearted
comedies or sights of wonder to behold. But we also need TV shows and movies that
provoke us to stretch our minds intellectually, move us in our hearts compassionately,
provoke us to truth, good works, and a higher ethics and morality, and to give us a
hope for the future. To teach us to respect people of age and authority figures,
when they act properly.

TV shows of the past (i.e., more than 50 years ago) were much more likely
than their counterparts in the modern world to provoke us to higher levels
of compassion, truth, good works, and a higher ethics and morality, and mutual
respect, without sacrificing entertainment value.

The TV programs that I enjoyed long ago that had these virtues were Star Trek,
Doctor Who, and to a lesser extent Star Wars. But I stopped caring about Star Trek
in the 2000s, about Star Wars as soon as Disney took over the IP (intellectual property).
I stopped caring about Doctor Who in the early 1980s. To me, good science fiction
should have equal parts science fiction, morality, and noncrude humor. I no longer
care what happens to these IPs, because I no longer expect them to produce anything
of value for me.

Today's pop music is either numbingly boring or down right irritating, if it
can even be called music at all. If you younger people would quit kicking the corpse
of modern music to try to keep it alive and just let it die its long-awaited death,
then maybe we'd all get something better to listen to on the other side.

Back in the day, pop culture used to have virtue in it. Not a lot, but some.
The Apostle Paul wrote this to uplift the hearts and minds of his readers:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if
there be any praise, think on these things. -- Philippians 4:8

Consequently, I rarely watch new movies these days, and I rarely watch TV,
except for news or documentaries.