“She’s television generation, she learnt life from Bugs Bunny” muses William Holden in Network, as he confesses his affair with a younger woman to his long-suffering wife. Love it or hate it, television has shaped the way we see the world. And it has been used for years to engineer social change.

It is because of their values that the left has come to dominate the culture. While conservatives value objective facts, those on the left value narrative. This is an important distinction. People develop their worldview based on the stories they are told, not the facts that are presented to them. And while conservatives choose to focus on facts, the left is creating the narrative references that define the world we live in.

As a consequence, left-wing assumptions have come to dominate film and television. And, by extension, it is these assumptions that create the parameters for public discourse. It was through the positive depiction of gay characters in shows like Will and Grace that homosexual relationships came to be more widely accepted. It would be difficult to argue that such depictions played no role in the public’s acceptance of gay marriage. Today shows like Orange is the New Black presents sympathetic transgender characters in an attempt to engineer public acceptance of transgenderism.  The left produces television shows and movies that are anti-capitalism, anti-Christian, and anti-West. Unfortunately, the right fails to produce television shows and movies in their defence.

The left embeds its messages through seemingly innocuous narratives and likeable characters. Otherwise morally reprehensible and disagreeable characters are presented in a sympathetic light. By doing this, the creators of these characters are able to coax us into accepting things we otherwise would not. Max Black, one of the protagonists of Two Broke Girls, is a rude, unmotivated, and immoral drug and alcohol user, but she is presented to the audience as a positive role model for women.

Television’s primary power lies in the fact that it allows individuals and organisations to manipulate images, facts, and stories to suit their own purposes. It is through the distortion of facts, impelling narratives, and the creation of morally reprehensible yet sympathetic characters that those who control television have been able to manipulate the public. Whether or not this trend will continue with the advent of the internet is yet to be seen.