How refreshing it is that 19-year-old actor Angus T. Jones has come to his senses and publicly slammed “Two and a Half Men,” the slop situation comedy on which he has appeared for years.
We are a society in decline in part due to the undue and inappropriate influence of the ”entertainment” industry, which brings us coarse language, sexual innuendo and a multitude of inappropriate themes. Society and its impressionable children reflect what is absorbed in the media.
In 1961, then-head of the Federal Communications Commission, Newton Minnow, characterized television as a “vast wasteland”, though television of that era was pristine and pure in comparison to what we have today, that which Mr. Jones properly classified as “filth.”
There were some wonderful, wholesome, entertaining television programs in the medium’s golden era in which the phrase “broadcast standards” had meaning: ”The Honeymooners”, “I Love Lucy”, “What’s My Line,” “I’ve Got a Secret,” “To Tell the Truth”, and many others, and years ago, one did not have thrown on the screen in prime time or at any other time commercials promoting treatment for erectile dysfunction, gas, bloating, and flatulence nor from automobile insurance companies that try to outdo each other for humor. Today, I watch television almost exclusively for news and information. I have no need to fill my brain with the waste which is prevalent on the screen today.
I trust that Angus T. Jones’ days as an actor may be over, and certainly he shall be persona non grata with the producer of “Two and a Half Men,” but he can sleep better for swimming against the tide of our wretched popular culture. He is a courageous and decent man, one who should be celebrated!
