THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 18, 1996 TAG: 9609180439
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 69 lines
Conservative media critic Michael Medved stood before 600 people Tuesday morning at the annual Neptune Festival Interfaith Prayer Breakfast and took a mighty bite out of the hand that feeds him.
Medved, who makes his living as a newspaper film critic and host of television and radio programs, offered a reasoned and impassioned argument why Americans should tune out the electronic pop culture that threatens to overwhelm their families - especially their children.
His primary target was television, where he appears weekly on 200 public broadcasting stations as the co-host of ``Sneak Previews.''
``The problem,'' he said, ``is not that there's too much violence, too much sleaze, profanity, too many anti-religious messages - though they're there.
``The problem is there is too much TV, period.''
Noting that the average American spends 26 hours a week in front of a television set, Medved calculated that would be ``13 years, uninterrupted, 24 hours a day,'' over a normal life span.
``Is that what you want on your tombstone?'' he asked. `` `Here lies our beloved husband and father, who devoted 13 years of his life to his TV set?' ''
The negative impact of pop culture, he said, is a ``truth so inescapable that it's one of the few issues that President Clinton and Senator Dole seem to agree on.''
The ``flickering images'' of television, as well as films and pop music, conflict with the ``messages our common religious faiths teach us,'' he said.
The pop-culture phenomena, he said, encourage a short attention span and a fixation on superficiality, and emphasize fleeting moments of fun over true happiness.
The result, Medved said, is a ``sense that we must be constantly entertained, that the images must constantly change, and that everything must be tied up in a neat little bow, all in half an hour. . . . Life isn't like that.''
Medved, who attended Yale Law School with Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton, often substitutes for Rush Limbaugh on his radio talk show when the host is on vacation.
Besides his film writings for The New York Post and his television and radio programs, he is the author of seven nonfiction books. They include the classic ``The Golden Turkey Awards,'' which lovingly panned some of Hollywood's all-time worst efforts, and the controversial ``Hollywood vs. America,'' an indictment of the excesses of the film industry.
He noted, as well, that he is a frequent visitor to Virginia Beach as a guest of ``The 700 Club'' on the Christian Broadcasting Network.
``I'm the fairly regular Jewish representative on `The 700 Club,' I guess,'' he said, laughing.
The selection of Medved, who is active in a variety of Jewish causes, as the featured speaker for the ecumenical prayer breakfast was something of an atonement for last year's keynote address. In 1995, the singularity of the Christian message from the speaker, Orlando Magic general manager Pat Williams, left non-Christians in the audience uneasy.
``Last year there was a problem,'' said Rabbi Israel Zoberman, a member of the prayer-breakfast committee, ``when the guest speaker got carried away in his reverence. I was on the dais, and it was very uncomfortable.
``But today, I was so relieved, it was truly an interfaith experience. And especially for the Jews there, we felt very included. We had a common theme, and mutual concerns, mutual aspirations that we did not have'' in the past. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Film critic Michael Medved led the Neptune Festival prayer
breakfast.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH NEPTUNE FESTIVAL by CNB