The Failure of Mythology in Modern Entertainment

Western society today is using Mythology to alleviate our Modern anxiety over money, marriage, careers, pleasure, and power. But I fear it will never be used again for its spiritual power. And we should all be terrified of the this, as it is a direct reflection of cultural decline and decadence that has been unfolding in our culture the past 50 years.

Over a thousand years ago Rome fell for the very same reasons we seem to be declining morally and spiritually. I’m talking about Western Culture. In the final years of Rome’s collapse in the 5th century, Gods and worship of abstract powers was used solely by the elite and the military in Rome to extract more wealth and resources and rationalize the destruction of cultures abroad.

It’s exactly what has happened in America in 2022 with the decadent Plutocracy that now has dismantled the government. We also have an America that has passed through a very decadent era of drugs, political corruption, violence, guns, and greed. Political correctness and ‘consequence culture’ strangles the life of all creativity in our youth. So we turn to ancient stories to lash out at our enemies, push phony identity politics, to support our failed ideologies and bigotry, or even rationalize war and violence. We then create hollow movies and books that instead of stirring people, simply ask them to reflect upon our desire to further these trends through entertainment that patterns our subjective desires and insecurities.

When we write movies and games that use the Gods of olden days in violent conflicts, power plays, cultural attacks, or family struggle we are simply reflecting our own shallow fears, needs, and desires into them. We are not using ancient Myths to explore their original purpose which was to allow their transcendental stories to affect our emotional and spiritual being apart from society.

You will notice that since 2022 almost all the movies that use Greek or Roman Gods or heroes involve violent conflict. They also engage our sexual desires with power plays over women, relationships, or marriage. The struggle for power over another family of Gods, or defiance of a group of heroes before an evil Deity is but a reflection of our own family conflicts and our battles to win money, power, or wealth against our neighbors.

Proof of what I’m saying is simply the fact that if you take any of the Modern movies or books today and strip away the names of Gods and place a mafia family, or a narco family, or even our own families on top of these plots, they work exactly the same. Game of Thrones for example is simply The Godfather or Scarface or any number of tales told exactly the same way, just in a fantasy setting.

My point is we are not writing enduring, moving spiritual tales of fantastic realms and Twilight of the Gods epics. We are writing video games and stories that REPEAT, over and over, the same struggles for money, marriage, and power that our current Western Societies are struggling with. And we unconsciously now are using Mythology as but another facade to express our own loss of family, cultural oneness, drug addiction, or broken marriage problems onto storylines without seeing what we are doing and why.

America in 2018 is especially fearful of the change to a multicultural society. We have an older generation still stuck in its own opioid crisis. While the youth are tearing down Confederate statues reflective of our hate, the older generation is gutting our tax structures for the rich. Every other marriage now ends in divorce driven my greed or temptation. And more men and women now live alone than ever, showing the failed state of our relationships.

This all patterns our own private desperation for more money and power, and yet some weird dichotomy of old America with the new youthful resolutions it cannot or will not admit to seeing or implementing.

50 years of drug addiction and divorce in America had destroyed this country. 50 years of a systematic gutting of religion and family along with gun use and violence has taken its toll on Western Society. As a reaction to this deconstruction we have used Mythology to hide behind our fear and anger at ourselves and used it in violent video games, private equity takeovers, Wall Street greed, corruption, and election of greedy politicians to try and alleviate the pain of all that. That it’s fueled it even more…..our eventual end.

The solution to all this is to see ourselves for who we truly are and reflect upon the hurt we have caused ourselves in America. The cure is to place more regulation to put in prison the conmen and the greedy crooks. The resolution is to embrace the change of inclusion and end all hate. The end is to see what good there is left in this culture, and show the next multicultural generation our own mistakes and admit them then change.

We then can pivot to our broken entertainment system and go to our libraries and dig through the wealth of ancient wisdom left behind in our Western Myths and with sensitive eyes and hearts reimagine the spiritual beauty those old stories once gave the men and women of our ancestors and “rewrite” them upon the Big Screen to stir us once again with tragedy, pathos, and truest love once more.

For we have, for too long, used Myths to reflect our own greed, racism, and broken relationships. Instead we should use Myths and religious texts for spiritual truth to stir men and women to greater meaning and purpose. Art for art’s sake and for Beauty alone should art be made. And when that day comes, many many people will walk from theaters or finish books with tears of joy and be loved like never before; moved again by the magic of ancient Myth our ancestors have left behind as gifts for us to continually revisit and invoke in our fellow Man.

– Mitchell Stokely, Christmas 2018



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