> <i>What I’ve come to appreciate in the years since is that the stories portrayed were not exactly value neutral. Television, like all forms of fiction, contains implicit messages about how to be a good person and what sort of aims are worth pursuing.</i><p>This is very, very, very true. A screenwriting teacher of mine once explained to me that the vast majority of us no longer get our "sermons" from church. We get them from sitcoms.<p>Sitcoms aren't just joke-delivery vehicles or advertising conduits (though they're those, too). They're actually the primary place the majority of Americans learn about how to be a good person.<p>It may sound like a bizarre claim at first, but pretty much every sitcom follows a plot something along the lines of: character has bad idea, character debates whether to do it, character does bad idea, idea seems to succeed at first, idea ultimately fails miserably, character is in trouble, character gets bailed out by someone who loves them, character learns their lesson. Virtually every sitcom episode demonstrates a moral lesson in their A-plot. (B plots and C plots are more often just gags though.)<p>Given the amount of TV most Americans watch, we learn far more "lessons" in any given week or month than we have the opportunity to do so in real life or through friends.<p>Sitcom writers actually hold a tremendous place of responsibility in American society that they can use (and have used) for good. As the article notes, Will & Grace was a big factor in changing Americans' attitudes towards gay people. Just like the Cosby show was for attitudes towards Black families. So you might think sitcoms are dumb... but they're a <i>huge</i> part of people's moral education, most of all when watching them as kids and teenagers.