Few worth their salt in modern society can deny its steady spiral of degradation. It is evident most everywhere one turns, but blatantly so in the field of the arts. Art, after all, reflects and builds the very fiber of a civilization.  In a sense, it can kill or cure. To my eyes, the modern state of our film industry is serving as a veritable poison fed down the throats of civilization both here and abroad.

In order to fully grasp the extent of the damage done to the industry, it is necessary to turn back some eighty odd years ago when the motion picture first appeared widely on the scene. These very first "flickers," as they came to be called, were little more than black and white figures dancing noiselessly about the screen, appearing quite incapable of conveying emotion. Several pioneers were to change this entirely: D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. de Mille, and Mack Sennett, to name a few. However, it was to be the actors themselves who would truly develop the art of the film, and breathe life into this new medium. Indeed, there are few even today who have not heard of Charlie Chaplain, few who have not seen his masterworks. And of course there were many, many others as well: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Buster Keaton; a whole world of true artists who knew, loved, and understood film.

The real point then, is just this: up until the early fifties there was in general one common denominator evident in most every successful film maker. Simply put, this was the consistent sense of morality with which they operated. Let us just say an entertainer such as Jim Carey would long since have been thrown out on his ear had he attempted the same rules of juvenile crassness in the 1930s. The promotion of moronic and incompetent behavior in a film such as "Dumb and Dumber" can hardly enhance the industry much less our own country.

It seems quite obvious then, that any field becomes doomed for failure in the absence of a moral code. "The Way to Happiness", for instance, would do wonders for the situation, were it to be implemented.

An artist owes to a society his support and the lasting benefits of a true masterpiece, free of his own aberrations. This is not to say a man must only film butterflies and sponge cake. Far from it, but any artist foolish enough to encourage the downward slide of his society early slits his own throat. Anyone out to explain away the benefits of the seemingly endless stream of mediocre, if not inferior, and typically perverted pictures shall have a very weak case indeed.  Rome wasn't built in a day, but it fell much more quickly.

As an actress and playwright myself, I have no tolerance for the situation and fully intend to reverse the plummeting standards. I do not intend to randomly chastise all works of modern Hollywood. I do however, urge my fellow artist to awaken to the situation and start to burn the midnight oil, as it were. Then and only then, by disagreeing with the indecency and inferior quality of modern entertainment, can true reform take place.