Thank you for the feedback. I agree that movies influence people too much, but I think there's a different reason that we’re seeing some of these themes in movies. I’m still not ready to believe we see these themes because of a deliberate goal to control people on the part of the movie studios or the media. Movie studios’ primary motivation is to make money, so they will produce ANYTHING, as long as it makes money and won’t cause a boycott of the studio. I think the best demonstration of this motivation is the fact that filmmakers routinely portray corporations and corporate executives as the bad guys (I mentioned this in my original post). This anti-business/anti-corporate bias seems to occur because individual directors and screenplay writers don’t like corporate executives who have too much power. Yet the big movie studios still produce most of these "anti-corporate" movies, usually giving the directors and writers creative control, in the hope that the film will be a hit. The fact that the studios let these films be made tells me that it’s really about the money. Also remember that sex sells. Violence sells. People are fascinated by "forbidden" activities like smoking and drug use. Having mentally ill characters and evil psychiatrists introduces excitement into the plot. Characters don’t discuss birth control options, they don't lecture each other on the dangers of drug use, and ordinary therapy sessions between psychiatrist and patient are not shown because all these things are just not interesting to the average viewer and not central to a movie’s plot. They’re not included in the movie because they’re boring and make the film unnecessarily long. The same stereotypes get played out again and again because we (people) like to see things that we know. We usually like to have our stereotypes confirmed. This makes us feel like we understand the world. Additionally, certain stereotypes have been well-received in the past (like neurotic psychiatrists), so they keep getting brought back. The overarching theme here is that the filmmakers are giving the audience what it wants, and will keep doing so as long as people keep paying to see it. Until we can socialize ourselves to avoid offensive and mindless portrayals, this is the way it will stay. I guess the upside is that each of us can be made aware of all this, and then decide for ourselves what to do about it. Ilan