Critical Acclaim of Realism, but Sacrifice of Morality

One of my biggest issues of a very dominant trend in both filmmaking and TV shows in the past few years is the overbearing strive and subsequent critical acclaim for material that is heavily realistic, presents "complex and flawed" characters, but there is a complete lack of central morality or moral lens for the viewer. If anything about good and evil, right or wrong, morality in general is touched upon, it is strictly restrained to moral relativism, where it's always "up to the viewer" to form their own feelings, the filmmaker tries not to offer the slightest clue about his or her stance on the issues. Pretty much every last "critically acclaimed" TV show these days falls under this category, and a plethora of movies, Manchester by the Sea being the most recent example of the ones I have seen, though it's really not about one or two examples.

The issue I have with this "non judgmental" trend is that I firmly believe art, truly great art, should in some shape or form benefit society, not simply present it "as is." When society celebrates stories of moral relativism, it adopts moral relativism. Things that were, and for good reason, seen as clearly wrong, suddenly become "complex," up for personal interpretation, depending on "circumstance." And if challenged, the excuse is always "oh I'm not endorsing this, I'm just portraying real life without judging. This is what people do."

But when art abandons teaching moral messages, that contributes to society becoming morally anchorless and losing its scope of what's right or wrong. No, this definitely is not an argument about "violent movies influence violence in real life" or anything of the sort - it's not about what is portrayed, but how it is portrayed. And morality seems to have been sacrificed by many filmmakers on the altar of realism, with both public and critical acclaim embracing this with both arms.