Every once in a while, usually after something sensational and traumatic, discussions crop up on the moral dimension of art, by which I mean the question of to what degree art reflects or influences society and individuals, and whether we should therefore take this into account when evaluating a work, especially in popular culture.
On that first question, on whether art primarily influences society or is merely a reflection of it, one can begin with the observation that a work must be created by somebody in an act of will. This creation is not done ex nihilo, however, because the will is informed by the intellect. “No man is an island,” and that intellect relies on outside data, such as interactions with other people and what a man has read or watched, including the artwork he’s encountered. Thus, those who create art are themselves influenced by other works, and their own work influences others, creating a circular relationship between art, culture, and individuals. The impact of any particular work will almost always be small, except perhaps for children for whom each individual experience is weighted more heavily in their minds, and for the mentally unstable, but the general themes found across a large number of works in a society can tell us both what that community generally believes, and where it is likely to go. For the individual, though he certainly possesses free will, he must use the information he has in his intellect to inform his will, and the art he’s experienced will certainly factor into that calculus.