Note: the following rant contains vague, unresearched statistical claims. Feel free to object to any that are in error.

Some big percentage of the population is married. That percentage spends some big percentage of time watching TV and listening to music, and accounts for some big percentage of ad revenue.

The golden demographic is something like 18-35, right? This is the segment of society with the most disposable income, and thus targeted most by advertisers. Some bigger percentage of this segment is married — but you don’t see many of these people on TV. At age 36, according to Hollywood, you should be watching Ghost Whisperer and Matlock reruns while your kids binge on The Real World.

Why is married life underrepresented in television, movies and music? The stories are about teens, singles hooking up, and married people having affairs. I recently saw Lost in Translation, one of the best treatments of loneliness, bonding and self-discontent that I’ve ever seen. The two main characters are married. To other people. And miserable.

I’m not Dan Quayle. I don’t want the media to sell me an arbitrary definition of morality. I’m honestly curious why society’s most complex relationship is a territory unexplored by the audiovisual arts. Is it because the majority of audiovisual artists are young and single and have no experience with marriage themselves, other than what they remember of their (probably divorced) parents?

There is no story without conflict. Anyone who’s been married more than a week can tell you about that part. In Hollywood, though, it’s all conflict. There’s no upside to marriage (unless one of you is rich and dies). If you stay married, the best you can hope for is to become a dull shadow of your former free-spirited self. If you can’t take it any more, you cheat, and then you leave, and then you get your groove back (at least, I assume, until you marry your new fling and start the cycle over). The last good, honest movie about marriage that sticks in my head was When A Man Loves A Woman. That was 13 years ago.

Believe me, being married has its rewards. Beyond children, sex, or creature comforts. Being irrevocably committed to one other person and choosing to love them no matter what is a challenge that will make you a better person. It might even make you a better artist. Bono, happily married rock star, remarked in U2 By U2 that his art lives in the tension between domesticity and wanderlust: “the collision… between being faithful to your art or being faithful to your lover.”

And now it gets personal. Finding time to write when you have to get the kids up in the morning, put them to bed at night, and work in between is a bear. I can see how “pursuing the muse with no holds barred” (Bono again) could lead to fulfilling bouts of creativity. I have also seen how the unrelieved routine of married-with-children can put out the artistic fire. I’m guessing that most screenwriters and songwriters take the first option, fear the second, and are missing out on the gold mine in the middle.