Entertain me, dammit!

It seems likely that entertainment and religion were once inextricably linked. Furthermore, the priest, the poet, and the chanter were likely one and the same person. Chanters would in time become what we recognize as singers. They added a musical accompaniment, at first only percussion. Then ritual dance joined in. These enhancements made the bond between entertainment and religion even stronger.

At some point, we realized that worship must engage eyes as well as ears. The visual arts were needed to give shape and color to shrines and representations of the divine. This was yet another form of entertainment. It had the mark of all that we call entertaining: the power to command our notice, evoke emotion, and give us an inexplicable sense of enrichment.

It was comedy that first made us think of entertainment as an independent phenomenon. There is nothing funny about religion. To laugh, someone’s dignity has to be punctured. It’s a minimum requirement. We can’t have gods tripping on banana peels, but if a proud hunter catches a spear in his ass, that might be hilarious. We noticed as well the artistic similarity between a heroic narrative and a comedic narrative. The droll story became an art form unto itself.

Entertainment evolved further when we realized how much in love we were with ourselves. Our flaws had given birth to tragedy and comedy. Might our opposite qualities, excellence of the mind and body, also be entertaining? Yes, in fact. Watching a savant compute the cube root of 53,582,633 or recall the box score of a baseball game on a given date makes us gasp at the magic of the mind. Watching jugglers and acrobats at work or a running back breaking tackle after tackle has a similar awe-inspiring effect. We love being amazed by ourselves.

Civilization had barely begun when entertainment, like Aphrodite emerging from sea foam, bubbled forth from the womb of religion. It seemed a gift from the gods, ready to be shaped into myriad wonders. But as I thought back across the intervening millennia, I felt the need to judge. Had entertainment kept its ancient promise to bring us a mirthful demeanor, a rich sense of the beautiful, a deep comprehension of our humanity, and the wisdom to know what is within our grasp and what is beyond it? The answer had to be complicated. Perhaps it could be derived from a broad survey of entertainment sources. I volunteered myself for this task. I turned on my TV, which is equipped with Roku, a device that gives access to dozens of streaming services. After sampling exhaustively, I compiled the following report about the state of today’s entertainment, broken out by contemporary genres.¹

Awash in testosterone

The leading characters in this genre are always muscle men who are invincible in combat. They can knock out, maim, or outright kill a gang of vicious thugs set against them. They have no super powers (that’s another genre), but their skill in the martial arts is so exquisite that they’ve become a force of nature. We can stream them in the Bruce Lee movies; the Jean-Claude Van Damme movies; the Steven Seagal movies; the Kung Fu TV series; the Walker, Texas Ranger TV series; the Rambo movies; the Jack Reacher movies, where undersized Tom Cruise laughably plays the linebacker-sized Reacher; and the Reacher TV series, where the casting is less funny.

None of these men has a personality; it’s all bad guys versus a meat grinder. The only exception that comes to mind is Matt Damon’s rendering of Jason Bourne. Robert Ludlum gives us a backstory with considerable insight into who Bourne is, and it makes all the difference.

Deductive genius

Here it’s the brainiacs who entertain, and they all seem to do it in the same way — they pay preternatural attention to details. They are the heroes and heroines of murder mysteries. The benchmark for this genre is, of course, Sherlock Holmes, which is the same as saying Arthur Conan Doyle is the benchmark for mystery writers. The closest approach to his genius is the TV series Columbo, created by the gifted screenwriters William Link and Richard Levinson. The much revered and overrated Agatha Christie doesn’t match their standard, nor have any writers since. I had some hope for the TV series Poker Face, about a woman who can always sense a lie told in conversation. After a promising start, it’s quality has faded.

Masters of this genre will no doubt come again, but the wait may be a generation or more.

Fantasy run amok

All success breeds excess. Evidence of that is plentiful in the entertainment industry.² It isn’t enough to amaze and delight with tales of physical and mental prodigies. To sell millions of tickets, you have to engage in fantasy. And I’m not talking about a boy who finds a magic lamp. That’s a simple, coherent fantasy. I’m talking about a character who commands thunder and lightning and travels between dimensions — Thor. Or communicates telepathically with marine life — Aquaman. Or deflects bullets with wrist bracelets — Wonder Woman. Or overcomes obstacles through sheer will power — the Green Lantern. Or exceeds the speed of light just by running! — Flash. Or regenerates his body so quickly he is virtually immortal — Captain America.

You might ask how such super powers are acquired. Turns out, the answers are just as fantastic as the powers themselves. The X-men, all mutants, are the result of aliens coming to earth a million years ago and experimenting with the DNA of proto-humanity. Aquaman got his powers directly from Poseidon so that he might take Atlantis back from an invading dimension. Captain America was infused with Super-Soldier serum. Batman was infused with, well, … inherited wealth, which he uses to buy a funny costume, a souped-up car, and an assortment of crime-fighting gadgets. And, of course, Spider-Man was bitten by a radioactive spider.

In 2009, Disney bought Marvel Studios for $4.24 billion. It then owned the rights to nearly all the Marvel characters, which number in the dozens.³ Ever since, they’ve mixed and matched Marvel characters in adventures to save the Earth, the galaxy, and the universe. There’s now no end to the inanity and bad taste they’re prepared to bring to the movies and TV. I foresee a blockbuster in which Jiminy Cricket, Han Solo, Buzz Lightyear, Thor, Mulan, and Peter Pan embark on a voyage into the past to stop Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Richie Valens from flying into a winter storm, thereby saving rock music.

Bankable ugliness

There are two emotions, both ugly, that audiences can’t get enough of. One is revenge, which has deep roots in ancient Greek drama. What today’s filmmakers have that the Greeks didn’t is the technology of special effects. Now audiences can immerse themselves in the deaths of the innocent and guilty alike, with mutilation and gore never presented to previous generations. The deranged thinking of the principals is also on display. It’s certain that there are members in every audience who are nursing a deep grievance, real or imagined. I cringe to think of the psychological effects that murderous thoughts and scenes have on bitter minds.⁴

The other ugly emotion is horror. The thrill of it lies in the anticipation of gore and its realization. A horror story differs from a revenge story in that the second thrill, the retribution, is absent. The antagonist may survive, be subdued, or be killed; it doesn’t matter so long as the horror has ended. The audience is grateful for the thrill of briefly escaping from their humdrum, predictable lives. I see this only as a failure to find joy in the humdrum and predictable.

Pop music

When we speak of musical entertainment today, it’s generally understood that we mean music for a mass audience, and hence music that is commercially successful. It’s usually vocal music with an instrumental accompaniment — often guitars and percussion. More often than not, it’s rhythmic, loud, and even raucous. The words are insistent but can be barely discernible because of amplification. The subject rarely deviates from sexual obsession, be it infatuation, yearning, aggrieved love, or in-your-face fornication. If you want music that’s socially meaningful or cerebral or imaginative or deeply affective, you’re a musical pariah. Look for a Broadway show or a venue for classical music.

To sample the depths to which pop music has sunk, you can do no better than look at Super Bowl halftime shows. It’s here you’ll see musical performances that the world’s biggest audiences crave most. Here’s a link — dive in!

If you’re a glutton for punishment, carry on. Here’s a recent selection from the US Top 40.

How did we reach these depths? I’ve found a couple of credible answers. Look here or here.

Laughter

Where do you look for a good laugh? I’m partial to stand-up comedy and topical humor. I don’t go to comedy clubs, so I rely on TV shows and YouTube videos. Trevor Noah is a stand-out; I can’t imagine The Daily Show without him. Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel are generally good for a laugh. John Oliver is more informative than funny. If only he would dial down the gratuitous vulgarity. Bill Maher is more funny than informative and has the same problem with the vulgarity dial. That said, his closing sermons on Real Time are often gems. Jimmy Fallon of The Tonight Show is the worst of the bunch. His expertise is schmoozing with celebrities, who show up only to promote a movie or a book. This drivel infects the other late night shows but to a lesser degree.

I rarely enjoy sitcoms. The ones about families — traditional, mixed, minority, whatever — range from awful to tedious. Once I got my Leave It to Beaver inoculation, I was done with lovable kids. Of course, I enjoyed Cheers, Taxi, and Frasier (all by the same production company) because the writing was brilliant and the comedy resided in the characters, not in the situation. If the characters have no edges, no situation can make them funny.

Romcoms are just as disappointing. Almost all are formulaic and rely on the celebrity of the he and she to create sparks. Producers speculate continually about the possible chemistry between Stud Muffin X and Sex Goddess Y. Seldom do you see a romcom in which the principals are well crafted and completely incompatible, yet fated to get their minds reshaped. A rare genius can pull this off, as we see in The Goodbye Girl, Groundhog Day, and You’ve Got Mail, three of my favorite movies. We’ll have to wait for the likes of Neil Simon, Harold Ramis, and Nora Ephron to grace our lives again.

Porn

The ancients didn’t have porn as theater, so far as I know. It would have made for a thrilling sideshow to, say, a slave market or a brothel. I’m sure they read pornographic stories. I read Ovid’s Metamorphoses in college. He hoped it would make his name immortal, and he’s still in the running.

Porn blossomed only when it leapt from novels, paintings, and photographs to film, and I cheer for its progress. I find it a legitimate and welcome form of entertainment. What I lament about it is the same lamentation I have about other forms of entertainment: it’s so damn easy to do it badly. What I see too often in porn is the objectification of women in heterosexual sex. The man becomes a beast. He slaps the woman’s breasts and buttocks. He lays hands on her throat. He uses bondage. He forces her into impossible contortions … and she enjoys it! Then there are the contrived scenes of 2-on-1 or 3-on-2 or full-blown orgies. I call this Rube Goldberg sex. It’s just stupid.

The only thing I demand from porn is not to model perverse love making. I’ve found that the only porn makers who reliably follow this requirement are women!

Virtual reality

I haven’t sampled this form entertainment; it’s still in its infancy. Nevertheless, its power will soon be upon us, so speculation is imperative.

Obviously, we’ll want VR to create mind spaces where we can fulfill our deepest desires. Some will take rapturous vacations in Fiji. Some will walk on the moon and search for golf balls. Some, like the Trump brothers, will hunt big game and fill up trophy rooms. Most, I’ll wager, will use VR to create porn fantasies. The most glorious VR achievement will be a technology that can mine memories and interpret brain waves. It will then be able to customize dreamstuff and maximize pleasure.

At that point, we’ll be ready to ask the ultimate question about entertaining ourselves: Is it the goal of human life to replace reality with entertainment?

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¹You won’t see Reading in this sampling because I rarely find it entertaining. I read mainly to gather information. I prefer to say that reading, at best, is “gratifying.”

²Yes, industry. Entertainments are now products made for and distributed to mass audiences. Such products require a collaboration of businesses, an industry. One could speculate on how industrialization affects artistic minds, but this isn’t the time.

³This diagram shows which characters Disney owns and which they share with other enterprises.

⁴Revenge movies are often notable successes at the box office. See a list.