Entertainment and Culture
...f the way that entertainment crept up on me until recently. My typical day is overwhelmingly consumed with entertainment to the point that it is influencing the way I eat, sleep, look, and feel. For example, I believe that television as entertainment has the most impact in my life. I wake up and watch the news, go to school, return home and usually watch an afternoon show, and if I’m not careful, the television actually has the potential of staying on until I fall asleep. The only way that the TV will turn off is if I leave to go elsewhere, but even then leaving the apartment is a predecessor to the next form of entertainment that will follow. For example, if I leave to go get a bite to eat, attending a restaurant means more to me than just nourishment. It becomes an experience or event in which I get to mingle with friends or simply people watch. Although I am eating, I am still entertaining myself. Also, leaving my home may mean going to the movies, a club, or a sporting event, which are all aspects of entertainment. The only time that I can officially say that I am not being amused is when I’m studying for school, which according to Johan Huizinga would classify as my work. Admitting that entertainment is woven into all of my daily activities makes me feel lazy, inadequate, and boring. I know that none of those feelings are true, yet when I actually have to sit and define entertainment, recognizing its power totally belittles me. Why must 90% of my day revolve around entertainment and play? In Johan Huizinga’s theory, he recognizes that “even in its simplest forms, play is more than a mere physiological phenomenon or a psychological reflex...it is a significant function.” Everybody plays no matter what age, gender, or social background. In fact the pleasure of “free” activities forms the distinction between play and work. Entertainment cannot be defined as play in its every sense because Huizinga describes play as “not ordinary” and “free from real life”. Entertainment has evolved into a part of our lives, a subconscious quality infecting how we act and live. True, play is amusing and fun just like entertainment, but play is controlled by the player, whereas entertainment controls it’s audience. Juizinga writes, “The child plays in complete...earnest. But it plays and it knows that it plays. The sportsman, too, plays with all the fervor of a man enraptured, but he still knows that he is playing. The actor on stage is wholly absorbed in his playing, but is all the time conscious of the play”(18). Obviously, play and entertainment are similar when one thinks of events like playing video games, attending a movie, etc. However, the two are different once entertainment crosses over the line of play and begins to influence our feelings and behavior. When we lose control of such “common sense” activities and recognize that entertainment is a factor of who we are, that’s when we feel manipulated and frustrated. Everyday, our thoughts and actions are a direct result of entertainment. For example, the billboard on the highway reminds me that smoking cigarettes will be my death, the commercial tells me how awful I should be feeling when I get that zit, and the television programs that relate to my life like Friends or Undeclared teach me how to react in certain situations dealing with parents, relationships, or school. Also, attending a movie without buying the buttered popcorn and a Sprite just isn’t the same, and attending a basketball game without a hotdog and beer doesn’t seem worthwhile. These scenarios are examples of the way entertainment has become interwoven in this web called life. I have been conditioned to associate daily activities with factors of entertainment. Michael Wolf describes it this way: Entertainment--not autos, not steel, not financial services--is fast becoming the driving wheel of the new world economy. In the United States...entertainment ranks ahead of clothing and health care as a percentage of household spending...Entertainment content ...