This trades on a purported distinction between "art" (yay!) and entertainment (boo!), which is totally bogus. Louis ARmstrong is entertainment. He never wanted to strip away anyone's illusions. He wanted to make people happy, which he did. Shakespeare is entertainment. Hewas himself, so far as we can figure, as a businessman, not as an Artist. Lots of Shakespeare is pretty low entertainment. You ever read or see Titus Andronicus (his most popular play in his lifetime)--gore, sensationalism, rape, mutilation, cannibalism--it would play perfectly on TV today. Lots of Art is schlock. I just went on a tour of the Whitney last week; it's enough to make you want to abolish the NEA. The issue is not Art vs. entertainment, but whether something is good, bad, interesting, complicated, illusion-exploding, whatever. Btw lots of excellent art/entertainment is illusion-promoting: all that wonderful goop about Romantic Love in old pop songs--Porter, Gershwin, Arlen, Kern--Bogie growling goodbye to Ingrid at theend of Casablanca--you gotta probalem with that?
jks
>From: "Randy Steindorf" <grsteindorf at hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: Patriotism, Hendrix
>Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 20:32:50 +0000
>
>TV is largely entertainment. Art should be shaping the popular
>consciousness is art, not entertainment.
>
>What is the distinction between the two? Entertainment exploits the
>illusions that the average citizen has about their current social
>relations,
>while art explodes those illusions, attempting to gain insight into the
>real
>social relations among real people. Art can have entertaining aspects,
>especially drama (Shakespeare) or opera (Mozart), but entertainment rarely
>has an artistic effect because they are directed at two opposed purposes:
>Entertainment to exploit illusions, art to explode illusions.
>
>The role of scriptwriters, directors, and producers, as a fragment of the
>"ideological classes" is to perfect the illusions of philistines about
>themselves, to make them comfortable in their alienation from their
>creative
>humanity.
>
>Their is also the question of stimulus hunger and the role of time
>structuring. What kind of activities does the individual engage in during
>the 24 hours of each day? How are work (necessary labor) and leisure (free
>and creative labor) structured during the day? How do entertainment and
>art
>fit into this structure in terms of quantity of occupied time? 8 hours of
>work, 8 hours of sleep, and 8 hours of entertainment. Is this the content
>of a "human" life?
>
>grs
>
>
>But TV is one of the main forces shaping
>>popular consciousness, and if you're out of touch with it, you don't
>>know what makes people tick. Which may be fine with you, but it's not
>>with me.
>>
>>Besides, it doesn't all suck.
>>
>>Doug
>
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