Posted on 08/04/2002 10:41:57 AM PDT by testforecho
WITH summer comes the annual ritual of the Hollywood blockbuster, aimed primarily at teenagers, and with the blockbuster comes the annual ritual of complaining about it.
Critics usually focuses on the thin plots, the lame jokes, the lack of characterization and the bombast of special effects. As they see it, many films now use an aesthetic sleight-of-hand that substitutes volume, speed, size and other neurological overloads for the more traditional satisfactions of entertainment, allowing viewers to expend a minimal amount of emotional energy. These are faux movies, and are about the only kind most teenagers respond to. They are also Exhibit A of a larger phenomenon: the illusion of entertainment.
For decades, cultural observers have been saying Americans live in a world of their own illusions, built to their specifications and designed to replace the disorder and discomfort of the unmanaged reality people were once sentenced to. As Umberto Eco wrote, "American imagination demands the real thing and, to attain it, must fabricate the absolute fake."
Entertainment, especially film, with its blend of the real and the fantastic, has long been implicated in this shouldering aside of the genuine. But though entertainment is often blamed for this trend, it is also seemingly immune, because you cannot make a copy of a copy. You know that the French pavilion at Disney World's Epcot is not a real French bistro. But what would an imitation movie or TV show even look like? To talk about facsimiles of entertainment doesn't make sense.
Over the last few years, however, something has appeared that not even the most prescient cultural theorists anticipated. The television producer Phil Rosenthal calls it the "illusion of entertainment," and it is just that — a form of entertainment that looks and sounds like conventional entertainment but is not, any more than Epcot's Paris is Paris. Something vital is missing.
In most entertainment, the audience responds emotionally, psychologically, intellectually, even physically. There is a level of engagement, and we usually judge entertainment on the basis of how much engagement it elicits. At its simplest, as in so many teenage movies, the illusion of entertainment eschews other forms of engagement for purely physical effects. At its more complex, engagement is replaced by another mechanism entirely. Instead of character development in movies or full-bodied jokes in situation comedies viewers get a set of signals, a kind of code, that advises them how to respond without having to expend the effort, however minimal, that real entertainment demands. You see or hear the signal and you respond as if you were getting the real thing. Or put another way, you are given the form and you provide the content.
Just compare a conventional entertainment, the director Frank Capra's "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," with its latest avatar, Adam Sandler's "Mr. Deeds" — by no means the most egregious offender. Both films tell the same story of a naïf who inherits a fortune and is taken advantage of by urban sharpies. But that's where the similarity ends. Capra's classic is heavily plotted, quiet and often tender; leisurely paced, its comedy character- and plot-generated. You must watch and listen closely to enjoy it. Mr. Sandler's movie is more skimpily plotted, loud, often violent and frenetically paced. Its comedy is virtually all non sequiturs — a disappearing butler or a gangrenous foot that is only funny because we know it is meant to be, not because it is inherently humorous. Even the romantic scenes are romantic only because viewers know they are supposed to be, and drippy music signals that they are. Mr. Sandler is working the code. He's stripped Capra down to the absolute basics of form and then added noise and speed.
In mathematics there is something called a derivative — an expression that stands for another set of expressions. The illusion of entertainment is a kind of cultural derivative. You watch most television sitcoms and, just by the rhythm of the banter and the laugh track, you know how you are supposed to respond, whether the jokes are funny or not. Sitcom writers call this "likeajoke" because it has the form of a joke without the content. Or you go to a big commercial movie, and just by experiencing the rapid cutting and thumping music you know how you are supposed to respond, whether the action engages you or not.
In effect, these entertainments exist largely as a system of reminders of what we once experienced when we watched real entertainment — movies and television shows that engaged us and made us feel.
OF course, some may argue that the illusion of entertainment is just another name for bad or formulaic entertainment, and the signals and codes are the cultural syntax that everyone grows up with. But the illusion of entertainment is not a matter of quality; it is a matter of kind — of a different way of processing what we see. Even bad conventional entertainment operates on the principle of engagement; it is just that bad entertainment doesn't succeed in engaging.
As for formulas, while most people are familiar with narrative patterns and understand what they convey, there is a big difference between old formulaic entertainment and the new illusion of entertainment. Formulas are designed to elicit predictable responses through predictable means — predictable because they have worked in the past. You show an audience an attractive young man and woman who playfully bicker at the beginning of a movie and it roots for them to wind up together at the end. Or show a bully pushing around a decent fellow and viewers root for the latter to defeat the former. The audience reacts not because it knows the formula — it reacts because the formula knows the audience.
THE illusion of entertainment doesn't put the audience through those paces. Being a derivative, it is far more emotionally economical. It gets its predictable responses by cuing the audience in how they are supposed to react. And it can do so because the audience, after years of watching movies and TV shows, is now hard-wired to respond. Virtually all Americans have internalized the code. They are sophisticated enough to know that a certain cadence of speech means funny and a certain editing pattern means action and certain saccharine music means melodrama. They don't need the whole apparatus of entertainment anymore, or even formulas. The illusion of entertainment is a shortcut — entertainment lite.
It is not an altogether unsatisfying shortcut either. Just as Mr. Eco said that Americans prefer the fake to the real, so many prefer the illusion of entertainment to the real thing. The illusion of entertainment cannot provide all the pleasures real entertainment does, but it is far less demanding and challenging. It is also more accessible, and since it lets viewers essentially fill in the blanks themselves, it is more certain in its results. In fact, many people, especially young people, are now likely to judge a movie or TV show by how effectively it provides the forms and activates the codes.
Not surprisingly, this has been a boon to the entertainment industry. Why struggle to write real jokes when you can write "likeajokes" and get the same effect? In doing so, however, producers of entertainment have not, as some critics assert, necessarily suffered a failure of talent or intelligence. Rather, they may have made a discovery and then exploited it. Just as the makers of kitsch, which is the illusion of art, learned to produce, in the critic Clement Greenberg's analysis, the effect without the cause, so have the makers of the illusion of entertainment learned how to produce the reaction without the reason for it. When the audience so embraces this, one cannot really blame producers for attempting to perfect it.
Obviously, no work of popular entertainment is entirely illusory yet. But real entertainment is endangered — and not only because the illusion of entertainment is flooding the market. An entire generation has now grown up with the illusion of entertainment. It has grown up with the codes, with "likeajokes" and "likeanaction," and scarcely knows what real entertainment is — which is why the illusion of entertainment is targeted at the young. For them, the codes are not reminders; they are the thing itself.
It is bizarre to think that conventional entertainment may someday become a relic with even the old formulas attenuated into signals. Yet that is the future we are edging toward — a future where entertainment is created by people who don't care about engagement for people who don't even know what engagement is.
Sure, levels of wealth may differeniate the stage props, but isn't the script familiar? Let's all get rich! Make your mark on the world by aquiring as many goodies as you can afford and experiencing as much as possible.
A couple of years ago, they showed a special of "The 100 Best Comedy Movies" ever made. What struck everyone was that ALL the top 10 movies were over 20 years old. While a few of the top 100 were more recent, none of the very best ones were.
Movies in the past relied on writing, interesting characters, and actual acting. While some of the plots were predictable and sometimes silly, they were interesting to watch, even if only to root for the characters. Modern movies, esp. comedies, come off as merely stupid and fake. I know I'd rather watch the Marx brothers or other old classic than anything made recently. They're just a lot more fun.
Also, while in general I don't approve of censorship, I think the writers in the past wrote better because they had to imply more in situations, rather than let it all hang out. Of course, the audience had to pick up on the clues, too, which meant they had to invest more into the movie, which required more thought (and intelligence?) than is necessary today.
Attack of the Maureen Dowd Clones
This "paying attention to details" difference would explain things like someone prefering "Back To The Future II" to the original (according to Amazon.com there are quite a few.)
The sequel does have more "plot devices" and moves around more between more time periods, and so on.
But, the original is a wonderful cohesive blend of dialog, acting, timing, camera work, music, background music, background detail, and editing and the sequel is really a piece of thrown-together junk by comparison.
For decades, cultural observers have been saying Americans live in a world of their own illusions, built to their specifications and designed to replace the disorder and discomfort of the unmanaged reality people were once sentenced to.
"Cultural observers" say lots of stupid-ass things. Right away I'm suspicious; is this article really about movies, or about "Americans"? Can't complain about one without complaining about the other, can he?
As Umberto Eco wrote, "American imagination demands the real thing and, to attain it, must fabricate the absolute fake." Entertainment, especially film, with its blend of the real and the fantastic, has long been implicated in this shouldering aside of the genuine. But though entertainment is often blamed for this trend, it is also seemingly immune, because you cannot make a copy of a copy. You know that the French pavilion at Disney World's Epcot is not a real French bistro. But what would an imitation movie or TV show even look like? To talk about facsimiles of entertainment doesn't make sense.
Actually, this paragraph doesn't make sense. We have a witty Eco quote being used as a launching pad to explain that movies are immune to the charge of falsifying themselves, because they're already false. Translation: "Movies are make-believe."
Most of us were already told this by our parents at age 2.
Over the last few years, however, something has appeared that not even the most prescient cultural theorists anticipated. The television producer Phil Rosenthal calls it the "illusion of entertainment," and it is just that — a form of entertainment that looks and sounds like conventional entertainment but is not, any more than Epcot's Paris is Paris.
Translation: current entertainment isn't really entertainment. How do we know? Because "television producer Phil Rosenthal", whoever that is, says so.
This argumentation style isn't really argumentation, is it? Something vital is missing. Like facts, logic, evidence....
In most entertainment, the audience responds emotionally, psychologically, intellectually, even physically. There is a level of engagement, and we usually judge entertainment on the basis of how much engagement it elicits. At its simplest, as in so many teenage movies, the illusion of entertainment eschews other forms of engagement for purely physical effects.
So entertainment engages the audience in many ways - "even physically". But today's "illusion of entertainment" only causes "purely physical effects". So that's why it's not "really" entertainment.
There's a contradiction here. Anyway, I certainly wouldn't argue with a claim that American Pie 2 engages the audience on a lesser level than (say) Saving Private Ryan. It engages them "purely physically", if this guy insists. Fine.
That's entertainment. How is it not?
At its more complex, engagement is replaced by another mechanism entirely. Instead of character development in movies or full-bodied jokes in situation comedies viewers get a set of signals, a kind of code, that advises them how to respond without having to expend the effort, however minimal, that real entertainment demands. You see or hear the signal and you respond as if you were getting the real thing. Or put another way, you are given the form and you provide the content.
I'm gonna need a pretty convincing example to buy what this guy is selling right here. Seriously, what on earth is he talking about?
I'm tempted to part company with him right here, by saying: "I'm reading a New York Times article that makes no sense. So apparently instead of a rational argument of some kind, I'm supposed to respond to a set of signals, a kind of code - namely, the fact that this article appears under the hallowed words 'The New York Times', quotes Umberto Eco, bashes Americans - that advises me how to respond - namely, by clapping and nodding my head like a seal - without having to expend the effort, however minimal, that real convincing argumentation demands."
Just compare a conventional entertainment, the director Frank Capra's "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," with its latest avatar, Adam Sandler's "Mr. Deeds"
I've already complained about this unfair comparison enough. Let's move on.
In mathematics there is something called a derivative — an expression that stands for another set of expressions.
I'm not sure I buy that ("an expression that stands for another set of expressions") as the definition of a derivative. I think maybe he's confusing this with financial "derivatives". But whatever.
The illusion of entertainment is a kind of cultural derivative.
Perhaps it would be, but (a) certainly not in the mathematical sense, just in the generic plain English sense of the word (I still can't figure out why he felt the need to pretend to be a math expert in order to use the word "derivative"), and (b) only if this "illusion of entertainment" actually exists as a real phenomenon - for which he's still provided no evidence other than the fact that some TV producer said so, and some Adam Sandler movie was a piece of crap.
You watch most television sitcoms and, just by the rhythm of the banter and the laugh track, you know how you are supposed to respond, whether the jokes are funny or not.
Ah, so central to his grand thesis is the fact that sitcoms (like Adam Sandler movies) are also crappy compared to Frank Capra films. Got it! What a great point.
Or you go to a big commercial movie, and just by experiencing the rapid cutting and thumping music you know how you are supposed to respond, whether the action engages you or not.
Yes but "knowing how you are supposed to respond" is not the same as actually responding. There's still such a thing as "good movie" vs. "bad movie". If he's complaining about (say) big commercial movies with rapid cutting, thumping music, but which don't engaged the audience (i.e. Tomb Raider from last year...) then guess what? He's complaining about (drumroll) Bad Movies.
Bad Movies, I hate to break it to everyone, have always existed.
In effect, these entertainments exist largely as a system of reminders of what we once experienced when we watched real entertainment —
Right. Tomb Raider, by failing at its goals, reminded me of The Matrix, which succeeded and was by far a better movie.
(Oh wait, I was supposed to name a grand old classic movie in that space, wasn't I? So sorry....)
Anyway, in short: Bad movies are worse than good ones. Unsuccessful filims are less entertaining than successful ones. What an earth-shaking discovery! The only place where I part company with the author, I guess, is the implication that good films are all a thing of the past. The only way he supports this conclusion is by ignoring all non-Adam Sandler films, of course....
OF course, some may argue that the illusion of entertainment is just another name for bad or formulaic entertainment,
bingo.
But the illusion of entertainment is not a matter of quality; it is a matter of kind — of a different way of processing what we see.
For instance....
Even bad conventional entertainment operates on the principle of engagement; it is just that bad entertainment doesn't succeed in engaging.
Right... and so....
As for formulas, while ...
Huh? New paragraph? That's it? I thought he was going to actually explain and justify his claim that what he is complaining about here isn't just bad or unsuccessful films, but is different in kind ("a matter of kind"). How is it different in kind? He never says. I guess we're just supposed to take it on faith.
there is a big difference between old formulaic entertainment and the new illusion of entertainment.
Ah, ok. Well, how so? I can't wait to hear this.
The audience reacts not because it knows the formula — it reacts because the formula knows the audience.
Uh, ok. This is some kind of metaphysical argument that is way over my head. How does it happen that a "formula" "knows" an "audience'?
A movie audience in 1955 goes to see a movie in which a bully pushes around a decent guy. The audience roots for the decent guy to prevail in the end. It's a formula, but the audience "doesn't know" this. Instead, the "formula knows the audience". Therefore it's "real entertainment".
Flash forward to 2002. A bully pushes around a decent guy. The audience roots for the decent guy to prevail in the end. It's a formula, but this time the audience "knows the formula". Thus it's only the "illusion of entertainment".
Two questions: 1. What's the freakin' difference? 2. This guy must have thought everyone was pretty stupid 30+ years ago not to recognize such movie formulas.
THE illusion of entertainment doesn't put the audience through those paces. Being a derivative, it is far more emotionally economical. It gets its predictable responses by cuing the audience in how they are supposed to react.
Right, as opposed to movie formulas in the olden days, which... cued their audience in how they were supposed to react. I still don't see the difference, save perhaps for the fact that the author of this article was younger in the olden days than he is now, so naturally Everything Was Better Back Then.
And it can do so because the audience, after years of watching movies and TV shows, is now hard-wired to respond.
Ok fine, if all he's doing is complaining about the jadedness of modern audiences and the increase of irony and sarcasm and self-consciousness in entertainment and all that, he's got a point. I still don't see how that makes the entertainment an "illusion", however.
The illusion of entertainment cannot provide all the pleasures real entertainment does, but it is far less demanding and challenging.
Adam Sandler films are far less demanding and challenging than Frank Capra films. What a great point! We've been through this. Doesn't he have any real evidence to provide or fair comparisons to make?
It is also more accessible, and since it lets viewers essentially fill in the blanks themselves, it is more certain in its results. In fact, many people, especially young people, are now likely to judge a movie or TV show by how effectively it provides the forms and activates the codes.
Lots of interesting little claims in this statement. It would be intriguing if he'd actually provide some examples. Which films does he have in mind which "provide the forms and activate the codes" for "young people", one wonders?
Why struggle to write real jokes when you can write "likeajokes" and get the same effect?
Because by writing mere "likeajokes" you can't rise much farther in the industry than some lame sitcom. (Let's remember, gentle readers, that earlier in this article the term "likeajokes" only came up in the context of freakin' sitcoms. But of course here the author tries to pretend that "likeajokes" are what are used in all comedy films. Don't let him get away with this sleight of hand.)
When the audience so embraces this, one cannot really blame producers for attempting to perfect it.
Embraces what? That Adam Sandler movie? That's still his only example. Well, it was a critical failure. It won't be remembered in 40 years. And even in the short term, I'm not even sure it's doing that well; is it?
Seriously, what's this guy's point? Anything?
But real entertainment is endangered — and not only because the illusion of entertainment is flooding the market. An entire generation has now grown up with the illusion of entertainment.
Fascinating claim. Too bad he never backs it up.
It has grown up with the codes, with "likeajokes" and "likeanaction," and scarcely knows what real entertainment is —
Ah yes, young people today, so uncultured. Not like him.
For them, the codes are not reminders; they are the thing itself.
What "codes"? Does this guy even know what he's talking about? It's beginning to seem like this article is really just a stand-in or a teaser for a much longer, more interesting article - one which contains the actual content, the definitions, the examples, the logic, the arguments.
It is bizarre to think that conventional entertainment may someday become a relic with even the old formulas attenuated into signals.
He said it. Yes, it is bizarre. Truly bizarre.
Yet that is the future we are edging toward — a future where entertainment is created by people who don't care about engagement for people who don't even know what engagement is.
Only he knows what "engagement" is, and "engagement" is the sole province of the cowboys-and-Indians movies he watched on Saturdays as a kid.
I'm assuming, of course. In reality it's still not possible to tell what point this guy thinks he is conveying, so one has to extrapolate. Hey, I did my best.
I experienced that in the movie theater, yesterday. I was watching "Signs" and a couple came in with a pair of 13-14 year olds. They sat two rows ahead of me and sat there giggling at scenes that weren't even funny. What time they weren't giggling, they were whispering to each other.
Unfortunately, Hollywood is now pretty firmly in the hands of twentysomething brats who are third-generation Beverly Hills residents, and they learn how to make movies by going to the UCLA film school and watching other movies. I'm convinced that film school is what is responsible for us getting so many tired copies of copies of copies of movies that bear no relation to the lives of real human beings.
Writers, too, used to learn the craft by writing for newspapers and magazines or writing plays and putting them in front of live audiences, then going to Hollywood (look at the original "A Star is Born," and you'll see the name Dorothy Parker in the credits. There is certainly no trace of Dorothy Parker's wit in any of the recent remakes). Now they take screenwriting classes and learn the same stupid formulas ("Your script must be structured like a roller coaster...") This same inbreeding is the reason that most modern novels suck pond water: instead of going off to fight fascism in Spain, today's novelists go off to Bennington College and attend "writer's workshops" where they learn how to write novels about novelists trying to write a novel. I call them "novel-gazers."
All that said, I have actually seen some good movies this summer, but none of them were special effects-laden blockbusters. One that comes to mind is "The Emperor's New Clothes," a beautifully-made and well-written "what-if" fantasy about Napoleon. It's so good, I'm amazed that it got made at all.
You and I agree. The problem is that (presumably) the author of the article does not. He'd probably call Die Hard "the illusion of entertainment".
I'm not here to suggest that Die Hard was a classic film (though I did kinda like the first one :). Just to refute the author's bizarre implication that entertainment nowadays is much different in kind than it used to be. Die Hard is an action movie. To make a fair comparison in this context you'd have to compare it not to Capra or even NxNW, but to some forgettable but action-packed Western, gangster, or war movie from the '40s. Chances are, Die Hard (at least the first one) would come out on top!
I think one big mistake the author makes in this discussion is in not realizing that the reason all movies of the past seemed more important and "truly entertaining" is that, after all, we only remember the important ones. Everyone remembers Capra. No one's gonna remember Adam Sandler, or probably even Die Hard, in 40 years. This is not because entertainment is an "illusion" now but because he's comparing apples with oranges. Why doesn't he compare Capra with Spielberg, Shamalan, or someone like that? Or more to the point, compare Sandler and Die Hard with equivalent movies of the time he's looking at.
Why doesn't he do that? Because it's too hard, of course. No one remembers those type of movies. Which makes it easier for guys like this to pretend that throw-away crap entertainment didn't exist back then, that every movie was NxNW or It's a Wonderful Life.
There are great movies tho. Take the "13th Warrior" Absolutely great, well-filmed, and entertaining.
I agree. The 13th Warrior was fantastic.
Take "Zoolander". Hilarious comedy. Well done.
I didn't care for it at all. But whatever. I'd still never accuse it of being a "facsimile" of entertainment.
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