"Umm, when you go to the movies now, you are not seeing a movie. You're seeing something like a movie. It looks, sounds, and acts like a movie. It's shown in a movie theatre. But it's not a movie."
What a waste of ink.
That's not to say these movies aren't entertaining. But they're entertaining in the same way the magician at a child's birthday party is. You paid to be entertained so you let yourself be entertained, all the while you know that the tricks are predictable and probably easily deciphered, the jokes are tired, and amusing only in rote, and the schtick embarrassing except that you have nothing better to do.
The "dark, gritty look" of movies like Gladiator and Blackhawk Down is becoming cliche. The vapid scat humor of Dumb and Dumber or anything by Adam Sandler is an appeal to the dullest couch spud. All the moviemaker has to do is keep him from drowning in his own drool before the final credits and he can consider his product successful.
It's Jerry Springer on the Big Screen, the Dark Age of Cinema. But what can you expect from audiences that actually tune into crap like "American Idol" and "Survivor?"
Actually I couldn't make heads or tails of the article. It reads more like a facsimile of an article than the real thing (ironically, since this seemed to be the point he was trying to make about movies).
Is this anything other than a variation on the old "stuff was better in my day" theme? The movies this guy used to watch were "real" entertainment, but all current movies are "facsimiles" or "imitations". Yeah, ok, whatever you say, old-timer. Now I'm real impressed that he front-loaded and straw-manned his argument to death by stacking up a freakin' Adam Sandler movie to the one it was "based on", but really: is that a fair comparison?
Ugh. I mean just cuz he can throw a couple Umberto Eco quotes together and bash America doesn't mean he's making any actual good point of any kind.
The use of music, in particular, to suggest a romance between Anakin and Padme that would be non-sensical otherwise.
Um, once you accept that these events are taking place "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away"; that Padme is the former Queen of her planet but posed as her maidservant practically the whole time; that a Jedi named Qui-Gon Jinn just happened to land on a planet called Tattoine, just happened to wander into a junk shop where the owner just happened to have a slave named Anakin who (wouldn't you know it) it turns out just happened to have a "high midichlorian count" and perhaps was even conceived immaculately - once you accept all these things, seems a little silly to me to complain that a romance between this Anakin and that Padme was "non-sensical". He was a strapping teenager assigned to protect her, and she in her early 20s; in fact a romance between them would be one of the more believable things about those movies, it seems to me :)
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.