Its Odd How We Entertain Ourselves
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
The evolution of the American entertainment consumer is quite an amazing phenomenon.
It seems there must be a continual ratcheting up of gratuitous sex and violence in the entertainment biz to keep us happy.
A while back one of our readers wrote a column about the movie "Thirteen."
He pointed out the glaring irony of the movie's R rating. The story was about a couple 13-year-olds engaged in activities that made the film an "R." So 13-year-olds couldn't get in to watch a movie about 13-year-olds.
Pretty bizarre.
Then there's the whole "Kill Bill" thing, which is billed as one of the most violent films ever. Of course the director, Quentin Tarantino, is famous for violent films.
I won't see those films, so I'm not going to judge them or review them.
But it just seems weird what people perceive as entertainment.
It's hard for me to see what is entertaining about somebody being hacked up, but apparently legions of Americans can see something I don't.
They like it.
They like the sex. They like the violence. It's what they pay to see.
And it's not just the grownups. It's the kids, too. Some of the more popular video games are the ones where you get to blow people's heads off.
Just this week, the victims of a couple kids who decided to shoot up a few cars on the freeway sued Wal-Mart and a video game manufacturer.
They're suing the manufacturer for marketing the game and Wal-Mart for selling it.
I think that's a little bit of a stretch. I think people should be responsible for their own actions.
I don't believe in suing Smith & Wesson because somebody gets shot with a Model 29.
And neither do the courts, at least so far.
In the not-too-distant past, a court held that Kazaa, the music sharing software people, couldn't be sued by the music industry.
The court reasoned - and reasonably so - that Kazaa just makes software. If someone abuses their software and breaks copyright law, that's not Kazaa's fault.
But in the case of the video-game-watching random shooters, the lawyer thinks he's got a pretty compelling case.
He says that he's been telling violent video game manufacturers for years that there is a direct cause and effect relationship between their games and teen violence.
I bet if you tried hard enough, you could find somebody to blame for virtually every crime ever committed.
I don't think a normal, healthy teenager becomes unhinged after playing a video game, and starts shooting people.
I do believe, however, that the entertainment industry does have an effect on our culture.
I think it helps sway public opinion. I think it can change the way we think about issues.
I think if you see something enough in the realm of entertainment, it seems to become more mainstream.
Take that whole American Idol thing. They guy who won the last one, Clay Aiken, just had an album come out that sold more than 600,000 copies.
It was No. 1 or something like that.
I mean, the guy can sing, I guess, but really, talk about your media-generated entity.
Meanwhile, a guy like Jonny Lang, who has been playing guitar and singing quite well for a number of years, can only sell a little over 100,000 albums.
Not to mention the dozens of other highly talented blues/rock guitarists I like to listen to whom most people have never heard of.
All of them have tons more talent than the latest American Idol creation, but no matter. Americans love to be led by the nose by the entertainment industry.
And you know what, that's OK, because it is, after all, a free country.
That's why I absolutely believe that the entertainment business must be market-driven.
And it is that very market-driven notion that points out what a nation of hypocrites we truly are. On the one hand, we, as a culture, decry the level of sex and violence in our entertainment industry.
On the other hand, we, as a culture, lay down our hard-earned dollars for sexy and violent entertainment.
Say what you want about the entertainment industry. They only produce what sells.
If Americans stopped going to sexy and violent films, stopped buying sexy and violent video games and stopped listening to overproduced, hypermarketed music, the entertainment industry would stop producing it. [[In-content Ad]]
The evolution of the American entertainment consumer is quite an amazing phenomenon.
It seems there must be a continual ratcheting up of gratuitous sex and violence in the entertainment biz to keep us happy.
A while back one of our readers wrote a column about the movie "Thirteen."
He pointed out the glaring irony of the movie's R rating. The story was about a couple 13-year-olds engaged in activities that made the film an "R." So 13-year-olds couldn't get in to watch a movie about 13-year-olds.
Pretty bizarre.
Then there's the whole "Kill Bill" thing, which is billed as one of the most violent films ever. Of course the director, Quentin Tarantino, is famous for violent films.
I won't see those films, so I'm not going to judge them or review them.
But it just seems weird what people perceive as entertainment.
It's hard for me to see what is entertaining about somebody being hacked up, but apparently legions of Americans can see something I don't.
They like it.
They like the sex. They like the violence. It's what they pay to see.
And it's not just the grownups. It's the kids, too. Some of the more popular video games are the ones where you get to blow people's heads off.
Just this week, the victims of a couple kids who decided to shoot up a few cars on the freeway sued Wal-Mart and a video game manufacturer.
They're suing the manufacturer for marketing the game and Wal-Mart for selling it.
I think that's a little bit of a stretch. I think people should be responsible for their own actions.
I don't believe in suing Smith & Wesson because somebody gets shot with a Model 29.
And neither do the courts, at least so far.
In the not-too-distant past, a court held that Kazaa, the music sharing software people, couldn't be sued by the music industry.
The court reasoned - and reasonably so - that Kazaa just makes software. If someone abuses their software and breaks copyright law, that's not Kazaa's fault.
But in the case of the video-game-watching random shooters, the lawyer thinks he's got a pretty compelling case.
He says that he's been telling violent video game manufacturers for years that there is a direct cause and effect relationship between their games and teen violence.
I bet if you tried hard enough, you could find somebody to blame for virtually every crime ever committed.
I don't think a normal, healthy teenager becomes unhinged after playing a video game, and starts shooting people.
I do believe, however, that the entertainment industry does have an effect on our culture.
I think it helps sway public opinion. I think it can change the way we think about issues.
I think if you see something enough in the realm of entertainment, it seems to become more mainstream.
Take that whole American Idol thing. They guy who won the last one, Clay Aiken, just had an album come out that sold more than 600,000 copies.
It was No. 1 or something like that.
I mean, the guy can sing, I guess, but really, talk about your media-generated entity.
Meanwhile, a guy like Jonny Lang, who has been playing guitar and singing quite well for a number of years, can only sell a little over 100,000 albums.
Not to mention the dozens of other highly talented blues/rock guitarists I like to listen to whom most people have never heard of.
All of them have tons more talent than the latest American Idol creation, but no matter. Americans love to be led by the nose by the entertainment industry.
And you know what, that's OK, because it is, after all, a free country.
That's why I absolutely believe that the entertainment business must be market-driven.
And it is that very market-driven notion that points out what a nation of hypocrites we truly are. On the one hand, we, as a culture, decry the level of sex and violence in our entertainment industry.
On the other hand, we, as a culture, lay down our hard-earned dollars for sexy and violent entertainment.
Say what you want about the entertainment industry. They only produce what sells.
If Americans stopped going to sexy and violent films, stopped buying sexy and violent video games and stopped listening to overproduced, hypermarketed music, the entertainment industry would stop producing it. [[In-content Ad]]