When does entertainment become something... more?

[Orks da best]

I got a more philosophical question for everyone today, and one I find to be of great meaning and importance to anyone working in the entertainment industy and making art.

As to how I got to question it was simple really, while watching a video showing off the mlp fim songs in order, at the last one its just popped into my head while listening to it. I don't know how come or why but it just did. Also can this not be a flame war?

When does entertainment stop just being art and becomes something greater? something bigger? Something that which I lack a term for.

Think about it. When does entertainment change? because not every piece does, and more often then not it is forgotten to history, only found by those that search deep enough. Think about Star Wars, Jaws, and other big things around that time. Why do we only remeber those few things, and left all the rest to fade into history. Why do certain pieces of enterainment not only succeed and grow massive, but are remebered by future generations for ages while the rest disapper not matter the quality of it.

When does entertainment become something more something that not only the creators cares about, but the world does too.

How does a piece of entertainment transcend to something higher? To something greater? Or can it at all?

When does entertainment stop just being entertainment?

 

[ellers07]

I'm not entirely certain what your getting at here. If we consider your examples of Star Wars or Jaws, I don't think I would say they have transcended entertainment. In the end, that's all they are. Now, they've certainly become very popular pieces of entertainment. There's something about stories, characters, themes or such things that can strike a chord with people. Star Wars became very appealing to many people, but I don't think that means it is more than entertainment or a form of art.

I could be thinking about this the wrong way though. Is it obsession you're getting at? Perhaps when art/entertainment causes a person to change their lifestyle? For example, a Star Trek fan who learns to speak Klingon may be taking a source of entertainment well beyond its original purpose. If that's the case it's more a question of an individual's personality I think.

Again, I may be way off the mark here. Let me know if I'm totally missing the point.

 

[Orks da best]

I'm not entirely certain what your getting at here. If we consider your examples of Star Wars or Jaws, I don't think I would say they have transcended entertainment. In the end, that's all they are. Now, they've certainly become very popular pieces of entertainment. There's something about stories, characters, themes or such things that can strike a chord with people. Star Wars became very appealing to many people, but I don't think that means it is more than entertainment or a form of art.

I could be thinking about this the wrong way though. Is it obsession you're getting at? Perhaps when art/entertainment causes a person to change their lifestyle? For example, a Star Trek fan who learns to speak Klingon may be taking a source of entertainment well beyond its original purpose. If that's the case it's more a question of an individual's personality I think.

Again, I may be way off the mark here. Let me know if I'm totally missing the point.

Well I'm not asking if a piece of a entertainment will change someone completely, and heck even I do not know what I am asking for. Just something that popped into my head really.

Kinda odd for the questioner to not even really know what he is asking isn't it.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

It happens when it gets popular enough, so that even people who had no interest in it previously give it a try, for good or bad. As to how it gets popular enough, it starts with word of mouth and spreads from the first people to enjoy it, leading to more trying and maybe liking, leading to even more trying, because, millions of people can't be wrong, right (they can actually, but that's something for another day)?

 

[Keoul]

I wouldn't say they transcended entertainment, they we just extremely good.

They've become memes in a way, obviously I'm not talking about the shitty image macros but rather what the new Metal Gear Revengeance was talking about. An element of a culture or behavior that may be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means. It's become part of our human culture in a way.

 

[VoidWanderer]

When you come to a point in the movie or game and you sit back to ponder the implications of what you have just seen.

When my mate and I had just finished watching I Am Legend at the movies and saw.... 'that' ending we walked home in silence for about ten minutes. I asked my friend what he thought about it, and he replied he didn't know as he couldn't figure out the ending. I had the same problem. The movie was good, until 'that' ending, but to me it would've become transcended entertainment in they had the original ending.

 

[Nickolai77]

People tend to remember very good pieces of entertainment, to the point that they become classics- that i think is the word the OP's looking for. Personally, i think what defines a classic is simply that lots of people view it as good entertainment- as opposed to a few. Bands like Iron Maiden will never be remembered or publicly revered as well as the Beatles, even though in my view artistically Iron Maiden are superior, it's just that the Beatles better matches the public appetite for music. So really what makes a classic is simply that lots of people mutually agree that it's a classic. For instance MLP will only go on to be a classic in niche nerd circles (Like Firefly) it won't go public because such things arn't aimed at the mass-market like hollywood blockbusters and pop songs- the latter of which are far more likely to be regarded as classics.

 

[TIMESWORDSMAN]

The responses I've read here seem a little dry, but each in turn seems to touch partially on the solution to this conundrum.

Discovering why one piece of human endeavor towers above the others is one of the touchstones of the human condition. Science, Philosophy, Religion, Superstition and a thousand other doctrines have attempted to solve the equation, and some have claimed to succeed, but in the end all we are left with is peices to the puzzle.
In my own mind examples such as The Lord of the Rings, Canterbury Tales and The Bible stand equally among great physical giants such as the Tower of Pisa, The Forbidden City, and Stonehenge, and they to with great historical events like The Siege of Troy, The Gettysburg Address, and The Death of Gaius Julius Ceasar.
What makes these things embed themselves into the thoughts and dreams of the western world? Why would a culture latch onto a handful of events, ideas, and objects to the loss of all others? The question you pose goes deeper into the realms of consciousness, both singular and collective, than you may have imagined.

If we knew the answers to such questions, mayhaps we would be a wiser world, and could foresee what would matter in the eyes of our descendants, but time is ever the folly of man.

 

[Orks da best]

The responses I've read here seem a little dry, but each in turn seems to touch partially on the solution to this conundrum.

Discovering why one piece of human endeavor towers above the others is one of the touchstones of the human condition. Science, Philosophy, Religion, Superstition and a thousand other doctrines have attempted to solve the equation, and some have claimed to succeed, but in the end all we are left with is peices to the puzzle.
In my own mind examples such as The Lord of the Rings, Canterbury Tales and The Bible stand equally among great physical giants such as the Tower of Pisa, The Forbidden City, and Stonehenge, and they to with great historical events like The Siege of Troy, The Gettysburg Address, and The Death of Gaius Julius Ceasar.
What makes these things embed themselves into the thoughts and dreams of the western world? Why would a culture latch onto a handful of events, ideas, and objects to the loss of all others? The question you pose goes deeper into the realms of consciousness, both singular and collective, than you may have imagined.

If we knew the answers to such questions, mayhaps we would be a wiser world, and could foresee what would matter in the eyes of our descendants, but time is ever the folly of man.

That the best way to put what I am asking I think.

Thank you for being the first one to put my question to a partily rest.

Maybe some day it shall be fully answered.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Entertainment isn't just entertainment, it changes the way people think about things.

There's a real problem with jurors thinking CSI is just like reality, and that nobody is guilty unless the fashionable young woman with lots of cleavage has a magic machine say so. Police officers have been killed because they've shot someone, and expected them to go straight down like they do in the movies. And that's before body image issues, or propaganda.

Imagine for example, if all the villains in Star Wars were, say, black or gay. That'd have a big impact.

 

[Dr. Cakey]

Entertainment isn't just entertainment, it changes the way people think about things.

There's a real problem with jurors thinking CSI is just like reality, and that nobody is guilty unless the fashionable young woman with lots of cleavage has a magic machine say so. Police officers have been killed because they've shot someone, and expected them to go straight down like they do in the movies. And that's before body image issues, or propaganda.

Imagine for example, if all the villains in Star Wars were, say, black or gay. That'd have a big impact.

Instead they're all British.

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