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Reading has been a source of entertainment for a very long time, especially when other forms, such as performance entertainments, were (or are) either unavailable or too costly. Even when the primary purpose of the writing is to inform or instruct, reading is well known for its capacity to distract from everyday worries. Both stories and information have been passed on through the tradition of orality and oral traditions survive in the form of performance poetry for example. However, they have drastically declined. "Once literacy had arrived in strength, there was no return to the oral prerogative."[54] The advent of printing, the reduction in costs of books and an increasing literacy all served to enhance the mass appeal of reading. Furthermore, as fonts were standardised and texts became clearer, "reading ceased being a painful process of decipherment and became an act of pure pleasure".[55] By the 16th century in Europe, the appeal of reading for entertainment was well established. Among literature's many genres are some designed, in whole or in part, purely for entertainment. Limericks, for example, use verse in a strict, predictable rhyme and rhythm to create humour and to amuse an audience of listeners or readers. Interactive books such as "choose your own adventure" can make literary entertainment more participatory. Readers entertained by comic books (1971) Comics and cartoons are literary genres that use drawings or graphics, usually in combination with text, to convey an entertaining narrative.[56] Many contemporary comics have elements of fantasy and are produced by companies that are part of the entertainment industry. Others have unique authors who offer a more personal, philosophical view of the world and the problems people face. Comics about superheroes such as Superman are of the first type.[57] Examples of the second sort include the individual work over 50 years of Charles M. Schulz[58] who produced a popular comic called Peanuts[59] about the relationships among a cast of child characters;[60] and Michael Leunig who entertains by producing whimsical cartoons that also incorporate social criticism. The Japanese Manga style differs from the western approach in that it encompasses a wide range of genres and themes for a readership of all ages. Caricature uses a kind of graphic entertainment for purposes ranging from merely putting a smile on the viewer's face, to raising social awareness, to highlighting the moral characteristics of a person being caricatured. Comedy Comedian Charlie Chaplin impersonating Hitler for comic effect in the satirical film The Great Dictator (1940) Comedy is both a genre of entertainment and a component of it, providing laughter and amusement, whether the comedy is the sole purpose or used as a form of contrast in an otherwise serious piece. It is a valued contributor to many forms of entertainment, including in literature, theatre, opera, film and games.[61][62] In royal courts, such as for example, in the Byzantine court, and presumably, also in its wealthy households, "mimes were the focus of orchestrated humour, expected or obliged to make fun of all at court, not even excepting the emperor and members of the imperial family. This highly structured role of jester consisted of verbal humour, including teasing, jests, insult, ridicule, and obscenity and non-verbal humour such as slapstick and horseplay in the presence of an audience."[32] In medieval times, all comic types – the buffoon, jester, hunchback, dwarf, jokester, were all "considered to be essentially of one comic type: the fool", who while not necessarily funny, represented "the shortcomings of the individual".[63][64] Shakespeare wrote seventeen comedies which use many of the techniques still called upon by performers and writers of comedy, such as jokes, puns, parody, wit, observational humor or the unexpected effect of irony.[65][66] One-liner jokes and satire are also used to comedic effect in literature. In farce, the comedy is a primary purpose. The meaning of the word "comedy" and the audience's expectations of it have changed over time and vary according to culture.[67] Simple physical comedy such as slapstick is entertaining to a broad range of people of all ages. However, as cultures become more sophisticated, national nuances appear in the style and references so that what is amusing in one culture may be unintelligible in another.[68] Performance Live performances before an audience constitute a major form of entertainment, especially before the invention of audio and video recording. Performance takes a wide range of forms, including theatre, music and drama. In the 16th and 17th centuries, European royal courts presented masques that were complex theatrical entertainments involving dancing, singing and acting. Opera is a similarly demanding performance style that remains popular. It also encompass all three forms, demanding a high level of musical and dramatic skill, collaboration and like the masque, production expertise as well. Poster for a 1908 production of Verdi's 1871 opera Aida, performed by the Hippodrome Opera Company of Cleveland, Ohio, USA Audiences generally show their appreciation of an entertaining performance with applause. However, all performers run the risk of failing to hold their audience's attention and thus, failing to entertain. Audience dissatisfaction is often brutally honest and direct. "Of course you all ought to know that while singing a good song or, or giving a good recitation ... helps to arrest the company's attention ... Such at least was the case with me – the publican devised a plan to bring my entertainment to an end abruptly, and the plan was, he told the waiter to throw a wet towel at me, which, of course, the waiter did ... and I received the wet towel, full force, in the face, which staggered me ... and had the desired effect of putting an end to me giving any more entertainments in the house." William McGonagall (Performance artist and poet)[69] Storytelling Storytelling is an ancient form of entertainment that has influenced almost all other forms. It is "not only entertainment, it is also thinking through human conflicts and contradictions".[16] Hence, although stories may be delivered directly to a small listening audience, they are also presented as entertainment and used as a component of any piece that relies on a narrative, such as film, drama, ballet, and opera. Written stories have been enhanced by illustrations, often to a very high artistic standard, for example, on illuminated manuscripts and on ancient scrolls such as Japanese ones.[70] Stories remain a common way of entertaining a group that is on a journey. Showing how stories are used to pass the time and entertain an audience of travellers, Chaucer used pilgrims in his literary work The Canterbury Tales in the 14th century, as did Wu Cheng'en in the 16th century in Journey to the West. Even though journeys can now be completed much faster, stories are still told to passengers en route in cars and aeroplanes either orally or delivered by some form of technology. The power of stories to entertain is evident in one of the most famous ones—Scheherazade—a story in the Persian professional storytelling tradition, of a woman who saves her own life by telling stories.[71][72][73] The connections between the different types of entertainment are shown by the way that stories like this inspire a retelling in another medium, such as music, film or games. For example, composers Rimsky-Korsakov, Ravel and Szymanowski have each been inspired by the Scheherazade story and turned it into an orchestral work; director Pasolini made a film adaptation; and there is an innovative video game based on the tale. Stories may be told wordlessly, in music, dance or puppetry for example, such as in the Javanese tradition of wayang, in which the performance is accompanied by a gamelan orchestra or the similarly traditional Punch and Judy show. Epic narratives, poems, sagas and allegories from all cultures tell such gripping tales that they have inspired countless other stories in all forms of entertainment. Examples include the Hindu Ramayana and Mahabharata; Homer's Odyssey and Iliad; the first Arabic novel Hayy ibn Yaqdhan; the Persian epic Shahnameh; the Sagas of Icelanders and the celebrated Tale of the Genji. Collections of stories, such as Grimms' Fairy Tales or those by Hans Christian Andersen, have been similarly influential. Originally published in the early 19th century, this collection of folk stories had significant influence in modern popular culture which subsequently used its themes, images, symbols and structural elements to create new forms of entertainment.[74] Some of the most powerful and long-lasting stories are the foundation stories, also called origin or creation myths such as the Dreamtime myths of the Australian aborigines, the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh,[75] or the Hawaiian stories of the origin of the world.[76] These too are developed into books, films, music and games in a way that increases their longevity and enhances their entertainment value. Telling stories William Blake's painting of the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales Scheherazade telling her stories to King Shahryar in The Arabian Nights Telling stories via Wayang golek puppets in Java Tosa Mitsuoki illustrating her Tale of Genji Theatre Saturday night audience at the Victoria Theatre. London (1872) Theatre performances, typically dramatic or musical, are presented on a stage for an audience and have a history that goes back to Hellenistic times when "leading musicians and actors" performed widely at "poetical competitions", for example at "Delphi, Delos, Ephesus".[77] Aristotle and his teacher Plato both wrote on the theory and purpose of theatre. Aristotle posed questions such as "What is the function of the arts in shaping character? Should a member of the ruling class merely watch performances or be a participant and perform? What kind of entertainment should be provided for those who do not belong to the elite?"[78] The "Ptolemys in Egypt, the Seleucids in Pergamum" also had a strong theatrical tradition and later, wealthy patrons in Rome staged "far more lavish productions".[79][80] Expectations about the performance and their engagement with it have changed over time (1).[81] For example, in England during the 18th century, "the prejudice against actresses had faded"[82] and in Europe generally, going to the theatre, once a socially dubious activity, became "a more respectable middle-class pastime"[83] in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the variety of popular entertainments increased. Operetta and music halls became available, and new drama theatres such as the Moscow Art Theatre and the Suvorin Theatre in Russia opened.[84] At the same time, commercial newspapers "began to carry theatre columns and reviews" which helped to make theatre "a legitimate subject of intellectual debate" in general discussions about art and culture.[84] Audiences began to gather to "appreciate creative achievement, to marvel at, and be entertained by, the prominent 'stars'."[84] Vaudeville and music halls, popular at this time in the United States, England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, were themselves eventually superseded.[85] Plays,[86] musicals,[87] monologues, pantomimes, and performance poetry are part of the very long history of theatre which is also the venue for the type of performance known as stand-up comedy.[88] In the 20th century, radio and television, often broadcast live, extended the theatrical tradition that continued to exist alongside the new forms. The stage and the spaces set out in front of it for an audience create a theatre. All types of stage are used with all types of seating for the audience, including the impromptu or improvised (2, 3, 6); the temporary (2); the elaborate (9); or the traditional and permanent (5, 7). They are erected indoors (3, 5, 9) or outdoors (2, 4, 6). The skill of managing, organising and preparing the stage for a performance is known as stagecraft (10). The audience's experience of the entertainment is affected by their expectations, the stagecraft, the type of stage, and the type and standard of seating provided. [show]Theatrical entertainment – stages, staging and stagecraft Cinema and film Film audiences are typically seated in comfortable chairs arranged in close rows before a projection screen. Norway (2005) Films are a major form of entertainment, although not all films have entertainment as their primary purpose: documentary film, for example, aims to create a record or inform,[89] although the two purposes often work together. The medium was a global business from the beginning: "The Lumière brothers were the first to send cameramen throughout the world, instructing them to film everything which could be of interest for the public."[90] In 1908, Pathé launched and distributed newsreels[90] and by World War I, films were meeting an enormous need for mass entertainment. "In the first decade of the [20th] century cinematic programmes combined, at random, fictions and newsfilms."[90] The Americans first "contrived a way of producing an illusion of motion through successive images," but "the French were able to transform a scientific principle into a commercially lucrative spectacle".[91] Film therefore became a part of the entertainment industry from its early days. Increasingly sophisticated techniques have been used in the film medium to delight and entertain audiences. Animation, for example, which involves the display of rapid movement in an art work, is one of these techniques that particularly appeals to younger audiences.[92] The advent of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in the 21st century made it "possible to do spectacle" more cheaply and "on a scale never dreamed of" by Cecil B. DeMille.[93] Sophisticated visual effects and CGI techniques have been used not only to create realistic images of people, landscapes and events (both real and fantastic) but also to animate non-living items such as Lego normally used as entertainment as a game in physical form.[94] Creators of The Lego Movie "wanted the audience to believe they were looking at actual Lego bricks on a tabletop that were shot with a real camera, not what we actually did, which was create vast environments with digital bricks inside the computer."[94] The convergence of computers and film has allowed entertainment to be presented in a new way and the technology has also allowed for those with the personal resources to screen films in a home theatre, recreating in a private venue the quality and experience of a public theatre. This is similar to the way that the nobility in earlier times could stage private musical performances or the use of domestic theatres in large homes to perform private plays in earlier centuries. Films also re-imagine entertainment from other forms, turning stories, books and plays, for example, into new entertainments.[95] The Story of Film, a documentary about the history of film, gives a survey of global achievements and innovations in the medium, as well as changes in the conception of film-making. It demonstrates that while some films, particularly those in the Hollywood tradition that combines "realism and melodramatic romanticism",[96] are intended as a form of escapism, others require a deeper engagement or more thoughtful response from their audiences. For example, the award winning Senegalese film Xala takes government corruption as its theme. Charlie Chaplin's film The Great Dictator was a brave and innovative parody, also on a political theme. Stories that are thousands of years old, such as Noah, have been re-interpreted in film, applying familiar literary devices such as allegory and personification with new techniques such as CGI to explore big themes such as "human folly", good and evil, courage and despair, love, faith, and death - themes which have been a main-stay of entertainment across all its forms.[97] As in other media, excellence and achievement in films is recognised through a range of awards, including ones from the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the Cannes International Film Festival in France and the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Dance File:Peterborough Snow Ball 2008 silent video.ogg Dancers creating their own entertainment at a ball. Peterborough (2008) (silent video) The many forms of dance provide entertainment for all age groups and cultures. Dance can be serious in tone, such as when it is used to express a culture's history or important stories; it may be provocative; or it may put in the service of comedy. Since it combines many forms of entertainment – music, movement, storytelling, theatre – it provides a good example of the various ways that these forms can be combined to create entertainment for different purposes and audiences. Dance is "a form of cultural representation" that involves not just dancers, but "choreographers, audience members, patrons and impresarios ... coming from all over the globe and from vastly varied time periods."[98] Whether from Africa, Asia or Europe, dance is constantly negotiating the realms of political, social, spiritual and artistic influence."[99] Even though dance traditions may be limited to one cultural group, they all develop. For example, in Africa, there are "Dahomean dances, Hausa dances, Masai dances and so forth."[100] Ballet is an example of a highly developed Western form of dance that moved to the theatres from the French court during the time of Louis XIV, the dancers becoming professional theatrical performers.[101] Some dances, such as the quadrille, a square dance that "emerged during the Napoleonic years in France"[102] and other country dances[103]were once popular at social gatherings like balls, [104][105] but are now rarely performed. On the other hand, many folk dances (such as Scottish Highland dancing and Irish dancing), have evolved into competitions, which by adding to their audiences, has increased their entertainment value. "Irish dance theatre, which sometimes features traditional Irish steps and music, has developed into a major dance form with an international reputation."[106] Since dance is often "associated with the female body and women's experiences",[99] female dancers, who dance to entertain, have in some cases been regarded as distinct from "decent" women because they "use their bodies to make a living instead of hiding them as much as possible".[107] Society's attitudes to female dancers depend on the culture, its history and the entertainment industry itself. For example, while some cultures regard any dancing by women as "the most shameful form of entertainment",[108] other cultures have established venues such as strip clubs where deliberately erotic or sexually provocative dances such as striptease are performed in public by professional women dancers for mostly male audiences. Various political regimes have sought to control or ban dancing or specific types of dancing, sometimes because of disapproval of the music or clothes associated with it. Nationalism, authoritarianism and racism have played a part in banning dances or dancing. For example, during the Nazi regime, American dances such as swing, regarded as "completely un-German", had "become a public offense and needed to be banned".[109] Similarly, in Shanghai, China, in the 1930s, "dancing and nightclubs had come to symbolise the excess that plagued Chinese society" and officials wondered if "other forms of entertainment such as brothels" should also be banned. Banning had the effect of making "the dance craze" even greater.[110] In Ireland, the Public Dance Hall Act of 1935 "banned – but did not stop – dancing at the crossroads and other popular dance forms such as house and barn dances."[106] In the US, various dances have been banned, either because like burlesque, they were suggestive,[111] or because, like the Twist, they were associated with African Americans.[112] "African American dancers were typically banned from performing in minstrel shows until after the Civil War."[113] Dances can be performed solo (1, 4); in pairs, (2, 3); in groups, (5, 6, 7); or by massed performers (10). They might be improvised (4, 8) or highly choreographed (1, 2, 5, 10); spontaneous for personal entertainment, (such as when children begin dancing for themselves); a private audience, (4); a paying audience (2); a world audience (10); or an audience interested in a particular dance genre (3, 5). They might be a part of a celebration, such as a wedding or New Year (6, 8); or a cultural ritual with a specific purpose, such as a dance by warriors like a haka (7). Some dances, such as traditional dance in 1 and ballet in 2, need a very high level of skill and training; others, such as the can-can, require a very high level of energy and physical fitness. Entertaining the audience is a normal part of dance but its physicality often also produces joy for the dancers themselves (9). [show]Dance – 10 types across 10 cultures Animals Animals have been used for the purposes of entertainment for millennia. They have been hunted for entertainment (as opposed to hunted for food); displayed while they hunt for prey; watched when they compete with each other; and watched while they perform a trained routine for human amusement. The Romans, for example, were entertained both by competitions involving wild animals and acts performed by trained animals. They watched as "lions and bears danced to the music of pipes and cymbals; horses were trained to kneel, bow, dance and prance ... acrobats turning handsprings over wild lions and vaulting over wild leopards." There were "violent confrontations with wild beasts" and "performances over time became more brutal and bloodier".[114] Animals that perform trained routines or "acts" for human entertainment include fleas in flea circuses, dolphins in dolphinaria, and monkeys doing tricks for an audience on behalf of the player of a street organ. Animals kept in zoos in ancient times were often kept there for later use in the arena as entertainment or for their entertainment value as exotica.[115] Many contests between animals are now regarded as sports – for example, horse racing is regarded as both a sport and an important source of entertainment. Its economic impact means that it is also considered a global industry, one in which horses are carefully transported around the world to compete in races. In Australia, the horse race run on Melbourne Cup Day is a public holiday and the public regards the race as an important annual event. Like horse racing, camel racing requires human riders, while greyhound racing does not. People find it entertaining to watch animals race competitively, whether they are trained, like horses, camels or dogs, or untrained, like cockroaches. The use of animals for entertainment is often controversial, especially the hunting of wild animals. Some contests between animals, once popular entertainment for the public, have become illegal because of the cruelty involved. Among these are blood sports such as bear-baiting, dog fighting and cockfighting. Other contests involving animals remain controversial and have both supporters and detractors. For example, the conflict between opponents of pigeon shooting who view it as "a cruel and moronic exercise in marksmanship, and proponents, who view it as entertainment" has been tested in a court of law.[116] Fox hunting, which involves the use of horses as well as hounds, and bullfighting, which has a strong theatrical component, are two entertainments that have a long and significant cultural history. They both involve animals and are variously regarded as sport, entertainment or cultural tradition. Among the organisations set up to advocate for the rights of animals are some whose concerns include the use of animals for entertainment.[117] However, "in many cases of animal advocacy groups versus organisations accused of animal abuse, both sides have cultural claims."[118] |
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