Less than a year ago, a thought came to mind regarding
the entertainment industry and the fair and frequent use of the word
“entertainment” in this culture. I had to ask myself, “What is entertainment?
Where did this ‘entertainment’ thing come from? Is it art? If it’s art, when
did art become entertainment?” As these questions sprang up in my mind, I found
myself not having answers for them. I even began questioning myself in thought,
“Why do I even use the word “entertainment” in naming my newsletter—Transformational
Entertainment News; my organization—Transformational Entertainment Network? I
started to think about the whole concept and ideology I use around combining
entertainment with spirituality and humanity, and at the same time, try to make
it all look smooth and grandiloquent. It all sounded good. I’ve gotten many
warm compliments and much positive feedback, but because of my lack of
information and clarity about an industry and field I chose to become a part
of, I was prompted to do some research, and sit down and write this article,
which asks the following questions: (1)What is entertainment? (2)Where did it
come from? (3) Is it art? If it’s art, when and how did art become
entertainment?
Getting started on the fall 2011 issue of T E News—with a
question on “What is Entertainment”—was not an easy thing to do. The labor was
not the problem. The problem was in the willingness to do it; to tackle such a
voluminous subject matter as that of entertainment, and the industry created
from it to become a mega-financial empire. That was the challenge.
The entertainment industry, along with media, is a
multi-trillion dollar business that showcases the work, services, talent, and
creativity of a humongous cross-spectrum of commerce. This industry, built on
the strength of live performing arts and show business, is expanded into a
convergence of three sub-industries, such as the traditional live entertainment
industry, mass media industry, and electronic entertainment.
The entertainment industry is highly infused by the mass
media companies that control the distribution and manufacturing of mass media
entertainment. Mass media is often called entertainment media. It is comprised
of the film industry, including film studios, movie theaters/cinemas, film
scores; broadcasting systems, including television, radio, and podcast; the
music industry, including record labels, music video. Then there are the theme
parks; discotheques; new media, including web television and web radio; and the
fashion industry.
There are at least six different types of traditional
live entertainment industries including the circus, musical theatre, performance
art, comedy, sports (Yes sports!), and concerts. There is also the music
industry, which is comprised of composers and songwriters, orchestras, and
concert halls. And lastly, within the traditional live entertainment, there’s
exhibition entertainment including amusement parks, funfairs, themed retail,
and trade shows.
The latest industry and fastest growing sector of
entertainment to emerge is electronic entertainment, aka digital entertainment
today. This industry includes video games, and SMS content, including music,
books, movies, television, radio, internet, video games channeled through cell
phones, smart phones, iPads, and other mobile communication systems. Its
(electronic/digital entertainment) ties to social networking sites like Facebook,
Twitter, and Linkedin is transforming the behavior of consumers and society at
large in how we communicate and spend our time in our business and our personal
lives. The Google+ project, launched this summer, is now the fastest growing
social network ever—even outpacing Facebook (now at 350 million members),
Twitter and MySpace–with already more than 25 million members, according to a
report from Web tracking firm comScore. (Read more in “Transformation of the
Entertainment Industry.”)
With all this being said, entertainment has its good side
and its bad side. Entertainment , as an experience, can be fun and satisfying
to our souls, or our wellbeing. Entertainment can weigh high in emotions,
taking us to a place of sadness or joy and happiness.
Entertainment as an industry has brought so much
recreation and amusement to our lives through its many products and services,
such as music, film television, etc. But it has also been highly criticized by
its artists, its consumers, and the general public. Many artists, particularly
music recording artists, have gotten shady deals on everything from record
contracts to underpaid or no-paid gigs. Actors often feel burned from movies
deals that are promised and parts that are never given to them. Vanity, greed
and sin often come up regarding the wild lifestyle of so many successful stars.
And the list goes on, with complaints and issues coming from artists, fans, and
the general public. But all in all, complaints and issues are going to come up.
The model for any serious business is to serve a good
purpose. What is the purpose of the business, and what is your purpose of being
in it? When we deviate from the place of serving a good purpose, both for
ourselves and for the business, things often fall apart.
I don’t believe vanity, greed, and sin was the sole
purpose set forth for the entertainment industry, but sometimes good things end
up serving a bad purpose. I do believe, for the most part, the intentions of
this industry we call entertainment are good. Within the entertainment industry
there have been numerous humanitarians for decades, and many cause issues
addressed to congress, environmentalists, and other governmental and private
agencies.
The Entertainment Industry Foundation
In1942, The Entertainment Industry Foundation (formerly
Permanent Charities Committee, founded by M. C. Levee) was founded by Hollywood
heavyweights – Samuel Goldwyn, with friends Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and
the Warner Brothers. The Entertainment Industry Foundation (aka EIF) was established
on the belief that the entertainment industry was in a unique position to truly
help others. Their vision was to unify Hollywood’s generous giving in order to
maximize the amount of charitable dollars raised annually, and guarantee that
worthy charities received these contributions. EIF has focused on some of the
most pressing needs of our time, from the first grants directed to wartime
agencies like the United States Organizations and American Red Cross, to
providing funding and creating awareness to help eradicate childhood polio.
EIF is going stronger than ever. In 2008, EIF launched
Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C), an initiative designed to raise funds to accelerate
ground-breaking cancer research and bring new therapies to patients more
quickly. SU2C utilizes the entertainment industry to build broad public support
for this effort, and to enhance awareness of the devastating impact cancer has
in this country. Their goal is to bring together the best and brightest to the
cancer community. They encourage collaboration over competition. SU2C, a
program of EIF, was established by a group of executives from film, television,
and philanthropy whose lives have all been affected by cancer in significant
ways.
EIF has partnered with the American Association for
Cancer Research and its leading scientists to get the initiative organized and
underway. The SU2C model emphasizes collaboration among world-class scientists
across institutions, which will accelerate the pace at which they can translate
research breakthroughs into major advances against cancer.
EIF is just one of many groups, individuals and
foundations in the arts and entertainment contributing to our societal needs.
Where Did the Word “Entertainment” Come From?
The Origin of the Word, “Entertainment”
The word “entertain” comes from the Medieval Latin
intertenere, which means to “hold inside. “The prefix inter means “inside,” and
the suffix tenere means to “hold.” The Indo-European root of tenere is ten,
meaning to “stretch.” Ironically, TEN is also the abbreviation for
Transformational Entertainment News. To transform the meaning of tenere, or its
Indo-European root ten, from “stretch” to “hold,” implies one has to “hold”
something in order to “stretch” it. By the time the word entered English from French
in the late 15th century, it meant “to maintain or keep up with.” William
Shakespeare used it in The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1598—”I thinke the best way
were, to entertaine him with hope,” in which time it acquired a meaning of
“engage or keep the attention of a person.” The most definitive use of the word
entertain was demonstrated by Sir Francis Bacon in 1626 to mean “to amuse.”
“All this to entertain the Imagination that it waiver less.” We also use the
word in such phrases as “I will entertain the suggestion of…” etc. That usage
arose in the early 17th century. To date, it is still a common phrase.
_____________________________________________________________________
Is It Art? The Classification of the Entertainment
Industry:
The strength and growth of the entertainment industry is
built around the arts. The term is used sparingly in mass media advertisement,
promotion and marketing, sales, and all performances categories; music, film,
and television.
Many times over, the use of the word entertainment and
art overlaps as meaning all in the same. When we think of the entertainment
industry, what do we think of? How do we categorize it? The entertainment
industry is usually classified in at least one of the following sub-industries:
music (or records), film, television & radio, and newspapers &
magazines, but is it art? Well, what is art?
Art can be an array of many, many things, from the art of
painting and sculpturing, to the art of cooking and sewing. Art is The
expression or application of human creative skill and imagination. But there is
one art form that defines entertainment (as we know it) clearly, and that is
“performing arts.” The performing arts differ from visual arts and some forms
of fine arts that have a focus on aesthetic objects such as sketches, paintings
and sculptures.
Although the performing arts as a practice dates back to
ancient times, the term “performing arts” first appeared in the English
language in the year 1711.
Performing arts include dance, music, opera, drama,
magic, spoken word, circus arts and musicals. Performers and participants in
the performing arts may include actors, comedians, dancers, magicians,
musicians, and singers, songwriting and stagecraft.
So all and all, entertainment, for the most part, is
art–performing art.
But the least performing arts population to classify
themselves in the entertainment industry line-up are stage theaters, classical
music, churches and sacred institutions. These mediums remain true to their
standard representation as “the arts,” or sacred institutions, for their
business model.
We now know, at least, a little bit more about the origin
of the word entertainment, and its classification. But still, when did
entertainment become an industry?
Entertainment As An Industry
Some experts say it all began with the circus. Before
there was vaudeville, minstrel shows and burlesque, there was the circus.
Dating as far back as ancient Rome, chariot racing and animal exhibition was a
form of early stage circus entertainment.
The great circus landed in the U.S. in the 1790’s, and by
the 1870s the circus became a building block for what would later become the
entertainment industry. P. T. Barnum and William Cameron Coup, who launched P.
T. Barnum’s Museum, Menagerie, & Circus, a travelling combination of animal
and human oddities. The exhibition of humans as a freak show or sideshow was
thus an American invention. Coup was also the first circus entrepreneur to use
circus trains to transport the circus from town to town; and introduced the
first multiple-ring circuses. In 1919, a circus team known as the five Ringling
Brother merged with P.T. Barnum and James Anthony Bailey to form And to this
day, The Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus is still known as “The
Greatest Show On Earth.”
With the rapid growth of the circus came the growth of
live entertainment. And entertainment became more and more of a business, and
less of an art. In the early twentieth century, entertainment business was
called show business. Promoters like P.T. Barnum and many others discovered
that they could make a deal of money producing inexpensive, crowd-pleasing
entertainment that the average American household could enjoy, show business
became big business. The invention of radio and phonograph propelled the growth
of the record industry; motion picture became sound and motion; television was
invented. Somewhere over time show business became an entertainment industry.
Industries are not usually named, they become. For
example–the health industry, who named it the “health industry?” Or who named
the automobile industry, “automobile industry?” An industry is nothing more
than a term used to describe a precise business activity or where most of its
revenues are derived. But where did entertainment as an industry derive from?
Maybe from the song “That’s Entertainment!”, by Arthur Schwartz and Howard
Dietz, which was introduced in the 1953 MGM musical, The Band Wagon. So, was
the term “entertainment industry” used before then? You tell me.
Transformation of the Entertainment Industry
We’re at an important moment in the history of the
entertainment industry. Social media, digital distribution, and the future of
film and recorded music are causing a major shift in how we entertain
ourselves, as well as how we create and provide entertainment.
Many may argue that entertainment today is taking us
farther and farther away from its value and roots in the arts. The
entertainment industry as we knew it in the good old days of factory-sized
recording studios, film studios, and their distribution houses, and
broadcasting networks for television and radio, where you had no, or very
little, say-so on what was aired, has been transformed into a downloadable
format through the Internet, smart phones, and other mobile devices.
Entertainment and social media are in a marriage that’s
bringing them together as one in the same. And because of that, social media is
rapidly becoming the 21st century record industry. The greed and creative
control of yesterday is slowly dying, due to the sudden boom in technology in
the “age of information.” As a result, major and independent companies have
been suffocating from it over the past ten years. Consumers and artists are
finding shortcuts and cost effective ways to get all their spending needs met
through downloadable software and special offers on the internet. Record
companies are now forced to use the downloadable format in order to stay afloat
in their business. But still, business is down in record and film industry,
particularly in the record industry. Consumers are bargain hunting, browsing
through sites such as eBay, Craigslist and finding the music they need.
Consumers are loading up their iPods with all the latest tunes through music
exchange with friends. Independent recording artists, producers and filmmakers
are utilizing software to create and market their own work. Many of them have
thriving businesses. So how did such a major turn around in the world of
entertainment happen?
It all began around 2000 with Napster, an online music
store created by Shaun Fanning and Sean Parker as an Internet service that
emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music, as
MP3 format files. The goal at Napster was to be the online distribution channel
for the record labels, much like iTunes. The original company ran into legal
difficulties over copyright infringement, and ceased operations, but for the
betterment of the situation, Parker made a great comeback as President of
Facebook, and Fanning has continued a successful journey in creating new companies
such as Plaxo. Fanning and Parker changed the music world at 19, and continue
to change the online web world today.
However, the downside to all this free information and
unearthing all secrets, is conflicts and issues surrounding intellectual property
laws and copyright infringements that are starting to crop up between users and
the original creators and owners of a product or service. Napster, in the early
2000s, was an early example of such conflict, but there have been several other
cases over the past few years. This is a whole different subject, that I prefer
not to go into in this issue.
Another downside to entertainment in the digital age is
that, because entertainment and social media merged as one in such a profound
way, social media are rapidly creating controversy and complexity regarding
social networking for business or personal use. “Social networking sites, such
as Facebook, are putting attention span in jeopardy,” says Baroness Greenfield.
She warns us that social networking sites are changing children’s brains,
resulting in selfish and attention-deficient young people” [The Guardian:
Patrick Wintour, political leader EM: guardian.co.uk. Tuesday 24 Feb 2009.05
EST Article history].
Social network sites risk infantilizing the mid-21st
century mind, leaving it characterized by short attention spans,
sensationalism, inability to empathize, and a shaky sense of identity,
according to experts.
What You Got Ta Say ‘bout That?
So, how do we handle the problems of entertainment in the
digital age of information? How can we make what is good of it better?
TENews is all about discussions around finding
spirituality and healing in the arts and in entertainment, and bringing forth
humanity in the business of entertainment. I don’t have all the answers. So I
reach out to my friends and readers. So what is entertainment to you?