An Explanation of an Important Book: A Favored High School Paper from 2013.

An Explanation of an Important Book: A Favored High School Paper from 2013.

‘Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality’ by Neal Gabler is quite certainly the most influential book I have ever read. It is not the most intelligent, nor the most enjoyable, nor even something I would quickly recommend to my friends. ‘Life: The Movie’ changed how I live my life as a reader and thinker, and changed my role as a consumer of books and movies to one of a more critical thinker. It made me selective in what I absorb, in an age of internet and libraries and access to informational gluttony unlike any other time in human history.

After a third read-through, I feel I can finally understand it's scope. I think I have finally come to terms with its dramatic, somewhat unprofessional written style. It is one of those books that is rather excitable and moves its argument to its most extreme conclusion without a healthy amount of proof... yet I adore it. It holds valued arguments that I feel could not be made without heavy use of a 'slippery slope' argument.

It allows me to think of the intellectual world around me as a result of thousands of years of human progress, an intellectual market affected by change like an economy or generation of people. The book is a wonderful combination of philosophy and history, beginning as far back as Ancient Greece and focusing especially on the rise of America in modern day entertainment. 

It provided me different definitions for the two seemingly interchangeable words; entertainment and art. Entertainment, it argues, is low-art, something that is worth a single consideration, something that is found in reality television, in rudderless sequels and mindless video games and most everything we consume as intellectual customers. It is easier to understand the amount of entertainment present in today’s culture when you understand how difficult it is to create art, and what makes it so rare and beautiful to read and watch. Art is in Shakespeare, it is stories that hold large questions to light and present interpretive element to them that prompt two people to argue over whether Twelfth Night’s Malvolio is a hero or villain, until it seems Shakespeare is arguing for both with his words. Art is dense, and wastes no time. It does not pander to any audience. It is rare and beautiful.

At a fundamental level, ‘Life: The Movie’ is an argument against mental gluttony in what is absorbed in today’s entertainment. It goes back to antiquity and the great philosophers, and explains that Plato's Socrates was against the un-edited, raw work of Homer, as it required a person to momentarily abandon their own morals, values, and ideals, to sympathize with the protagonist in the story being told to them (particularly Achilles). To Plato's Socrates, the typical consumer had to be protected against authors and storytellers who would romanticize villains and immoral people of any sort, and allowed gods to be anything less than pure and infallible.

The book then takes a step back, and asks in a rather subtle voice, ‘Can you imagine how Plato would feel about today?’.

And the book carried a valid point. It asks, in an age of internet and massive libraries available to the American public, why we do not value the critically approved 'best' of books and literature. It tracks the early American period, in which the nation’s culture actively revolted against the concept of aristocracy, and ridiculed the 'Ivory Towers of Intellectuals'. It explains the Astor Opera House Riot, in which 25 Americans were shot for revolting against a British production of Shakespeare, rather than the abridged, ‘common man’s’ production of easier tales (I invite anyone to research this further. It is a fascinating event in not only American history, but the history of intellectual life worldwide). It leads the reader through the inception of The Penny Press, the rise of 24 hour news, and the role of the free market on creating the world we live in today, and how the radio can foreground such simple, sexualized songs rather than the vast recourses of crafted music available.

Without this book, I would not put nearly as much thought into my reading habits. Not only my reading, but my watching, my listening, and my understanding of the mental world around me. The book writes on our culture’s ability to craft celebrities out of the actors in our favorite movies, rather than the writer’s responsible for their lines. It writes on our conscious, and subconscious. On our ability to be influenced by anything we see in the news or in fiction, and how we compare ourselves to impossible standards provided by these. It tells how politics were influenced by a candidate’s ability to appear pleasing on television, on how obsessed the public became with hearing the answer to the question ‘Who won the debate?’ rather than hear the minutiae of the discussion themselves.

The book depresses me, as it is provides many distressing  answers to the question ‘What now?’. With such a group mentality towards music, and towards books, it is very difficult for us to judge a story or news article’s true worth, rather than its popularity. I love this book, because it convinced me at a very early age how important it was not to waste my time with anything but the most meaningful, intelligent art. I thank it, because at an early age, I began my habit of finding the only the best stories, and spending my time with selective visits to art rather than endless nights absorbing new entertainment, manifested as TV shows on Netflix as is so tempting these days. I am aware of my arrogance, and I apologize for it, but I am rather proud of my distaste for video games, as they feel increasingly manipulative and shallow to its audience. It is a constant mentality of self-regulation, to remind oneself that there is another Kurt Vonnegut to read, that is probably better deserving of my time than whatever new comedy gained a new season. There never seems to be enough time for both. Sp let’s get the Vonnegut first. I may want to read it a second time, as well.