I am writing this to come to grips with the difficulty I have when people disparage “mere entertainment” as a motivator for creative writing.
The wide disparagement of entertainment
Perhaps you’ve heard someone disparage the act of reading merely for entertainment. They might say that people who do this are reading only to escape, and that there are better, more laudable reasons to read, and that those reasons would lead one to read better books.
Throughout my life, I’ve been left cold by this account of entertainment as “mere entertainment.” As I think about why, I think there are two reasons:
1. I dispute that there is anything trivial about entertainment.
2. When asked what the alternative purpose of art should be, people usually seem to give extremely unsatisfactory answers.
I’ll take these in reverse order, because my rebuttal to #2 is the main point of this article. I’ll leave #1 until the very last section.
If not entertainment, then what?
When people are asked to describe what books or films should be doing, if not merely entertaining, I find they always seem to be saying that such works should be exploring significant ideas.
For example, I recently watched a video from someone who proposed that “making people think about their identity” is a worthy impulse to create art. That probably is a worthy impulse, but it’s no guarantee of aesthetic success. A personality inventory could make you think about your identity, and yet no one would say that it succeeds on an aesthetic level.
And “thinking about one’s identity” is not the only idea that might be proposed as a satisfactory subject for good art. But before we start exploring which ideas make for good art, let’s investigate whether ideas are what make for good art.
Narrative art and non-narrative art
In literature, film, and other narrative forms of art, there are ideas, to be sure, and yes, those ideas often do contribute to the value of the novel, the film, or whatever it may be.
But when we think of our most treasured works of literature or film, don’t we want to say that they succeed on an aesthetic level? And does that not mean that, when they succeed, they succeed in the same manner as other, non-narrative forms of art?
For example, when has anyone ever tried to say that a painting’s value can always be reduced to its ideas? Or, in the realm of music, if one symphony profoundly moves you, while another symphony leaves you feeling flat, but clearly contains a lot of meaning and symbolism, does anyone say you need to prefer the second one?
Is it not, therefore, true to say that music and visual art succeed to the extent that they move us? And if that’s true of music and visual art, should we not also say that the point of successful literature is also to move us?
Yes, works of literature may mean things; yes, they may explore ideas; yes, they may succeed on any number of intellectual levels. But if they do all of this, to the exclusion of moving us, does anyone say they succeed as works of art?
An aesthetic appraisal of meaning and ideas
I want to briefly state that we should not fetishize meaning. A stop sign has meaning. The word “triangle” has meaning. These things have meaning, without necessarily having a great deal of aesthetic interest.
Likewise, if a work contains many thought-provoking ideas, it may nevertheless fail as art. If you disagree, try reading Aristotle’s Metaphysics from cover to cover.
Therefore, I assert that, if you can discuss the meaning or ideas of a work of literature, then by all means do so. If you can show that meaning and ideas often contribute to the way art moves us, then by all means do so. But I advise against reducing art to meaning and ideas, because I think that misses the point.
Am I defending mere entertainment?
When I try to articulate why I write fiction, I seldom say that I am trying to entertain people. Nevertheless, I see no dividing line between the experience of being entertained and the experience of being moved by the highest works of literature.
I see the artist’s impulse primarily to entertain as no worse than many other impulses—no worse, for example, than the impulse to express ideas. It may sometimes be better.
One way to think about successful art
No branch of philosophy is more slippery than aesthetics, and generalizations about art usually fail. Still, here is a thought that may help.
As far as I can tell, the best way of thinking about successful art—whether literature, music, or visual art—is in terms of how it will be remembered. If it is remembered well in six months, six years, or six centuries, then it has to be considered successful on some level, and I think this fairly well corresponds to what artists generally hope for.
Sometimes artists have trouble communicating about their art, and it is my humble suggestion that they start by thinking in terms of how they’d like their audience to remember their work a few months after seeing it, not necessarily by looking for ideas within it.
A final thought
As you think about books or movies that you remember vividly several months or years later, you may think of some that have affected you for reasons you’re not able to identify.
For example, suppose you were in an awful mode, depressed and full of dread at the thought of going through one more day. But suppose you were persuaded by a friend to see a movie. Suppose you expected to find the movie stupid and to be put into an even worse mood. But suppose the movie really connected with you, surprised you, and made you experience feelings you hadn’t expected. And suppose you walked out of the theater feeling entirely better. Such an effect might be achieved by any number of well-executed films, whether they be dramas, comedies, or any number of others.
Or suppose you weren’t depressed at all. Suppose you’re simply the type of person who struggles to enjoy the average movie that a friend drags you to. Perhaps you’ve taken one too many filmmaking classes, and you’re constantly bothered by seeing the technical flaws that most films have. But on this occasion, a friend dragged you to a film that, for some reason, disarmed you and brought you to a rare state of pure enjoyment.
If such films “merely entertained” you, I am at a loss to find anything trivial about that.