Ages ago, before the media existed, before written history even began, when we lived as hunters and gatherers in the forests and on the plains, we had storytellers. When we gathered around our fires at night, whomever was judged best at the art would tell us stories of heroes and monsters, gods and demons, whatever might entertain us. This basic need is still central to what it means to be human. From parents tucking their kids in at night to multi-million-dollar media extravaganzas, the need is still the same: tell me a story.
Satisfying the need can pose challenges. As audiences become ever more addicted to entertainment, the media are under increasing pressure to make it a part of every product. In some cases the fit is natural, in others less so.
To feed this addiction, entertainment now plays a role in all corners of the infoscape. Though it can be hard to define precisely, we must nonetheless learn to recognize its influence on the media we produce and consume.
The history of storytelling
Storytelling predates written history. Long before stories could be written down, they were told around campfires and recorded in images on cave walls. And stories were written down long before the mass media existed. Plays and epic poetry told the tales of gods and heroes.
The Bible – the first book printed by Johannes Gutenberg – includes many stories within its pages. And a century and a half later, Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote established many of the standards that would define the novel as a literary form.
Early movies did little more than record moving subjects such as race horses and dancers. But by the turn of the 20th century, movies such as The Great Train Robbery began to explore the medium’s new, unique storytelling abilities.
The golden age of radio revived and reinvented the ancient art of oral storytelling, drawing audiences with dramatic productions performed by celebrities. Television successfully combined the storytelling abilities of movies and radio. And now we can all tell whatever stories we want via social media, no special training required.
What is a story?
At their core, stories are simple things. Once upon a time, something happened to someone, the end.
Of course to really understand how to tell a story, you have to know more than the basics. “Someone” becomes characters who develop as the story unfolds. “Something” becomes a plot, with arcs that move the story along. And we tell stories for reasons, telling our audience something they need to know.
The word “story” is closely associated with fiction in its long and short forms. But writers of nonfiction often use traditional story structures to help their messages appeal to their audiences. Stories can also be found in other writing forms, such as poems (which sometimes tell stories and sometimes don’t).
Story structure varies by medium and by length. For example, novels and feature-length movies typically follow an act structure that formally or informally divides the story into parts. Short stories and news reports are often less formally arranged, allowing their subjects to determine how they’re put together.
Emotional response
I have little trouble teaching students to perform the information and persuasion functions of media. Journalism has standards, and it’s fairly easy to tell whether or not a story meets them. Good advertising can be tricky to create, but judging its effectiveness is simple enough. Entertainment, on the other hand, is an emotional response. As such, it tends to be highly subjective. What amuses one person may annoy another. Multiply that by the thousands or millions of people you have to entertain in order to succeed, and you’ve got a real challenge on your hands.
You can easily test this principle on yourself. Select your favorite medium, then list your favorite examples (ten favorite songs, ten favorite movies, ten favorite whatever). What do most or all of the items on your list have in common? Expanding to 15 or 20 items may help you refine your study and define your taste more specifically.
The problem can be partially solved by product standardization. If you find yourself enjoying a romantic comedy, odds are that other romantic comedies will likewise entertain you. Thus standardization works not only for consumers trying to select what they want but also for media companies trying to produce products that people will buy.
However, as we’ll soon see, standardization can compromise creativity and thus end up producing the very thing it should avoid: boring media that nobody wants to watch.
We are not amused
Some things are easier to define by determining what they aren’t rather than trying to figure out what they are. Entertainment may be one of those things.
So what’s the opposite of “entertainment”? Sadness? Anger? No. Though we typically think of entertainment as something that makes us happy, negative emotions are often a key part of the process. Consider video games. Especially in the more violent examples of the genre, generating a sense of hostility is essential to the experience. And popular music has a whole genre of “break-up songs.” Who would want to listen to a happy break-up song?
For a good antonym, we need something more like “boring.” If we can’t respond emotionally to the media, then they don’t entertain us. So think about what bores you – making a list of 15 or 20 items if it helps – and you may learn a bit about what it takes to entertain you.
Pretty face happy talk
Of the four functions of media, entertainment and persuasion are typically perfectly comfortable together. Advertising is fine entertaining us in exchange for our business. Entertainment also works fairly well with socialization, as happy people are more likely to be content with their roles in society.
Far less easy is the relationship between entertainment and information. Traditionally, journalism is designed to inform and thus doesn’t concern itself as much with keeping people amused. But more and more, information sources are forced to compete in the infoscape with sources of pure entertainment. When given a choice between unpleasant facts and cheerful fantasies, audiences all too often choose the latter.
In order to stay alive, many news outlets resort to what critics call “pretty face happy talk” coverage. Newscasters who look more like actors than journalists make their livings telling people what they want to hear rather than what they need to know. Such coverage may not amount to actual lying, but its emphasis on happy stories rather than serious news can present a dishonest picture of the world around us.
Fame and money
In a free market economy, how much is a person worth? The simple answer is that people get paid whatever it takes to get them to show up for work and not a penny more. If you’re doing something anyone off the street could do, you aren’t likely to get much more than minimum wage. Unattractive jobs (hazardous waste disposal) and jobs that require specific training (doctor) tend to pay a bit more.
But celebrity is a special case. On the surface it might not seem like there’s all that much to it. Work one month a year? At a job that’s a lot of fun and not too much physical labor? And it pays a million bucks? Sign me up! Heck, call me happy working two months for half a mil.
Though the studios could save a lot of salary by hiring me instead of Brad Pitt, it isn’t gonna happen. Pitt is famous. Millions of people will pay to see a movie with him in it, which makes his appearance worth millions to a movie producer. The thousands of actors who’d be willing to take the part for less could save the studio some money up front, but the loss at the box office would more than cancel any salary savings.
Thus fame has a dollar value, the same as any other economic resource.
Stars and privacy
Fame can be a delicate balance of access to a celebrity’s private life. It’s possible to imagine a world where actors just acted, singers just sang, and nobody ever learned anything about their personal lives. In the real world, however, celebrities enhance their popularity by allowing their fans at least a peek into their day-to-day doings.
Some celebs are notorious recluses with reputations for snubbing fans and attacking photographers. However, most famous folk actually enjoy at least some interaction with their admirers.
The problem lies in defining the limits between public and private. Not even the greatest glory hog wants to live in a fishbowl all the time. But where do we draw the line? Should celebrities who benefit from the fame generated by their good times (weddings, childbirth and so on) have the right to restrict access during low spots (divorces, death of relatives and the like)?
People with a lot of money are able to enforce some boundaries by hiring bodyguards and buying houses in gated communities. Some have gone as far as asking Congress to pass laws establishing protective zones around them to keep the paparazzi away. But if the pendulum swings too far in the other direction, fans may lose interest in them in favor of more accessible celebrities.
Fans and obsession
The other side of the fame coin is the fans, and here too we find some tricky balances.
On the mild side, just about everyone likes at least a few celebrities. Or to be more precise, we like their public personas. Typically we don’t really get to know anyone famous. See them on television, certainly. Meet them, maybe. But make friends with them? Such a high level of access wouldn’t be possible between a famous person and all her fans.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, some “fans” clearly go too far. Affection can become obsession, and obsession can cross the line into mental illness. Disturbed individuals have sometimes threatened, attacked, injured and even killed celebrities.
Somewhere between the two extremes lies the “too much” line. A teenager putting posters of her favorite band on her bedroom wall? No problem. A 50-year-old woman doing the same? Maybe not. Making a YouTube video of yourself stripped down to your underwear, hiding under a sheet and screaming “Leave Britney alone”? Yeah, that’s a bit much.
Still, obsession is good business. The band makes money no matter how old its poster purchasers are. And the “Leave Britney alone” guy turned internet notoriety into a paying profession.
Generating an idea
Go to your favorite online retailer and run a search for books about the creative process. You’re likely to find literally thousands of titles about how to live a more creative life, generate great ideas and turn them into novels, songs, paintings or whatever you see yourself creating. Naturally you can do the same kind of search for web sites offering tips for enhancing your creativity.
Far be it from me to do in a handful of paragraphs what better experts have devoted volumes to. But if aspiring creative professionals will allow me to recommend two mindsets to cultivate, I suggest “calm” and “curious.”
Good ideas come from within us. But they can be hard to hear above all the racket going on in our heads most of the time. The 21st century infoscape leaves us so cluttered with other people’s ideas that it can be hard to recognize our own. So try turning off the television, playing unobtrusive music (or no music at all), and concentrate on whatever you’re trying to come up with.
Good ideas also come from outside. They’re inspired by experience. I’m not talking about merely consuming media created by others (though that can sometimes help). I’m taking about actual experiences. Go places. Do things. Meet people. The more you experience in the world around you, the more experiences you’ll have to draw from in the world within you.
Of course you can find all kinds of tips and tricks for generating creative ideas. You’ll want to try a variety and see what works for you. But at the heart of just about every technique, you’ll find some form of calmness and curiosity.
Fact vs. fiction
Our imaginations are notorious for drawing fuzzy distinctions between things that really happened and things that didn’t. Our minds are capable of conjuring up no end of fantasies, some of which can seem more real than actual reality.
In the realm of entertainment, the distinction between fact and fiction isn’t always of key importance. George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry both established successful sci fi franchises without ever setting foot in outer space themselves. Sometimes stories are more entertaining specifically because we know they aren’t literally true.
But ethical – even legal – problems can arise when fiction is presented as fact. In some cases, a little blurring for “dramatic purposes” is considered acceptable, such as a movie based on historical fact that nonetheless makes clear that not all the scenes are based directly on historical record.
On the other hand, audiences have less tolerance for lies presented as the truth. When A Million Little Pieces, a “memoir” by James Frey, turned out to include content invented by the author. This led to an awkward experience when Frey appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s show to apologize for his actions. Winfrey helped publicize the book, and she wasn’t happy to have been taken in by the blend of fact and fiction.
Art and economics
Talk about strange bedfellows! In many ways art and commerce seem to be exact opposites. Art is about individual self-expression, while economics is all about limitations based on how much people are willing to spend. Yet more often than not, the two have been inseparable. Artists create their work for money, and creative content helps sell products.
Some economic limitations on art are simply ordinary facts of life. If you don’t have $100 million to spend, you can’t make a $100 million movie. And nobody with a mature understanding of a market-based economy would ever expect a corporation to spend $100 million to make a movie unless it was reasonably sure the production would turn a profit.
The trouble arises in the limitations the profit expectation places on creative professionals. Remember back at the start of this chapter when we took a look at product standardization and differentiation? That works great for the folks in marketing, and it can be good for audience members trying to pick media to consume. But from an artist’s standpoint, it can impose serious limitations.
If your boss wants you to create something guaranteed to make money, he’s more likely to be impressed if you come up with something that resembles something else that already made money. That might work okay for hamburgers, but in the creativity-driven realm of entertainment it can poison the well from which new ideas come.