Neil Gabler’s “Life: the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality” is about the major themes of celebrated culture and how the pursuance of “Life Movie” is influenced by these themes. In his book, Gabler fully examines the emergence of the entertainment industry. Perhaps more importantly, he examines the transformation of entertainment into such powerful force in the American culture. It is exclusive to American culture that the everyday life of Americans is influenced by different forms of entertainment to a significant extent. It can be argued that entertainment would not have manifested itself as a driving force in American culture if the nation had already developed when the entertainment industry was emerging. Following is an analytical analysis of “Life: the Movie.”
At the beginning of his book, Gabler explores why the United States was the Entertainment Republic (Gabler, 2000:22). Religious dogma and differences in class are analyzed by him, and are presented as overpowering obstacles on up-in-coming entertainment. He writes that neither “religion [nor] aristocratic control – impeded popular culture” (Gabler, 2000:23), both of which he mentions as obstacles. Gabler views the early American period a time rich with animosities for opportunity and power in part because of the class distinction. The lower and middle class were able to subordinate their powerful over the high class through entertainment and that is why class distinction became significant to it. Gabler specifically discusses the movies and the lack of European influence and tradition from the medium.
All the movies were new and American (Gabler, 2000: 47). Gabler describes movies as “a cultural weapon” for the working class (Gabler, 2000:47). The power of the masses was not both attractive and entertaining, and was medium through which thousands of people could be influenced. He also illustrates how interconnected morality, politics, religion and society all are with entertainment. “Entertainment pushed to an extreme becomes the main form of business and politics” (Gabler, 2000:179). In chapter two, Gabler reviews the “Graphic Revolution”. Socially, it wasn’t just media technology that advanced as a result of this revolution. The revolution altered the social, power structures. A section on early American newspaper influences is also included in the book.
Although Gabler does not explore this himself, but early American press and the 1990’s tabloids were quite analogous. Back in those days, the news was driven by excitement and sensationalism and for modern textual and visual tabloids, these are actually fundamental ingredients. Gabler seems to be evading one particular process, and he has not clearly stated it. Theatre and newspapers came before the movies, and television came after it, most recently. A time in the history of entertainment is represented by each of these mediums when the lower classes and even the other classes, were exposed to the eloquence incorporated in these forms of entertainment. Escapism was the value of entertainment, and entertainment the value of [everyone’s] life (Gabler, 2000:208).
Later, television and printed news are discussed as “personalities contracted to play out their lives for the amusement of the readers” (Gabler, 2000:78). For the purpose of entertainment, the media started making “life events.” For instance Gabler gives the example of fall of the Berlin Wall that became widely known worldwide (Gabler, 2000:90), and how the media story was made of the event was unnecessarily propagated and grabbed much attention. In chapter three, Gabler writes that the most momentous effect of entertainment forced “nearly everything to turn itself into entertainment in order to attract media attention” (Gabler, 2000:96). The same can be said about moral panics too. Issues that are a threat to the society are framed as or transformed into moral disasters and the story is then picked up by the media and grabs the attention of the people.
Gabler stated the above point in his book “the Gulf War was formulated” in order to show the precise images that were required for the first Bush administration (Gabler, 2000: 113). The idea that media is a form of entertainment that is used to control, excite or inform the public at large is supported by the idea that a war could be concocted (Gabler, 2000:98). This is precisely the procedure that moral entrepreneurs tend to take. Gabler’s point can be countered by the idea that the primary achievement of modern mass media is to make facts or news more accessible to everyone. For the first time, every worldwide event can be accessed by anyone; as a result, they can react to things they were not exposed to in the past.
Moreover Gabler discusses that “the media weren’t really covering politics at all. They were covering themselves covering politics” (Gabler, 2000:105). He questions the need for sporting events because he believes that athletes themselves are living “soap operas” (Gabler, 2000:119). He also discusses religion media and even literature and media. Gabler describes authors as celebrities, for instance he gives the example of Hemingway who “authored a life movie in which he could star in the screens of the media” (Gabler, 2000:124). Productions such as those by the Biography channel and the increase in the viewership of autobiographical and biographical literature in recent years show how media has impacted authors and celebrities.
In chapter four, Gabler further explores the previous topic in chapter three. Now Gabler extensively looks at the concept of celebrity and how American culture was impacted by it. Gabler writes that “Celebrity, seemed less a function of what one did than of how much one was perceived (Gabler, 2000:144). Gabler takes some time to evaluate Boorstin’s definition of celebrity: “The celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness” (Gabler, 2000:144). Briefly, Gabler discusses celebrity and religion side by side as if they are analogous. He writes that “Religion has become entertainment, entertainment was now becoming religion” (Gabler, 2000:174). What Gabler seems to be implying in this chapter is that regular people see celebrities being graciously rewarded and so they no longer wish to be anonymous.
Finally, ideas revolving around advertisement as a form of entertainment and how the live movie is impacted by personality are developed in chapter five. Gabler seems to be suggesting that the reality as most of us know it is not actually reality at all. What we consider reality is what has been constructed for us to believe and that might or might not be based in factuality. Even issues that presented by a claims maker for the public’s attention are not based on fact. It is likely that these assumptions are constructed or exaggerated to suit the fundamental reason for the efforts made by the claim maker. Gabler presents the idea that advertisers tend to engineer “want” (Gabler, 2000:203), and it seems that he has taken his thesis from this so far.
Gabler states that “the life movie [is] being enacted by tens of millions of Americans each day” (Gabler, 2000:205) whenever they use a product. However, it can be presumed that manufacturers actually create products for business sake rather than for the sake of entertainment. On a personal or business level, it seems unjustified to assume that everything done by someone is for entertainment’s sake. It is also unjustified to confuse obsession with appearance and entertainment. Gabler proclaims that where once the movies had been measured by life, now life is measured by how well the narrative expected by the movies is satisfied by it (Gabler, 2000:233). The structure of culture seems to be changed by all this.
Now that this analytical review is near its conclusion, it is worth mentioning that an interpretation of American culture in which entertainment has been placed as the pinnacle of societal power has been created by Gabler’s “Life the Movie.” As he does this, he views life as a movie, which is developed each step of the way. Gabler seems to strongly believe that entertainment and media tend to create reality. There is no factual evidence that supports these realities. It can be concluded that the events in Gabler’s Life Movie are not definite reality but simply false beliefs. If life is a semblance of the way it to look like, if we are actually creating our lives like a producer creates movie, then perhaps we are actually playing with the dexterity and failing to reach the true craft of life.
Works Cited
Gabler, Neal. Life: The Movie. How Entertainment Conquered Reality. 1. New York: Vintage Books, 2000. Print.
