Entertainment journalism has a way of getting discredited. It’s not investigative reporting that uncovers scandal, or sheds light on an injustice of the world. It’s usually light profile pieces that are more fun than ground breaking. True, entertainment writing isn’t the stuff changing legislation, but it’s what excites me, and often times, it’s what moves me.
Any movie or album starts with a raw emotion. Pain, anger, happiness, sadness — there’s almost always some driving force that creates art. Some conflict centers around human emotion, and those emotional conflicts then get projected onto the lives of the viewers/listeners. You see Bella struggle with love in “Twilight,” consider your own efforts, and now have an invested stake in her relationship. We hear Alicia Keys shout “New York” over and over again, reminding us “there’s nothing you can’t do,” and now, regardless of your state of residence, “Empire State of Mind” is an anthem for you and yours.
It’s easy to miss the message in entertainment today. I don’t know if there’s some deep rooted lesson to be learned by all through mountains of Jon and Kate coverage, but there are artists out there creating work that affects us deeply.
I recently saw the new Coen Brothers movie “A Serious Man,” a film being held in high critical regard (it is the Coens after all) and one that I expect to get a good deal of Oscar buzz (it is the Coens after all). The movie follows Larry Gopnik, a college professor whose life is thrown into a miserable state of chaos. His wife is leaving him for another man, he’s uncertain whether he can pay for the divorce, it seems unlikely that his school will grant him tenure, his kids only want to talk to him when they’re complaining and through it all, he fails to find comforting words of wisdom from any of three local rabbis. It’s the Book of Job set in the 1960s. Larry asks why all of these things are happening to him and what he needs to do to make them stop. But there is no answer.
At the time I saw “A Serious Man,” I was dealing with questions of “Why?” myself. A friend and fraternity brother had just passed at the young age of 22. I had returned home to New York for the funeral and caught the film on my only night back, taking advantage of the fact that the limited release movie was playing so close to where I was.
Just like Job, Larry can’t find an answer to his problems. His search for “why” is a futile one. Even if there was an explanation, would it justifiable? Would it be comprehensible? Most likely not. There is no answer of “why?” for Larry, and there was no answer for me either. That realization didn’t make the loss any less tough, but it gave my mind some peace.
Sure, it was just a movie, but doesn’t art imitate life? And if art is subjective, then can’t I interpret it whichever way makes me feel best? That’s what entertainment does. Taylor Swift might not be talking about your ex-boyfriend, but for three and a half minutes you can pretend she is. The Coen Brothers may not have been addressing me directly, but the themes in “A Serious Man” applied to me, and were then, in a way, my own.
These connections are possible because we all share the same fears and feelings; it’s only a matter of time before someone sums them up in a musical or cinematic form. The stories told in song and film are as human as the those told by news journalists. A little fictionalized, but no less profound because of it.
That’s why I love Hip-hop music, going to the movies, and watching a regular slate of television shows each week. Those are the things that make me excited, make me laugh, make me think, make me dance. They elicit human reaction that I can’t deny.
So entertainment journalism might not be the most serious of fields, but it’s what I’m passionate about, and everything I’ve learned from movies tells me that’s the most important part.
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