Only Entertainment Book

Everyone knows what entertainment is, but how can we begin to define it or even to talk about what we know? In Only Entertainment, Richard Dyer argues that any analysis of entertainment has to start by an understanding of it as entertainment, as part of a "common sense" or cultural awareness which is always historically and culturally constructed. In a series of lucid and provocative essays, written over the past twenty years, Dyer investigates the social construction as well as the aesthetics and ideology of entertainment. All of the essays relate to -- and perhaps laid the foundations for -- debates in gender studies, lesbian and gay studies, and the turn towards cultural studies. Drawn from both academic and journalistic writing, the subjects range from film and television to dress and style, from classical ballet to disco, from male and female star pin-ups to pornography, and from classic serials to camp. Dyer's introduction places the writings in the context of current cultural debates, and the concluding essay links ideas of pleasure to the politics of sexuality. Only Entertainment will be of interest to all those involved in the fields of cultural studies, media and communication studies, film studies, and gender studies.Read More