Popular Entertainment Is Overly Influenced by Commercial Term Paper

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Popular entertainment is overly influenced by commercial interest. Superficiality, obscenity, and violence characterize films and television today because those qualities are commercially successful. Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with this opinion. To support your position, use reasons and/or examples from your reading, your observations, or your experiences as a consumer of popular entertainment.

This assertion seems unusually pertinent to a current obsession of the media at this moment in our pop cultural history. Quite recently a popular singer, attempting to resurrect her flagging career, exposed -- apparently deliberately -- a naked breast during a live, half time show during the Super Bowl. The breast in question of course belonged to one Ms. Janet Jackson, and although the singer coyly referred her exposure as a "wardrobe malfunction," her previous assertion upon her fan website that the half time show was going to exhibit something exciting or daring seems to fly in the face of her protestations that the brief nudity was accidental. However, the incident, however trivial, gives rise to a question that is anything but lacking in significance -- why does sex supposedly sell so well? Why would Jackson choose this particular exhibition of open sexuality as a way to gain attention and why was she so successful?

Supposedly, certain guidelines are put in place to ensure that so-called family programs such as the Super Bowl are 'vetted' for their sexual content -- guidelines that were breached because of the live nature of the event. However, the Super Bowl itself is quite a violent, live event, even though it is a sports competition. And it is perhaps no coincidence that it draws a large audience as a result and thus the Super Bowl is also one of the most highly coveted spots for advertisers.

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Just like Jackson deliberately decided to use nudity to gain attention for her career's advancement, advertisers use sexuality in the form of Swedish Bikini teams to sell beer during the game, and make use of the game's violent popularity to generate interest in their products.

Furthermore, even supposedly legitimate forms of entertainment, such as the popular sitcom "Friends" have been frequently critiqued for their references to extramarital sexuality and masturbation, among other things. The reason for this focus on sexuality, critics say, is that it draws upon the lowest common interest of everyday viewers in an easy way that advertisers can exploit. Such examples as "Friends" provide lurid storylines to pander to the least critical of viewers, the highly coveted teenage and young adult audience that is so coveted by advertisers. This audience tends to consume popular culture in the greatest quantity, to be most apt to shift brand alliances, and thus is the most desirable target audience for advertisers. The need to attract teens, especially young, male teens has also been blamed for the supposed decline in the film industry and its focus upon characterless spectaculars of supreme violence, special effects, and pneumatic showings of breast and legs of nubile female co-stars.

However, despite this critique, it is also important to note that some of the greatest works of classical literature are themselves quite violent. A protagonist who has married his mother and murdered his father drives the text that provides the foundation of modern, Western drama, namely "Oedipus Rex." The Bible is quite violent, even if its tales take the form of a supposedly moral context. DH Lawrence's classic novel Lady Chatterley's Lover was once banned. Now, any….....

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