Entertainment vs. Art: How Do They Relate?

In the interest of argument, I'll sometimes go onto a random chat site (just text, not video chat; I want information and discussion, not mental scars) to ask people if they think video games are art.  I've gotten all sorts of replies, but a surprisingly common one is that they are not art, but entertainment.  Which is interesting to me, not as a sort of argument against games as art, but as a general principle of art theory.

The question here is one of coexistence.  Can art be entertainment?  Can entertainment be art?  Are both capable of being the other, is one inherently also the other, or are they entirely separate, with no overlap?

Tag, you're it!

Well, there are definitely things that are entertaining, but are not art, at least in its culturally defined sense.  The best example is that of children.  Kids are entertained by the simplest of things; they don't need a complex RPG battle system or a non-stop action-packed movie, they just need you to grab onto their hands and spin them around.  To a child, pretty much anything is entertainment.  A game like Tag is obviously entertainment, but it would be difficult to argue for its status as art.  So entertainment can most definitely exist independently of art.

But is absence of art a necessary quality of entertainment?  I think a simple glance at any art form will prove otherwise.  Film is an art form, and movies are enjoyed by millions of people on a daily basis, most of them not even giving a second thought to its artistic value as long as they were entertained.  Literature does this as well, as do visual art forms such as painting and photography; just because something is an art form does not mean it can't be entertaining.  In fact, most art forms in today's world are dependent on some form of entertainment since artworks need to make enough money to fund others.

Thus, we conclude that entertainment is capable of being entirely independent of art, but is also fully capable of, and commonly does, exist within art.  In short, it can go both ways.  So now that we know how entertainment relates to art, how does it work the other way around?

Art can, I suppose, exist independently of entertainment, though that possibility is heading squarely into subjective territory.  I've known people who couldn't stay awake through the original Star Wars films because they were bored to death.  I've since avoided those people like the plague and now pray for their salvation on a daily basis.  Point being, these are three films largely considered some of the best, most influential and important works of cinema in history, and some people find no entertainment value in them.  Entertainment is a rather subjective thing, up to personal taste, so the only way we could make any sort of concrete judgement in this specific area is by considering intent rather than effect, since the effect of entertainment tends to be subjective.  So for the sake of figuring out art's relation to entertainment, I will use the word "entertainment" not to refer to anything that is entertaining to someone, but rather to anything that is created in order to entertain.

Case in point: I highly doubt you
watched Schindler's List thinking,
"This is so fun!"  But it was great.

But is there any art that does not seek to entertain in some way?  Sure, art has a higher purpose than to simply entertain, but if the viewer, reader, or player is not entertained, how will they be interested enough in that message for it to really have an impact?  The viewer/reader/player must be invested in the artwork, and that is best accomplished by being entertaining in some way.  Perhaps not "haha, this is fun" sort of way, but I think we can all agree based on the existence of horror movies, intense action games, and pretty much any other media made to keep those experiencing it tense, that "having fun" is not necessarily the same as "being entertained."  It would seem that art seeks to entertain as a means of communicating the higher purposes of its existence.  Perhaps this does not mean that entertainment is always necessary to art, but it most definitely points to the idea that entertainment is an important aspect of art, not some sort of opposing force to it or a "lower" version of it.

We have determined that entertainment does not inherently exist independently of art; it can, but does not do so on principle.  Nor is art inherently separate from entertainment; in fact, entertainment is a natural part of art and is commonly used within it to effectively communicate to the audience and financially allow the existence of artistic industries and studies.

So where did we get the idea that "entertainment" cannot be art?  It could be one of those things we think without realizing it conflicts with other things we think.  It could also be the result of a common thought that "art" is some sort of high-brow, snooty concept of which our entertainment cannot be a part.  Or is it perhaps it's simply that, if you look at something merely as entertainment, you will not see the artistic value in it.  I'm not entirely sure; this week seems to be more of an exploration than an explanation, I suppose.  But it's an interesting thing to consider.  I think it's important for us to remember that art and entertainment are not mutually exclusive, and just because not all examples of an art form are particularly "artistic" does not mean the entire form is one solely of entertainment with no artistic legitimacy.

Let me know if you have any further ideas in the comments, or feel free to email me at the address at the bottom of the page!  And don't forget to Like Binary Narrative on Facebook!