Effects of Entertainment

Madeline Burgess

Mrs. Kingery

English 11 AP

11 October 2017

Argumentative Essay

Effects of Entertainment

        Neal Gabler, author of Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality, believes that entertainment has the capacity to “ruin” society. While entertainment’s sole purpose is to engage people in jubilant, meaningless interactions, one would oppose to say that its presence negatively influences society by utilizing its popularity.

        Entertainment in form of television consists of multiple reality shows that people consistently watch, which encourages society to conform to a certain lifestyle by altering their appearance and personality. This would not be a major concern if these television series exemplified good citizenship and educational prospects, however, some display boisterous and unruly behavior. For example, Keeping up with the Kardashians, is a prevalent reality show that stars a group of sisters who carry themselves in a provocative manner, from the way they dress to the way they talk. The girls repetitively swear and dress revealing, tearing away from all means of conservative. Unfortunately, society levitates towards these kinds of programs and unconsciously creates these lifestyles as the ideal goal, setting standards for women. Therefore, women change their physical features and their attitude to match those of television stars, creating immoral citizens. Whether or not the effects of entertainment are conscious, they still are damaging our society which will result in “ruin”.

        Not only does entertainment in terms of television concern the wellness of society, so does music. Today, the popular music genre for teenagers, who our future profoundly depends on, is rap and hip-hop. While not all music from this genre is distasteful, the majority of it is. These songs are heavily coated in curse words and derogatory actions, such as murder, gang involvement, and drug and alcohol abuse. Young adults listen to the story behind these songs and feel compelled to fit in with this insubordinate picture of society. Music videos supply additional damage by actually forming scenes of this behavior, which induces peer pressure for teenagers that long to fit in with the in-crowd. With the mental picture of drinking, drug use, and disobedient behavior in kids’ minds, the path that is acceptable in society is blurred. Without a defining line between right and wrong, developing minds tend to veer off the path of success. The future of society is dependent on these young mentalities, which are being corrupted by vulgar song lyrics and music videos, leading humanity to ultimately be destroyed.

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