Talking from the meta level

To me entertainment offers a way for me to discuss things closer to reality of most people so in this post will discuss meta entertainment, as previously have talked about defining entertainment functionally where emphasize as a way to control mood safely.

And talking of myself as a meta innovator feel can give an example where now will bring up sports and why usually is distinguished from entertainment.

And people say sports and entertainment, as in sports your player or your team may not always win. If you're cheering someone against an opponent then it doesn't help your mood to watch that person get crushed, and lose, right?

So consider tennis, where tennis champions tend to win until they are against other tennis champions, which means they win a LOT. And upsets are a big surprise when lower ranked players manage to win, but of course do happen, as is sports.

Now in entertainment, like in science fiction or more recently in comic book movies, the protagonists tends to win too! But is writers making it happen of course, but now you can see why fits mood of audience. And sometimes they DO lose in some way, right? Like "Star Wars", was followed by "Empire Strikes Back", but heroes win out in "Return of the Jedi".

Have seen situations where some decry the relentless winning, and talk about being "more realistic" where we can study from the meta level, which is like saying tennis should be "more realistic" and tennis champions should lose more! But of course they would not, so functionally is like saying should follow tennis players who lose more. But most of audience prefers to follow those who win more.

And predictably these attempts, where can think of a few but think it better not to call them out here specifically as is just opinion, failed with audiences. Having more depressive scenarios as if more realistic is not correct. It's simply following less successful imaginary people, where you can, and of course there are fans at all levels, simply follow less successful in the regular world too, in sports. It's like saying that fans should group away from the best players to the middle ones. Why? Fans can go where they want.

Now if you're an entertainment executive, I just explained how you can process if some excited writers come to you with what they think is a brilliant approach to making movies or television shows that are more, they think, like real life, when of course that is not true!

And how do we know? Because we just studied entertainment, from the meta level.


James Harris