Only Entertainment

Dyer takes up an analysis of entertainment that looks at the social construction as well as the aesthetics and ideology of the concept, while examining forms as diverse as classical ballet and pornography.

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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 we have to start any analysis of entertainment by understanding 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, Dyer investigates the social construction as well as the aesthetics and ideology of entertainment.
Dyer's subjects range from classical ballet to disco, from star pin-ups to pornography, and from classic serials to camp. his introduction places the writings in context of current cultural debates, and the concluding essay links ideas of pleasure to the politics of sexuality.