reality is broken
by morgan pendergast
Jersey Shore. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Real Housewives of Wherever. Endless hours of mindless filth that HAS to be making us dumber by the second. What has entertainment come to? We watch television to distract us from what is going on around us or to just kill time, but ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle used the dramatic arts for a much more practical reason.
Aristotle believed that in watching a tragedy, for example, one could purge his or her negative feelings and feel genuine fear or pity for the character. According to Aristotle though, this experience could only occur with a successful play. He believed that a well-executed tragedy was made up of six crucial parts, the most important being plot, followed by characters, thought, diction, melody, and the least important being spectacle. The plot of a tragedy is the combination of incidents that occur over the time depicted in the play. He said that tragedy was an imitation of action and life and a play therefore needs to have a reasonable sequence of events. Aristotle said that character is what reveals the moral purpose the agents while thought is shown in what the actors say when attempting to prove or disprove a point. Diction was defined as “the expression of their thought into words.” Aristotle did not believe that spectacle was very important to a play and said that it “is more a matter of the costumier than the poet.”
I think it may be possible that the current requirements for good entertainment have rearranged with spectacle being the number one priority. I mean, think about how big of a deal appearance is currently. Plot still seems to have moderately high standings, but thought and diction seem to have disappeared altogether. I do, however, believe that the most important of all characteristic of a drama is that it can cause its viewers to react emotionally, so in that respect, I suppose Reality Television shows really aren’t quite so bad.
Aristotle believed that in watching a tragedy, for example, one could purge his or her negative feelings and feel genuine fear or pity for the character. According to Aristotle though, this experience could only occur with a successful play. He believed that a well-executed tragedy was made up of six crucial parts, the most important being plot, followed by characters, thought, diction, melody, and the least important being spectacle. The plot of a tragedy is the combination of incidents that occur over the time depicted in the play. He said that tragedy was an imitation of action and life and a play therefore needs to have a reasonable sequence of events. Aristotle said that character is what reveals the moral purpose the agents while thought is shown in what the actors say when attempting to prove or disprove a point. Diction was defined as “the expression of their thought into words.” Aristotle did not believe that spectacle was very important to a play and said that it “is more a matter of the costumier than the poet.”
I think it may be possible that the current requirements for good entertainment have rearranged with spectacle being the number one priority. I mean, think about how big of a deal appearance is currently. Plot still seems to have moderately high standings, but thought and diction seem to have disappeared altogether. I do, however, believe that the most important of all characteristic of a drama is that it can cause its viewers to react emotionally, so in that respect, I suppose Reality Television shows really aren’t quite so bad.