Life: The Movie
1. Discuss the significance of celebrity and lifies. [Begin research with Introduction and Chapter 4.]
2. Entertainment is arguably the most pervasive, powerful and ineluctable force of our time. [See the
Introduction in Life: The Movie.]
3. Discuss the differences between Art and Entertainment and why the masses preferred
Entertainment. [Begin with Chapter 1.]
4. Why were the movies such a popular entertainment? [Begin with Chapters 1, 2.]
5. Was journalism an early “portal through which entertainment slithered into life and then
conquered it? Explain how and why this was the case. [Begin with Chapter 2.]
6. In what ways did television continue the advance of the graphic revolution and the emphasis of
entertainment in the culture? [Begin with Chapter 2.]
7. How had entertainment become a standard of value for reality itself? “Everything in the public
sphere was now to be measured by entertainment...entertainment had finally escaped the new and
seized life.” [Begin with Chapter 2.]
8. Define the secondary effect and explain how it was and is evident in one of the following areas:
politics, individuals, athletics, religion, literature, the fine arts, education. [Begin with Chapter 3.]
9. Is there a moral equivalence between religion and celebrity? [Begin with Chapter 4.]
10. Gabler asserts, “It is with criminality, perhaps, that one can best see just how the values of human
entertainment usurped other, more traditional values.” Explain. [See Chapter 4.]
11. Define what Gable means by the mediated self. Define is meant by personal lifies. What are the
consequences of a preoccupation with personal lifies for the individual and for society? [Begin
with Chapter 5.]