Synopsis
Neal Gabler shows us today's astonishing conversion of
life itself into Entertainment - Life the Movie. Revealing
what now unites phenomena as diverse as modern art, President
Clinton versus Kenneth Starr, the O. J. Simpson trial, the
Unabomber murders, and Elizabeth Taylor's marriages, Gabler
demonstrates how our hunger for entertainment and the massive
exploitation of that hunger have combined to make everything
from religion to politics to painting to the news into
branches of show business; how Life the Movie has generated
and popularized its own stars - the rich and famous; and how
all of us are not only an audience for the life spectacular,
but also performance artists acting out our own dramas within
it. Gabler traces the phenomenal rise of Entertainment as it
challenges high culture. He also shows how entertainment,
most notably with the arrival of the movies, comes to
dominate the national consciousness by introducing a new way
of seeing, until it seems that every endeavor and idea must
become part of the grand, ever-growing, ongoing Big Show or
risk invisibility.