The Sopranos and our Golden Age of Entertainment

Tyler Cowen frequently and convincingly argues that over the past forty years or so, the United States has been going through a period of relative innovation stagnation in medicine, transportation, and education. But one area where the U.S has seen rapid (and under appreciated) growth is in entertainment.

The death of James Gandolfini, star of HBO's hit series The Sopranos, got me thinking about entertainment and led me to realize that we are living through a golden age of entertainment. Matthew Yglesias has summarized this shift well, writing:

"Traditional American television, after all, was built atop an economic structure in which trying to make a really good show simply didn't make sense...In the three-network paradigm, what you wanted from a show was broad, shallow appeal...The Sopranos showed that television intended to aim for high quality and deep audience loyalty could be broadly popular as well if it was done right."

The Sopranos is brilliant because of its incredible cinematography, acting, and writing, things that most consider lost on the general television viewing public. Yet, The Sopranos managed to be artistic, profitable, and popular, leading to the high quality shows like Sherlock, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad that populate T.V today.

But the golden age of entertainment extends beyond T.V quality. Technology has given us unprecedented access to the things we love. My roommate can watch all his favorite animes for free the night they air in Japan. I can access almost any book I want in under five minutes for less than ten dollars (in many cases, for free). Technology has increased the supply of entertainment so dramatically that we are now inundated with it, often at quite low prices. I see this as having several upshots:

1) We should never be bored
We can listen to the best music of any era, read the best books of any era, watch the best T.V shows or movies of any era. Why should never have nothing to do. Once we start to define entertainment more broadly, this golden age only gets better. Why not learn something new for free from some of the world's greatest academics? Why not connect with people who share some specific interest of yours?

I'm not trying to say this so as to sound superior to people who are occasionally bored. I'm occasionally bored. But, we should recognize that we are not bored because we have nothing to do. We are bored because we get stuck in the inertia of doing nothing and are too lazy to access something stimulating. That is a much more solvable problem than actually having nothing entertaining to do.

2) Don't complain that society doesn't have enough "art"
I can picture some objections to me saying everything is hunky dory in this age of entertainment. "Yeah, man," some malcontent might say to me, "maybe the corporate fatcats are providing all the entertainment that the sheeple need while lining their pockets, but what about true art man?" While I can't claim that art as defined by college professors is in a golden age, I think it is fair to say that our ability to access that art is in a golden age. Want to explore the sistine ceiling? Go do it. Want to read almost any poem every written? Knock yourself out.

"But man," insists the hippy, "what about real art, you know, the stuff you need to experience in person." Kalamazoo is no po-dunk town, but it's also no cultural mecca, and yet even here I'd argue you can experience plenty of "real" art. Several theaters, an art museum, art hop on first fridays of every month, live music everywhere, colleges where you can go see student art exhibitions, ect. The vast majority of people in the U.S undoubtedly live within a few hours of some city where they could have a meaningful artistic experience. Even if this level of art isn't quite where some would like it, we still have more accessible for most people than it's ever been before.

On a similar vein, advertisements, that other bane of those concerned with the quality of entertainment in America, are much more avoidable in this golden age than they've ever been before. For one dollar a day you can completely avoid advertisements on radio and t.v. Download adblock plus on google chrome to completely remove ads from the internet.

We are living in a golden age of entertainment. Go forth and enjoy it!