What ’s Entertainment? Notes Toward a Definition 1Sample Assignment

Stephen Bates and Anthony J. Ferri

What’s Entertainment? Notes Toward a Definition

Introduction
Entertainment has been a part of all cultures‚ from the Chauvet Cave paintings to the iPad. For Rothman‚ it is “the storehouse of national values” (xviii). Perhaps nowhere is that observation more apt than in the United States‚ a nation that Gabler terms a “republic of entertainment” (11). Many Americans seem to feel entitled to high-quality