Fun,Entertainment,Etc.

[Black Hawk]

I understand many of the Marxist theories, but what i really don't understand is the entertainment industry. Would it be eradicated in a communist society? I think that things like entertainment and recreational activities are necessary for life to not become a endless routine. So how would they work in a communist society? What about things like cars? how would they be distributed? I'm sorry if i come of as foolish, but i am quite new to communist theory.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

The culture industry is an industry like any other. At the moment, it is in the hands of the capitalists and they largely utilise it for profit motives and to promote their ideology. Just look at the way the music industry subsumes genres like rap or rock music that emerged from working class people creating music to reflect on their struggles and alienation but has been co-opted for profit and to promote celebrity and wealth. A good critique of capitalist culture industry would be Theodor Adorno's The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception (http://marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm), which was one of the first marxist texts I read when I was studying film at university, in which he says:

"The ruthless unity in the culture industry is evidence of what will happen in politics. Marked differentiations such as those of A and B films, or of stories in magazines in different price ranges, depend not so much on subject matter as on classifying, organising, and labelling consumers. Something is provided for all so that none may escape; the distinctions are emphasised and extended. The public is catered for with a hierarchical range of mass-produced products of varying quality, thus advancing the rule of complete quantification. Everybody must behave (as if spontaneously) in accordance with his previously determined and indexed level, and choose the category of mass product turned out for his type. Consumers appear as statistics on research organisation charts, and are divided by income groups into red, green, and blue areas; the technique is that used for any type of propaganda."

In a socialist society, music, film and literature will be a way of life for people. So many people today are discouraged from exploring their creative potential due to concerns such as having to pay bills, having to pay for childcare, the sheer cost of production and advertisement that makes any independent production virtually impossible, an ideological pressure that makes people feel that they cannot gain talent through practice and exploration etc. In a socialist society, where people would have far more time free from the concerns of wage slavery, culture, entertainment and creativity would flourish.

[Black Hawk]

Thanks for the reply mate, so what your getting at is that the people that make the films, tv shows etc. would be treated just the same as a miner or a farmworker?