Material Detail

'According to my eight-year-old son, Victor, who is a reluctant moviegoer as well as our household Nintendo champion, the history of entertainment is driven by the pleasure principle—the alleviation of boredom and the pursuit of control or mastery. Cinema (which he omits entirely from his minihistory) is clearly expendable. Apparently, postmodern kids like Victor need to be sold on the concept that movies still have an essential place in the entertainment system. Both Saturday morning television and home video games perform this job of selling by refiguring cinema not as a medium that is obsolete, but as what Beverle Houston calls "a prior discourse" that can be parodied, recycled, and mastered. Thus, even before children go to the cinema, they learn that movies make a vital contribution to an ever-expanding supersystem of entertainment, one marked by transmedia intertextuality.'

This will delete the comment from the database. This operation is not reversible. Are you sure you want to do it?

Thank you for reporting a broken "Go to Material" link in MERLOT to help us maintain a collection of valuable learning materials.

If you feel this material is inappropriate for the MERLOT Collection, please click SEND REPORT, and the MERLOT Team will investigate. Thank you!

You are being taken to the material on another site. This will open a new window.

Do not show me this again