When ENTERTAINMENT was just that...

People have completely forgotten what it means to be entertained. When sports, which included the excitement of cheering on your favorite team, was your release from the normal hussle bustle world. When going to a movie was about enjoying great performances by great actors and actresses. Or going to a concert of your favorite musician where you could close your eyes and immerse yourself in live music. Imagine back when you could go to a comedy club to be refreshed and renewed by laugh therapy.

Back in the day, life included “entertainment” of all forms. Entertainment allowed us to escape our normal world and enjoy a performance by paid professionals (actors, actresses, basketball, football, and baseball players, comedians, musicians, and so on). To enjoy our preferred entertainment of the moment, we purchased a ticket to an event, or selected a television channel for an event, and we sat back and breathed it in. Entertainment cost money and we were happy to pay for it because of the many benefits and value that entertainment provided us. After all, going to a basketball game to cheer on and watch your favorite team used to be exhilaratingly fun!

But entertainment as we knew it, is gone. It has been replaced by political sloganering, lecturing, flag kneeling, and promotion of the views of the entertainers themselves. Now I am not suggesting the various causes and opinions of the performers are disagreeable or offensive to me. It’s just that I didn’t sign up for a lecture or ask to be enlightened when I bought the ticket to the event. I get enough of that on the so called news of the day.

Going to the theatre, sporting event or concert was where I went to be entertained by professional entertainers. People who I want to see performing their profession at the highest levels. People who are in a sense “experts” in their field. I, like all Americans, use sports, theatre, comedy, music, and on and on as my “release” from our world. We certainly have infinite choices as to getting political views these days. It is unavoidable in this new PC world where half the country believes one thing and the other the opposite. News is in your face 24X7. There is no shortage of “experts” out there beating their drums of supposed knowledge.

Is it really too much to ask that our entertainment venues be free from political sloganering and flag controversy? Wouldn’t it be easier on everyone if sports were sports and politics was politics? When I go to a basketball game, I watch basketball. I didn't go for sloganering or political posturing.

Guess what? I believe there will be a day of reckoning. People are sick and tired of being placed in a situation that isn’t part of the ticket they purchased. Caught up in the euphoria of being perched on the pedestal of celebrityism that American culture elevates and corrupts entertainers self views, entertainers have made the mistake of thinking that we are interested in their political views and their other views. Celebrityism is all about inflating the egos of already inflated egos. For the record, I am not even opposed to an entertainer using his or her celebrity status to promote a cause. I just don’t want them to do it when I have paid to be entertained. Do it on your own time I say!

Think about these examples:

Sports: Going to professional football or basketball game, we now have to watch as players kneel, wear jerseys with slogans on them, and view multiple slogans unrelated to the sponsors or the game itself throughout the sports venue.

Comedy: Comedy is no longer funny. It is about political bashing of one viewpoint. Late night comedy is gone to be replaced by social and political lecturing.

Hollywood: Do we really need to hear Leonardo DiCaprio or Robert Dinero express their negative and offensive biases on Trump while they are attending the narcissistic Oscars all the while receiving their celebrity club awards? Couldn’t actors and actresses just say thank you for the recognition?

Movies:  Do we really need movie producers to promote social causes by thrusting these causes upon their viewers through cast, character, and plot design? Oh, and now we are seeing movies such as Gone with the Wind erased from the film libraries forever removing one of the greatest films of its time due to political correctness views of today.

I hope for the day that professional entertainers simply do that…ENTERTAIN. A day where entertainers keep their personal views out of my view while they are being paid.