I think I am starting to understand the massive draw to Entertainment and Entertainers in the past. The entertainment industry was a massive release of internal thoughts and emotions into the Public Sphere and the World. In a world where mental health was heavily stigmatized, the entertainment industry became a major form of therapy for many people. People were expressing and talking about emotions that many other people shared, but never talked about. Many people, all of a sudden didn’t feel so alone in the world anymore.
The people expressing these emotions and, in some cases, shouting them from the roof tops, became a lot of people’s therapists in a way. Many people wanted guidance from these entertainers, they became a life line for a lot of people struggling in the world. A major problem that occurred, was that these entertainers weren’t well equipped to be giving good advice at the time, which the new lifestyles of entertainers did not help. But they were expressing common issues with other people, and they were trying to work through their problems together in a way. They spoke to a lot of people that didn’t want to seek help, couldn’t seek help, didn’t know how to seek help, couldn’t afford help, or it wasn’t available yet.
The entertainment industry did an amazing job of releasing internal thoughts in all reality. I don’t think psychologist at the time even realized how broad in scope the range of emotions and life experiences were. We started to realize how unique everyone is and how we experience the world in almost an unlimited amount of ways and perspectives. Not to mention, we all just have such a different amount of life experiences in general. The entertainment industry was like a therapists/sociologists dream in a way, we could really start to take a look into many people’s minds, we could even start to see a big picture of the country/world and be able to see the broader mental illnesses of the country and start to address them systematically, trying to solve the biggest problems first and work our way down.
I think that is also what causes so many people at times to become so attached to entertainers. We as people often grow strong connections to our therapist or religious leaders for many different reasons. But in my opinion, it was almost as if the entertainers were crying out for help as well. The entertainment industry in many ways was a cry for help, for someone to come and understand them and help them solve their problems. Which, I think psychologists/sociologists/economists/philosophers (Humanities & Social Sciences) decided to answer the call and try and help the best they can. I think the growth in the psychology field has led to the loss of a lot of the allure of entertainers, people now have other options to help treat their problems, they have an entire profession aimed at helping them now. We understand ourselves and our brains better now than at any other time in history I would assume. The field of psychology is finally starting to catch up… they had no clue how far they were actually behind years ago…
It was such a release of emotions… it was interesting to see not just what people were saying, but how fans and followers were reacting as well… almost alarming at times, the amount of worship you could see in a person’s eyes… but that was something to try and be understood as well…
I guess I will leave it at that for now… just something to get your minds going… I think this is something if I really wanted to dive into, could probably easily write a book about it, one thought just rolling into the next… But I just wanted to point out something I felt I realized…
theeclecticschizophrenic.com 