Rating: 
Summary: "When I Crashed the Car It Was Just Like a Movie!"
Review: A good, often acid analysis of "entertainment state," Gabler's main thesis is that under the influence of the movies and the concomitant rise of the consumptionism, we have created an entertainment state where everyone is constantly considering how their performance is going -- which amounts to a new kind of discipline as Foucauldians might say. Further, these "roles" require props (material goods), which in turn supports the consumer society and the entertainment state at the expense of nearly everything else. To lay the basis for his theorectical claim, he cites the early 1960s thinking on the phenomenon of celebrity and the changes it has wrought in the American psyche. Here cites Boorstin's "The Image," and Riesman's "The Lonely Crowd." But he's not averse to cites postmodernists to serve his thesis, Umberto Eco, and Baudrillard come in for brief insights, too. Some might say Gabler overstates his case. Have we really become so infused with "lifies" projected at us on a billion screens that we no longer know where we begin and where we end? Compared to the post-mods who can't resist hyperbole and grand gestures, though, he grounds his case historically, culturally and economically. Moving from a quick periodization of the rise of mass entertainment in the U.S. in conjunction with Jacksonian era during which elitist amusements were challanged and overthrown -- in 1849 29 b'hoys in NYC were killed during a riot where protested the English actor MacCready's reading of Shakepeare as a disparagement of the American style of Edwin Forrest -- he shows how entertainment has always been contested terrain. He also suggests that popular entertainment and diversion are as American as apple pie with supporting examples of the popularity of the political speech, the Great Awakenings, the Lyceum and Chatauqua. Most chilling is his description of the two Americas: those who live behind the glass (TV) and those who don't, and how those who don't know that because they don't live behind the glass are lesser citizens. That people fight to obtain some type of stardom, or at the minor forms of celebrity, that CEOs now bestride the world like Hollywood stars of old, that brands now have personalities, are cited as evidence of celebritization of the world. The section of the dark side of celebrity-seeking -- e.g. Mark David Chapman, the Unabomber, and Arthur Bremer -- is effective in showing how these individuals' quest for celebrity was rewarded by the media in wall to wall coverage. The slippage of mainstream media into the gutter once occupied by the tabliods is also of related interest, though it cites the usual examples: e.g. Gary Hart, Monica, O.J. Gabler's larger point is that all these "lifies" take up space in our collective consciousness, that they distract us, circumscribe our lives by setting norms, casting us in roles, and both limit and expand whom we might be and how we might behave: the affable talk show host, the news anchor, the family man, etc. These norms and role models now live behind the screen, he says. There is no "backstage" where we think our private thoughts and a "frontstage" where we interact with the world. It's all "frontstage." Observe an average Californian for awhile, he suggests. Steeped in movie and entertainment culture, they have no "backstage." Gabler cites evidence that those who have ability to positively delude themselves, to "act" as if they are the center of our own postively scripted, headed- toward-a-happy-ending movie, do better in their lives and occupations. He notes that Prozac's popularity may be connected with this phenomenon. All in all a good, solid, and dare it be said, "entertaining" book.
Rating:
Summary: "When I Crashed the Car It Was Just Like a Movie!"
Review: A good, often acid analysis of "entertainment state," Gabler's main thesis is that under the influence of the movies and the concomitant rise of the consumptionism, we have created an entertainment state where everyone is constantly considering how their performance is going -- which amounts to a new kind of discipline as Foucauldians might say. Further, these "roles" require props (material goods), which in turn supports the consumer society and the entertainment state at the expense of nearly everything else. To lay the basis for his theorectical claim, he cites the early 1960s thinking on the phenomenon of celebrity and the changes it has wrought in the American psyche. Here cites Boorstin's "The Image," and Riesman's "The Lonely Crowd." But he's not averse to cites postmodernists to serve his thesis, Umberto Eco, and Baudrillard come in for brief insights, too. Some might say Gabler overstates his case. Have we really become so infused with "lifies" projected at us on a billion screens that we no longer know where we begin and where we end? Compared to the post-mods who can't resist hyperbole and grand gestures, though, he grounds his case historically, culturally and economically. Moving from a quick periodization of the rise of mass entertainment in the U.S. in conjunction with Jacksonian era during which elitist amusements were challanged and overthrown -- in 1849 29 b'hoys in NYC were killed during a riot where protested the English actor MacCready's reading of Shakepeare as a disparagement of the American style of Edwin Forrest -- he shows how entertainment has always been contested terrain. He also suggests that popular entertainment and diversion are as American as apple pie with supporting examples of the popularity of the political speech, the Great Awakenings, the Lyceum and Chatauqua. Most chilling is his description of the two Americas: those who live behind the glass (TV) and those who don't, and how those who don't know that because they don't live behind the glass are lesser citizens. That people fight to obtain some type of stardom, or at the minor forms of celebrity, that CEOs now bestride the world like Hollywood stars of old, that brands now have personalities, are cited as evidence of celebritization of the world. The section of the dark side of celebrity-seeking -- e.g. Mark David Chapman, the Unabomber, and Arthur Bremer -- is effective in showing how these individuals' quest for celebrity was rewarded by the media in wall to wall coverage. The slippage of mainstream media into the gutter once occupied by the tabliods is also of related interest, though it cites the usual examples: e.g. Gary Hart, Monica, O.J. Gabler's larger point is that all these "lifies" take up space in our collective consciousness, that they distract us, circumscribe our lives by setting norms, casting us in roles, and both limit and expand whom we might be and how we might behave: the affable talk show host, the news anchor, the family man, etc. These norms and role models now live behind the screen, he says. There is no "backstage" where we think our private thoughts and a "frontstage" where we interact with the world. It's all "frontstage." Observe an average Californian for awhile, he suggests. Steeped in movie and entertainment culture, they have no "backstage." Gabler cites evidence that those who have ability to positively delude themselves, to "act" as if they are the center of our own postively scripted, headed- toward-a-happy-ending movie, do better in their lives and occupations. He notes that Prozac's popularity may be connected with this phenomenon. All in all a good, solid, and dare it be said, "entertaining" book.
Rating:
Summary: Four stars for making a good start
Review: A very good start on identifying this 'social delusion and madness of the crowd' phenomenon. Like some of the other reviewers here, I think Gabler is providing only an outline rather than a developed contribution. Some chapters need much more evidence and discussion than is provided, but I agree that he is definitely 'naming true things', which is very refreshing. I'm not into "reformers" but I do like Houyhnhnm* truth-tellers. I recommend this book to those readers who find in themselves growing rivers of cynicism provoked by the many smug Yahoos of modern life. (*Check out Gulliver's Travels: "My Reconcilement to the Yahoo-kind in general might not be so difficult if they would be content with those Vices and Follies only, which Nature has entitled them to. I am not in the least provoked at the Sight of a Lawyer, a Pick-pocket, a Colonel, a Fool, a Lord, a Gamester, a Politician, a Whore-Master, a Physician, an Evidence, a Suborner, an Attorney, a Traitor, or the like: This is all according to the due Course of Things: But when I behold a Lump of Deformity, and Diseases both in Body and Mind, smitten with Pride, it immediately breaks all the Measures of my Patience; neither shall I be ever able to comprehend how such an Animal and such a Vice could tally together." )
Rating: 
Summary: Pillar to understanding society
Review: Along with Paul Fussel's Class, these books are provocative views of modern society. Like "Class", Gabler doesn't really tell you anything that you don't really know but he does lay it out in a manner that I, at least, had never considered deeply. In doing so, he revealed a weakness that I recognize in myself and in much of the people in this society. Weakness? Gabler doesn't judge. He presents the case and steps back but there is some amount of consternation. How else can you view it? When a person's life becomes nothing more than fulfilling a part in the play? Is that good? Or is it the natural outcome of a society that finds itself more and more removed from the constraints of Mother Nature?
Rating: 
Summary: entertaining (it's not a compliment)
Review: In an interview (on Salon.com, if I rember correctly) Gabler referred to this book as his Grand Unified Theory of Entertaining. I hope that this statement was uttered with a bit of irony (which got lost in the printed version). In my opinion this work offer little insight of the pervasiveness of entertainment and celebrity in our lifes. The best part is the first, in which the author convincingly presents the genealogy of the culture of entertainment in the United States. Every fact is carefully researched, a good practice that earns the book three stars. The second part focuses instead on the later stages of this culture and its effects on everyday life. I found it superfluous to a great extent. Eventually, the reader feels he is reading an abridged version of People magazine, with some interspersed comment in between the bios of celebrities and their fortunes (Martha Stewart, Ralph Lauren, Elisabeth Taylor, you name it). I don't know the goal of the author here; it's not to provoke thought nor to generate indignation. Maybe he was fascinated by his subjects and attracted into their orbit, who knows. By removing it, this book could have become an good article on New Yorker or even Granta. A final comment: other than the common topic, Debord's and Gabler's books share nothing else. Gabler does not attempt a deductive explanation based on a philosophy of history (marxism) like Debord. I understand that he is not quoting Debord in any part of his book. Personally I prefer a somewhat superficial but entertaining and humble account like Gabler's, to a pretentious and self-important one (Debord's).
Rating:
Summary: The image becomes reality
Review: Is most of humanity of the "monkey see monkey do" variety?Gabler seems to say yes.The saturation of the human psyche with all manner of the trivial and inane has been taken to a more absurd level courtesy of tv and accompanying pop culture that follows it.The majority of people,without even realizing it most of the time,live life according to images,conceptions and massive fictions perpetrated by mass culture.In its essence this is nothing new,and the age of tv becoming real life will give way to some other mass pop culture,just as literature become life a century ago gave way to television as pop culture dictator of fad,fashion and image idolizing.Humankind will always have some barometer to dictate the fads,fashions and attitudes of the moment;this moment just happens to be television.
Borrow this one,don't buy.
Rating:
Summary: A Debt to Debord
Review: It is a good sign (if only to know that we are not alone) when anyone critically discusses the disappointing, alientating society in which so many do not really live, but instead pretend to live, acting on recieved values and donning cloned identities. Yet, I was extremely disappointed that the author made no mention, that I could find, of Guy Debord, the Situationists, and particularly Debord's Society of the Spectacle, which seems the appropriate starting point for this one and only truly human discussion. Those of us who have learned to live again know a good place to go to get the real goods. Unfortunately, the population in this mental space is still a bit thin.
Rating:
Summary: A Debt to Debord
Review: It is a good sign (if only to know that we are not alone) when anyone critically discusses the disappointing, alientating society in which so many do not really live, but instead pretend to live, acting on recieved values and donning cloned identities. Yet, I was extremely disappointed that the author made no mention, that I could find, of Guy Debord, the Situationists, and particularly Debord's Society of the Spectacle, which seems the appropriate starting point for this one and only truly human discussion. Those of us who have learned to live again know a good place to go to get the real goods. Unfortunately, the population in this mental space is still a bit thin.
Rating:
Summary: Scratches the Surface
Review: Neal Gabler merely scratches the surface as he describes the integration of media and entertainment into 20th Century culture, particularly 20th Century American culture. Gabler concedes at the outset that the book is diagnostic rather than prescriptive and he leaves few suggestions and little hope for a cure. The most disturbing part of the book is the final chapter, entitled The Mediated Self, in which he illustrates the degree to which many people have come to define their lives in terms of entertainment value. Parts of the book are priceless. One should read it with a highlighter or a pencil and capture the more descriptive gems for future attribution. As an example, describing the propensity of '80's and '90's middle class Americans to videotape family events: "Weddings, baby showers, bar mitzvahs . . . even surgeries, all of which had traditionally been undramatic, if occasionally unruly, affairs, were now frequently reconfigured as shows for the video camera complete with narratives and entertaining set pieces throughout. Sometimes a hastily edited version of the tape, complete with musical soundtrack and effects added to boost its entertainment value higher still, would be shown at the climax of the occasion as if the entire purpose of the celebration had really been to tape it." One senses that Gabler, taking leads from Marshall McLuhan, Neil Postman, Richard Schickel . . . even Andy Warhol, is on to something very big, if not overarching. Gabler deals with the subject in a mere 244 easily read pages, but I was left wanting more and feeling that the subject had been dealt with somewhat superficially. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone who can stand to add to their level of cynicism.
Rating: 
Summary: Another flop of a Life
Review: Remarkable and lamentable by what it manages to ignore this work
is more an example of what it tries to describe than an implement
for its understanting! That Gabler manages to write a book about
the spectacular engulfing of the everyday without engaging the
views of Guy Debord, Herbert Marcuse, Goddfrey Reggio, Georges Perec, Vince Packard or David Riesman is in itself a testemonial of how entertainment effectively compresses the depth of any analysis of its effects to a waffer thin prespective! What is advertised as revelatory soon is revealed as the author's emphatuation with his own subject. Wwept by the uncontainable wave of superficiality that he purports to denounce, Gabler is already a stand-in in the movie called Life, the delusion he
fully welcomes in his naive reconning...
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