Assignment 5 - Haley Drake

   At the very root of creativity is a problem to be solved. The artist sits at their desk with an image of their problem and an idea of the solution. Here, the Emmy winner and the Nobel Prize winner interconnect. The future Emmy winner brainstorms hoping to solve their problem, and they use the culture of entertainment as a means to get their message across. Meanwhile the future Nobel Peace Prize winner brainstorms hoping to solve their problem, but they don't use entertainment as such a kind of pretty packaging to wrap their message in and send to the people.

   The reason we sit down in front of our glowing TV screens isn't - or at least usually isn't- for the enveloped message, it's for the pretty packaging. Our favorite TV series snatch our attention with intriguing story lines and quirky characters. That's what we remember about it when we watch the credits scroll after the final episode. And yes, that message the writer toiled at incorporating for so long? It's there somewhere. Some kind of theme or moral was surely absorbed from their contribution.

   Essentially, you could say that all art, including TV is just another way of getting a message out to the world. However, one thing does come out of the glitz and glamour that is the entertainment industry: the art. Writers, producers, actors, directors, editors, stylists, musicians and more all got together to tell a story. Sure, the future Emmy winner may have started at the same desk as the future Nobel Prize Winner, but the entertainer ended with a piece of art that made us laugh, cry, and love. In a way, maybe it's completely appropriate that we celebrate entertainers more than the academic world changers. Maybe our culture is less about the message, and more about how that message is delivered.