The Triumph of Illusion: Pleasure that Doesn’t Please

           The Triumph of Illusion: Pleasure that Doesn’t Please

               Published in Marietta Daily Journal April 9, 2017

            The Academy of Country Music awards show last Sunday night (after church, mind you) was an in-your-face reminder that illusion and sensory overload have overtaken entertainment.

            The show’s flashing lights, darkness, more bright lights, deafening drums, smoke, outrageous costumes, screaming entertainers, and hyper-emotional winners made it clear that style was dominating substance.  The singing was secondary to the decked-out singers.  The show wasn’t about recognition of excellence in entertainment.  It was about celebrity. 

            I use this particular show only as an example.  There are many other award shows and entertainment venues that illustrate how American culture has become a culture of illusion.  Like the optical illusion of water in the highway which our vehicles never reach, so is our pursuit of pleasure and entertainment a hopeless endeavor.

            Female breasts were “in” (well, actually out) at the ACM show.  T-shirts for male singers were “in” also, untucked of course. This could get confusing.  Is everything that’s “in” out?

Don’t tell me that dress doesn’t matter.  It matters everywhere, especially at school where we should be teaching and modeling excellence in all things.  Imagine going to the symphony and seeing the musicians dressed any way they prefer.

 And don’t tell me that Kitty Wells, Loretta Lynn, or Tammy Wynette would expose themselves as did the new women of country.  Neither would Charley Pride, Charlie Daniels, or Merle Haggard do a half squat or run back and forth across the stage while they sang.

            But music, dress, and entertainment forms “evolve,” some say.  No, they don’t.  Music moguls change things fast for the sake of marketing.  We can all understand the desire of entertainers to do what they love to make money.  It’s the illusory aspect that’s troubling.

            For examples of illusion, consider “American Idol,” “Dancing with the Stars,” “The Voice,” and all the others.  Not that I have ever watched a complete show of any of these.  I haven’t.  But I’ve seen enough to know that all of them are fantasy-inducing shows that lead viewers to think of themselves as potential celebrities.

            “You’re going to Hollywood!” exclaims an “Idol” judge as lights and audience go wild and background music swells to new heights.

            “Oh, thank-you, thank-you.  I love you guys,” scream the victorious contestants, not realizing that they have become a commodity in a celebrity culture.  Not realizing that while they may or may not make millions, the judges and producers of the show already have, thanks to the hungry eyes of youths whose hearts have oft within them burned for money, fame, and adoration.    

              The winners, of course, can look forward – maybe – to looking fabulous and living their lives on unreal, fabulous sets, perhaps as fabulous as the cover of People Magazine.

            As illustrated by the crotch to crotch dancing on “Dancing with the Stars” and the growing undress on the “country” shows, popular culture is besot with sensuality.  “See me, hear me, touch me.  Devour me and I will know I am successful.  I was not born to serve, but to shine.”

            In his national bestseller, “The Culture of Narcissism,” Christopher Lasch asserts that today faith in ourselves and in a world of make-believe is more important than reality.  He bemoans our excessive pleasuring.  In light of Lasch’s thesis, it’s noteworthy that the ACM show was held in Las Vegas, the city of spectacle, the city that depends on illusions for its very existence.

            It has been a long journey from the highlands of Scotland to the hills of Tennessee to the lights of Las Vegas, but that’s the journey country music has taken.  It too has been hijacked – by sensuality, marketing, and technology. I wish all aspiring entertainers well, but if their music ain’t country, call it something else and let the rest of us keep our fiddles, steel guitars, and the themes that nourished us (home, sacrifice, faith, struggle, front porches) when times were bad.  Let us waltz across Texas with Ernest Tubb without all the glare and glitter.   

            I must be fair, however.  At the end of the ACM show, Reba McIntyre’s stirring song, “Back to God,” and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s “Speak to a Girl” turned the show around.  Skeptics might argue these two performances were a bone thrown to traditionalists.  Maybe, but they were inspiring.  Google them for some hope.

            Hope still exists.  It will always exist.  If not, illusion and pleasure will absolutely deaden us to the wondrous and exciting world of reality.

Roger Hines

April 5, 2017