The aim of cinema is to entertain and not to educate

Sure thing and thanks agains for the topic. But Con has not made the points clear and seems to be beating around the bush. That's entirely possible, for I am a famous mumbler. So let's just state as succintly as possible: Pro has claimed that the aim of cinema is to entertain, but not to educate. My job is to show that's not true. Therefore I have argued that entertainment is not and should not be the sole mission of moviemaking and that the nature of art is such that films are educational whether we try to make them so or not, whether we recognize the lesson or not. I do think every film has a goal. People have goals, films don't. Since there are many different people working on most films made for major release, we have to expect that those different people agree to participate for a variety of reasons. Although films attempt to top box office,the main aim of films is to be approved by a vast variety of people. Not every film is made for mass approval. Most pornography is only made for men and within that genre there are some incredibly peculiar genres that could only appeal to a very small market. How, for example, does "Two Girls, One Cup" accord with Pro's statement? (If you havent' seen it, I'd advise against trying. It's one of those horrible things you can't unsee. Rather, read the Wikipedia page to get a sense of its revolting content. [1]) It's only a YouTube video so nobody's making money and the movie seems to have been made exclusively to garner the disapproval and disgust from as many people as possible. How do crush films fit into this generalization? People nowadays do not like taking advice and films based on giving advice and moral to audience fails miserably. By watching films how can you get educated to a degree? If people wanted to be educated about a particular subject they can find many sources for it other than cinemas. Here, we must strongly disagree. One of my favorite things about cinema is seeing someplace new, learning something I've never learned before. Take "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," for example. There's an incredible amount of information there about American politics: how a bill becomes a law; how the rules of order are applied; how a fillibuster works and why its used; how conflicting financial interests create corrupt politicians; etcIf one wishes to understand the charasmatic appeal of Adolph Hitler or how a small party of extremists could lead an nation into an act of collective suicide, then Riefenstahl's "Trumph of the Will" is an absolute must. We can and should read books on the subject, study newspapers of that era, but to truly understand how 700,000 people can stand in one place listening to one obvious, crazy lie after another and respond with little other than pride and joy, "Triumph of the Will," a cinematic experience, is the only effective educational resource. What about "March of the Penguins? " A French documentary about flightless birds struggling to survive in a dim, featureless landscape should not theoretically have much box offce appeal, but it did. This strictly educational film was the second biggest box office draw the week of its release and one of the ten most profitable movies of 2005. Cinemas are meant for a vast crowd and therefore cannot be meant for education. In fact, vast crowds love to be educated. When viewers tuned in to the World Cup this summer or the Olympics last winter, did the audience expect broadcasters to just shut up and let folks watch the game? No, quite the opposite: every possible moment of every match was filled with facts and figures, background information, and tactical analysis. Let's ask ourselves how film fanatics demonstrate their love a given cultural artifact, say Star Wars as an example. Yes, people watch the film over and over. Yes people dress in costumes and speak in Jawa to one another but the single most important mark of a Star Wars geek is all about education. Geeks watch the Star War movies over and over again to extract the most minute parcels of information about a galaxy that doesn't exist and then construct false reference materials: maps, encyclopedias, archetectural blueprints, language dictionaries, online libraries ad infinitum. When faced with a popular cultural artifact of fantasy that is clearly not trying too hard to actually educate anybody about anything, the most notable popular response is that we create fictional educational materials and develop a whole new body of cultural study- the compete opposite of wishing that there was nothing new to learn. There was no need for Con to drag religion into this topic. It is a completely different subject and people have different views about religion. Films are not to be meant to provide moral instruction. Sermons are meant for that. I could not disagree more. In fact, film and religion are entirely inseperable. Consider this- there are 3 major civic events where people are expected to to gather in rows with everybody facing the same direction, sit quietly with a minimum of movement and conversation, and afterward convene for community discussion and dissemination: school, church, and theater. The reason we behave the same way in these three contexts is because these three are all simply blends of the same human communal impulse. Humans love to share information but different kinds of information are set aside for different contexts. Some information is best heard only from your parents or from a lover. Some information is best heard only from an entirely authoritarian voice: "Tornado Warning in your area: seek shelter now," etc. Some information: public information about history and culture, about social and moral community standards, about communal need and communal achievement is communicated in the church/school/theater context. We sit still for an hour or two and recieve information by example, by demonstration, by parable, by laughter and catharsis. I just can't believe Con got these many morals form Frozen. Be practical. Fairy tales are imaginative. I think Con has made a mistake here. Well, me and the world then, because it seems like every media outlet has discussed the morals or "Frozen" at one time or another. Here's one TV station's website reporting "5 Moral Lessons from Frozen:". http://www.ksl.com...Here's a report about a minister denouncing Frozen's morals as gay propaganda:. http://www.independent.co.uk...You can't compare 'playing' to watching films. It's a bit off topic, but if you don't find sex or Scrabble cheap and entertaining diversions from one's worries and responsibilites, then I think you are doing it wrong. "Super Heroes" They are in not similar to anything. In fact, hero's tales as religious archetypes has been a popular field of study since before movies were being made. The famous Swiss psychologist Carl Jung frequently wrote of the heroic archetypes common to every culture. Joseph Campbell went even further in his "Hero with a Thousand Faces" by identifying 18 heroic archetypes that could be found in any hero's tale: Jesus, Mohammed, King Arthur, Bilbo Baggins, Buddha, or Luke Skywalker. As soon as humans start talking about heroes, we start discussing the human ideal and the human condition. As soon any story about a superhero begins, we humans cannot help but be in school, in church and in theater all simultaneously and regardless of context. The phenomenon is easily documented and observed because that is simply way the human brain and our human communities have developed: we transmit certain types of information by telling stories. [1] . http://en.wikipedia.org...