The aim of cinema is to entertain and not to educate

I would like to inform Con that in this debate you have to prove that 'cinema educates'. I know. .. . Remember Frozen? Spiderchrist? March of the Penguins? There are many films with a particular goal. For example: some films may be against drug abuseAnd how is a film against drug abuse not educational? Are we supposed to laugh ourselves into temperance? No, we learn about drug abuse. Take a film like "Trainspotting" for example. We understand the appeal of drugs to the protagonist and the escape drugs provide from the grey squalor of Edinburgh but also learn the toll those drugs take: first on his wallet, then on health, and then on his friends. The haunted sober survivor who emerges at the end of that movie makes a far more effective education then some stern documentary citing drugs statistics. But to answer the question, yes, film are designed with a particular goals. Those goals do not belong to the strip of celluloid or the code that stores those strings of image. Those goals belong to the director, producer, actors, writers, set designers, gaffers, etc. Yes, money is usually in there but there's usually a lot of other stuff. The purpose of film should to make you feel something. I'll agree. You seem to be suggesting that we can't feel and learn at the same time. I think the only really lasting learning comes when you respond emotionally to the content. the main aim of films is to be approved by a vast variety of people. .. .that's true except in 'rare' cases. Cynical, but true often enough. It seems to me that even as the "populist only" change puts increasing limitations on big budget films out of Hollywood and Bollywood, the methods and venues for filmmakers with little or no interest in mass approval has increased exponentially. Kickstarter, Indiegogo, etc are total gamechangers for small market fundraising while just about anything turns into a movie theater these days: glasses, watches, table-tops. I was driving through an abandoned factory district in my city this week and came across 50 people gathered in a dirt lot, projecting movies on to old brick walls. Such dynamics are increasingly breaking down potential audiences into smaller and smaller groups. I have a friend who only makes short, cheap films about white-water rafting and skiing but manages to make a living by showing them to audiences of the interested. Everything shown in cinemas might not be true. It varies according to the ideas and imaginations of the film makers. So cinemas can't be used to learn something new. They are highly imaginative. You can have many ways other than cinemas to learn something new. So you're saying Star Trek can't teach because it lives only in our imaginations? Dr. Martin Luther King would certainly disagree with you. When Nichelle Nichols portrayed Lt. Uhuru on TOS she planned to leave after the first season until MLK insisted that she was important for teaching Black Americans to dream bigger than the lower caste roles the White majority imposed. Sesame Street is entirely imaginary and was designed primarily to teach. Are you saying there's nothing educational about Sesame Street movies? That's not about cinema. Since we can watch movies on your wristwatch or go to the local movie theater to watch US vs. Germany, I won't pretend to know what media is cinema and what media is not anymore. It is better they do some research about it if they want to be 'educated' about it. But that's just the point. When fans love a movie for which there are few if any real educational materials, they invent and distribute their own fake research. That tells us that viewers will force movies to be educational, even if there was little intent at the outset. Frozen has nothing related to real life. Again, it provided real entertainment. Some of them has no relevance in the modern world(for instance about princes and princesses) Princes and Princesses, Ice and Magic, Snow Men and Trolls- they are all metaphors for our real world. One has only to open one's mind a little to see how the Trolls are a non-traditional but loving family, how magic represents strong emotions like love and jealousy. Again religion. You have to say about "The aim of cinema is to educate". Please stick on to the topic. I have already made it clear that I think the lines between art and education and religion are too blurry to define. Unless Pro wishes to claim that there is nothing cultural or educational about religion then I am right on topic. Pro's conclusion begins to suggest that Pro is not much failing to recognize that every movie has some educational quality than that she wishes that she wishes those qualities would be removed. Pro's statement that "Love stories rule cinema" makes me think that when she thinks of cinema, she thinks of Bollywood. Hollywood and Hong Kong are not so dominated by romance. The French make lots of love stories but they are so interested in inter-caste, inter-racial, inter-religious couplings that it is clear Pro is not thinking of those. I would argue that even in a Bollywood Romantic Musical (I'll admit that I have only seen a handful) there is more education going on than Pro is willing to acknowledge. Pro complains that love stories tend to show the getting together of couples rather than the realistic (and dull) staying together of couples. I'm not sure that Pro has considered the extent to which romances are symbolic and metaphorical. Most romances employ couples as symbols of ideas or concepts that must be synthesized. Let's take Pretty Woman because I expect most readers will have seen it. Yes Pretty Woman is a silly movie about pretty people that one would be tempted to argue has no educational content, BUT. .. Consider that the writers consciously modeled the story on the Ancient Roman Ovidian story of Pygmalion, updated by Shakespeare in A Winter's Tale, updated by G. B. Shaw in stage play Pygmalion which was made into the musical and film My Fair Lady. In the original Ovid, a sculptor loses all interest in women after meeting some local prostitutes. In Aphrodite's temple (there's that pesky religion again) he prays for a woman as ideal as the ivory statue he is sculpting. That night, he kisses the statue on the lips and she comes to life in his arms. Pretty Woman, however, is as much about the creation as the creator. Like most romantic comedies, the main couple is likable but missing some important characteristic: Vivian is hardworking, principled, and good-at-heart but she has no culture. Edward is hardworking, principled, and cultured, but he lacks compassion. In the first half of the movie Vivian must synthesize increased levels of sophistication until finally, at the opera, she is a whole woman. Edward must synthesize increased levels of compassion until finally he sacrifices business for love, making him a whole man. Transformed into relatively complete participants in society, they may now join in marriage and ceremonially take their place in a family in community. Think that's overdoing it? Better read Aristotle's Poetics because comedies have been working off that basic plot line for at least 2500 years. Just about every comedy that ends in marriage is a lesson in harmony, finding balance within oneself, then finding balance with another, then finding balance in community. Romance. Do we really suppose that Schindler's List was not also an education regarding the Holocaust? Do we really suppose The Searchers was not also an education regarding the corrupting quality of racism? Do we really suppose 2001: A Space Odyssey was not also an education regarding contemporary spaceship design and a meditation on the dangers of artificial intelligence? Movies are educational whether or not the lesson was intended or comprehended. Movies are educational in spite of Pro's wishing they were not or pretending they don't. My thanks again to Pro for the topic.