Serious Pleasures: Cinematic Pleasure and the Notion of Fun

"Serious" pursuit of the truth and "frivolous" pleasure are often presented as oppositional in academic discourse. In particular, pleasure is thought of as a distraction from serious issues and as complicity in power structures. Consumption of mass media is only legitimized when it serves a rational, oppositional purpose.

Rutsky and Wyatt contest this dichotomy, pointing out that separation of the serious from the frivolous is itself a power structure. Instead, "fun" can exist that is not the opposite of seriousness (as "pleasure" is), but a form of engagement that deflates the seriousness of itself and what it is not. Nothing can be purely fun - pleasure will always strengthen existing power structures to some extent - but pleasure isn't always serious in this way, either. Fun can just be fun!

At the end Rutsky and Wyatt acknowledge that their piece doesn't demonstrate the value of fun. It is serious. Then is fun theoretical engagement like...video essays?

This article reminds me of Barthes' bliss. Atopic, asocial, and because of these traits revolutionary. Seeking to theorize pleasure in ways that ideas of oppositional gaze (Hooks) and Culture Industry (Adorno and Horkheimer) don't get to.