Additionally, our peace of mind is sabotaged by our default settings: remaining constantly vigilant for threats even while we are perfectly safe, dwelling obsessively on negative experiences while overlooking the positive,, our predilection for addictive, short-term sensual pleasures (consumerism, escapist entertainment, meaningless hook ups and on).
If Bret Easton Ellis is, as many believe, literature's enfant terrible of 1980s disenchanted youth, it's only because he's also secretly a warlock capable of conjuring multivalent spells of celebration and castigation that subvert the meanings and value of sex, money, consumerism, and entertainment.
If Bret Easton Ellis is, as many believe, literature's enfant terrible of 1980s disenchanted youth, it's only because he's also secretly a warlock capable of conjuring multivalent spells of celebration and castigation that subvert the meanings and value of sex, money, consumerism and entertainment.
The effect is puzzling at first, but then a familiar critique of consumerism and mass entertainment becomes glaringly clear.
Pop Art of the 1960s seemed to view the circus of American mass entertainment and consumerism with a mordantly amused eye.
Intent on exploring how mass-produced entertainment and consumerism are part of art, he teamed up with the fashion house Louis Vuitton in 2003 to create brightly colored versions of the classic LV monogram on Vuitton handbags.
Because the Italian state television, RAI, chose mostly to copy rather than to compete with the programming of Mr. Berlusconi's commercial networks, Mr. Ginsborg concludes that Mr. Berlusconi has been central in the last two decades in shaping a new model of Italian mass culture founded on a mix of entertainment and consumerism.
We see this not only in many of our government's frantic terrorism policies but also in our obsessive need to prolong life -- no matter the cost or even discomfort -- through ridiculous medical interventions, through our rampant consumerism, our obsession with constant entertainment, and our never-ending need for distraction through electronic gadgets.
WALL-E The Pixar masterpiece is both an endearing family entertainment and a satirical allegory of consumerism run amok.
Through Dec. 30 "Television," an interactive computer installation by Claude Closky, a French conceptualist, is either really dumb entertainment or a brilliant satire of electronic consumerism.
