All the World's a Stage.

Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art? The question, according to Neal Gabler in his book Life, the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality (Starring Everyone) (Alfred A. Knopf, 303 pp.), is moot, because art has become life, and vice versa.

Theaters and television aren't so much venues for escapism, as many people contend, but rather showcases for contemporary values. One of America's most popular sitcoms, Friends, is about six friends who struggle through daily life. The recently retired hit, Seinfeld, prided itself on being about "nothing." ABC, in fact, is trying to match Seinfeld's success with its L.A. version, It's Like, You Know.... Successful dramas today include ER and NYPD Blue. The reason behind the success of these shows is no more complicated than the fact that they portray real people facing real dilemmas and struggling with the consequences of their real decisions. Television series and movies have become more realistic. Conversely, many more people are scripting their personal lives so that they play more like an MOW.

Gabler, author of two other non-fiction books focusing on Hollywood and celebrity status, first explores the history behind today's prevalent entertainment lifestyle in America. The roots are traced back to the birth of the democratic nation; in fact, they are traced to the ideals of democracy itself. Gabler explains why the U.S. has become the entertainment mecca of the world, while older cultures to this day lag behind Hollywood in the development of their entertainment industries.

The American entertainment industry's success is based within the ideals of freedom of religion. Unlike Europe in the late eighteenth century, churches never wielded any real power in the States. "Throughout Europe," wrote Gabler, "organized religion raised vigorous opposition to amusements, in explicit recognition that the values of entertainment frequently vied with those of the church." This set the stage for professional entertainment to flourish in the U.S.

Class also played a role in the prominence of today's entertainment society. The aristocracy, of course, supported traditional amusements like operas and symphonies. It was the labor class, and later the middle class, that propelled movies into the spotlight. Gabler noted, "Seventy-two percent of the audience came from the laboring class, according to one study of New York City moviegoers in 1911."

The current fusion between life and art wasn't manifest until journalism began slanting reality, however. With the creation of the penny press came mass circulation of newspapers. Competition between rival papers gave rise to sensationalism, gossip columns and eventually yellow journalism. Gabler commented, "In journalism history Hearst would often be credited -- or blamed -- with having shifted the newspaper decisively from its information function to its story function."

What could possibly be more entertaining than real-life drama? It's unscripted and unpredictable. The villains heroic, or the heroes villainous. Although many regarded Ted Turner's idea of a round-the-clock news channel ludicrous, CNN became immediately popular with its coverage of the Gulf War and the O.J. Simpson trial. "Seen as a television series, which is precisely how television regarded it, the trial of former football star O.J. Simpson ... was certainly the most watched and arguably the most entertaining show of the 1990s," Gabler wrote. He continued the passage with a quote from television producer Don Hewitt, "In Los Angeles, we've got a movie in which the lead speaks no lines, a blond bombshell turns out to be a man and the $5-a-day extras in the jury box keep walking off the set."

"If the primary effect of the media in the late twentieth century was to turn nearly everything that passed across their screens into entertainment," Gabler argued, "the secondary and ultimately more significant effect was to force nearly everything to turn itself into entertainment in order to attract media attention." This is the meat of Gabler's argument, and it's hard to ignore. Presidential candidates now debate from the pulpits of America's favorite talk shows. President Clinton enjoyed high approval ratings (according to the press) throughout the Monica Lewinsky debacle. Could this be because extra-marital affairs are considered trivial in the U.S., or might one argue that Clinton masterfully played Kenneth Starr's victim to a standing ovation? After reading Gabler's arguments, the question may be posed: What would be more entertaining? Therein would lie your answer.

The importance of drawing media attention is not restricted to celebrities and their press agents. The common person vies for this attention as well. The most accessible path available to the average person is committing a sensationalistic crime. "Judged by traditional values, criminals are objects of reproach and scorn," contends Gabler, "But judged by the values of entertainment, which is how the media judged everything, the perpetrator of a major, or even minor but dramatic crime, was as much a celebrity as any other human entertainer."

Gabler's novel is truly a history of the entertainment industry, as it casts no judgments beyond the prevalence of entertainment in American culture. He does not propose any solutions to possibly untangle the fiction from the non-fiction, or even suggest that this should be done. Rather, Gabler shares the story of how entertainment and reality have become intertwined, how the line between each has simply faded to black.