Is Entertainment Art?

Terms like ‘entertainment literature’/‘light fiction’ and ‘entertainment music’/‘light music’ possess not just a classificatory dimension but also an evaluative one. In this way, supporters of ‘high art’ indicate that they do not consider such ‘popular’ or popular literature, music, etc., to be (good) art. Supporters of the ‘entertaining,’ meanwhile, often make no secret of the fact that they are not entertained by works of ‘(high) art,’ particularly avant-garde ones, which therefore deem to be dubious or worse. In their case, too, the use of terms like ‘entertainment literature’ implies an evaluation, albeit now a positive one.