Everyone wants to have fun, even those who take life too seriously and seldom smile. James Suzman’s study about work informs us that “leisure” was born after our ancestors learned how to master fire. This provided free time, which was spent by painting, building tools, and creating accessories (like necklaces). Just as working time evolved, so did leisure time. Nowadays, we have plenty to choose from: television, radio, cinema, amusing parks, museums, theatre, music, circus, comedy, ballet, workshops of different sorts, a wide range of parties, sports, literature, social media, video games, travelling… The list is very long.

What started as a way to pass the time (hence, the word “pastime”), turned into various industries. Entertainment means work for millions of people around the world. Moreover, the variety is so great that many people dedicate themselves to telling others what they should do to have fun: the dreaded critics. Of course, there are also journalists and bloggers who just recommend what they think is best. They are probably paid to do that. So, besides spending our working time being told what to do by our bosses, we end up being told what we should be doing in our free time: what books we should read, what films and TV series we should watch, what destination we should travel to, the amount of time we should play games, what sports we should practice, which parties we should go to… In a nutshell, we are constantly being advised on the right way to have fun.

The line between advice and censorship can be very thin. Throughout the centuries, there has been censorship for a numerous of reasons. Morality (often linked to religion) is number one. For example, the “Index Librorum Prohibitorum” was a list of banned books by the Roman Catholic Church, which existed between 1559 and 1966. Political regimes, especially dictatorships, are also very keen on banning books. The most terrifying event of this kind was the Book Burning on 10th May 1933 that took place in 34 cities in Germany almost simultaneously. Chosen by university students, thousands of books were looted from libraries, book stores, and publishing houses. Afterwards, the students piled up those books in public squares where thousands of people watched the students set the books on fire in a huge bonfire. And this was just the beginning.

Entertainment can also be used for propaganda purposes and for spreading a certain type of culture. That was the aim of the Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda of the Nazi regime. They did not just censor information and culture, they spread their ideology via cinema, theatre, education, the media. All information was controlled by the State. After World War II ended, the USA used the film industry (especially, but not exclusively) to portray the Soviet Union as the “bad guys”. The Cold War was particularly fertile in spy movies, where the CIA would always be better than the KGB.

Discrimination and preconceived ideas can also be spread through entertainment. For example, Western’s image of Eastern countries is based on what is depicted on television, cinema, and fictional books, which are based on crystallized notions that are passed down from generation to generation without being questioned. Most of these notions were built during colonialism. The acclaimed writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie shared her experience in her TED talk “The danger of a single story”. Not only her American university colleagues were mistaken about her Nigerian reality, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie also had a wrong image about other countries. Moreover, she tells us about how she became “African” in addition to being “Nigerian” and how she struggled with rejections about her writing not showing her “authentic” background enough. Culture can open our minds, but it can also limit them.

The weight of entertainment can be heavier than we realize. Having fun can become a political statement. Consuming entertainment products can shape your mind, limit your view of the world and twist your idea about “the others”. However, entertainment can also be an opportunity to get to know different realities, to open our minds to other cultures, to learn about ourselves and to realize that “the others” are basically like us, but with different backgrounds. Or, it can simply be a way to relax and stop thinking about serious things.