do we actually NEED different forms of entertainment?

[Silverfox99]

The value of any entertainment is what you (the audience) take from it. Sometimes people need to not think about a part of their lives. Other times they want a story to help them think about part of their life. Maybe you just need to burn 30 minutes before something else happens. I know people that need something to argue about. Others that just want peer approval of their opinion. It is up to you to understand what type of entertainment you need and want. This doesn't devalue any other from or type of entertainment. It is just not what you need. I don't like military shooters as games. It doesn't mean that they are bad games or they have no value. I can also deconstruct them and point out why they don't help society, but if I take the time to think about it, I can also argue why they have value. When someone see no value in something it is not the thing that has no value, it is of no value to that person. (Or the person won't realize its value.)

To find value in something the trick is not to look at one or two sides and then drop it. Don't allow your prejudices to control your thinking. Pragmatism is a from of prejudice because that mindset tends to overlook the non-practical, the things without a more immediate value, and the close to impossible. Pragmatism has a purpose and in many situations it can help people out, but in others it can be a hindrance. When consuming entertainment look for the flaws but also the parts the story got right.

Ok, so you don't believe one person can save the world, but does that mean we shouldn't try? The point of those stories is not to get people to save to world but to get people to act. To believe. To hope. The practical part is that the stories should be different more realistic, more on a level that people can act. Ask yourself this - would you watch an avengers movie where Iron man, The Hulk, Captain America, Thor, and Hawkeye served soup in a soup kitchen all movie? (I didn't say Black Widow because I know some people would watch anything with her in it.) Would people even care about the avengers if they were not over the top?

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

You want a show with the underlying theme being that failure is humanity's most enduring trait? Try the Venture Brothers. Take away the comedy bits and whatnot you see the whole cast is full of failure, in so many ways. Its also a great series, probably one of my all time top 5 adult cartoons of all time. But yeah, everything in that series is tinged with the ringing sound of failure in it.
Especially how we've failed to deliver on the promises that the space-age would usher in a new humanity. Or that science has brought us a better world, but instead delivers more on political pandering and sex enhancing drugs.
I'm not a pessimist either, just saying that all the major science these days seems more geared around bullshit we don't need or things we are constantly saying doom and gloom about yet finding out slowly those predictions were nothing but overblown scares.
See "the ice caps are melting" by Al Gore, then finding out that they're fucking GROWING... Antartic ice is higher than expected and Arctic ice grew by 60% (ironically trapping scientists who were looking for global warming evidence).
I just have a view on science that we're pretty fallible when it comes to these long-term predictions, and have had a shit track record as of yet in the "being right" column.
Personally I think that capitalism is right in some aspects, wrong in others. And that the only way forward as a species is to look at ourselves and accept that we all don't agree on things, that none of us are 100% right and that is our strength. Our diversity in perspective is our strength, our collective failures as well as our successes are what make us a species and we can't ignore the latter and sweep it under the rug and just tout the former. Eventually humanity has to accept as a whole we're all different, we all see things from a different perspective and that is what will lead us forward. All this grouping up into like-minded parties and sects isn't helping us, its hurting us. Its ok to love where you come from but you have to respect others for where they come from too. To a degree, as long as it isn't intentionally hurting others what each of us thinks is just as right as the next guy (not talking facts but philosophy). Maybe we can't all love or like each other but respect isn't always liking the guy next to you its just respecting they see things differently.
I might be rambling a bit and off topic now but I do have to say things sometimes, thats my personality.
Back to the topic though, yes we do because we're all fucking different people and we see things differently and there isn't just one form of entertainment that is a universal fit.