Part 1  

This essay argues that music and human emotions share a close logical similarity in their forms of
growth and attenuation, conflict and resolution, and various other sensations. The pattern of
sentience is the same pattern of music worked out in pure measures of sound and silence. Music
serves as a tonal analogue of emotional life. 
the essay emphasizes the importance of understanding that different modes of experiential art and
entertainment correspond to different culturally and historically determined sensibilities. 
Musicals are one of a whole string of forms – music hall, variety, television spectaculars,
pantomime, cabaret etc. – that are usually summed up by the term ‘show biz’. The idea of
entertainment I want to examine here is most centrally embodied by these forms, although I believe
that it can also be seen at work, *** 
I say that entertainment is part of the coinage of everyday thought *** 
This concept has been developed (among other places) in the work of Suzanne K. Langer,
particularly in relation to music. We feel music (arguably more than any other performance
medium), yet it has the least obvious reference to ‘reality’ – the intensity of our response to music
can only be accounted for by the way music, abstract, formal though it is, still embodies feeling.
Langer puts it thus in Feeling and Form: The tonal structures we call ‘music’ bear a close logical
similarity to the forms of human feeling to grasp that modes of experiential art and entertainment
correspond to different culturally and historically determined sensibilities. This becomes clear
when one examines how entertainment forms come to have the emotional signification they do:
that is, by acquiring their signification in relation to the complex of meanings in the social-cultural
situation in which they are produced. Take the extremely complex history of tap dance – in black
culture, tap dance has had an improvisatory 

Part 2 
The main idea of this essay is to analyze the relationship between entertainment, particularly
musicals, and society's needs and inadequacies. The author argues that while entertainment
responds to real needs created by society, it also effectively denies the legitimacy of other
needs and inadequacies, especially those related to class, patriarchy, and sexual struggles.
Additionally, entertainment, by orienting itself towards certain needs and inadequacies, only
points to gaps or inadequacies in capitalism that capitalism proposes to deal with, making it a
partially "one-dimensional" situation. However, the deeply contradictory nature of
entertainment forms, particularly musicals, means that they have to work through these
contradictions in a way that "manages" them and makes them seem to disappear. The author
then chooses three musicals to illustrate the different tendencies of musicals in terms of
dealing with these contradictions. 
The main idea of the essay is that film analysis tends to neglect the non-representational aspects of
cinema and lacks historical depth. The author suggests an approach that emphasizes the history of
signs as they are produced in culture and history. The essay proposes a breakdown of the utopian
sensibility of entertainment into several categories, such as transparency, intensity, and harmony.
The author acknowledges the problem of defining where these categories come from, but suggests
that they may be a continuation of the utopian tradition in Western thought. The essay argues that
examining the specificity of entertainment's utopia requires a closer examination of the cultural
and historical context in which these categories are produced. 
The main idea of the essay is to analyze the utopian sensibility of entertainment and how it
functions as a temporary solution to the inadequacies of society. The author argues that the reading
of non-representational signs in cinema is undeveloped, and film analysis remains non-historical.
The essay proposes categories of entertainment's utopian sensibility and uses examples to support
the analysis. The author also discusses the concept of "intensity" and how it relates to the
presentation of complex or unpleasant feelings in entertainment. Finally, the essay examines Hans
Magnus Enzensberger's article and proposes that the categories of entertainment's utopian
sensibility are temporary solutions to societal inadequacies, fulfilling deep social needs. 
The main idea of the essay is that while entertainment responds to real needs created by society, it
also defines and delimits what constitutes the legitimate needs of people in this society. The essay
argues that class, race, and patriarchy are denied validity as problems by the dominant ideology of
society, and that entertainment, by orienting itself to real needs, effectively denies the legitimacy of
other needs and inadequacies, especially those related to class, patriarchy, and sexual struggles.
The essay also argues that the utopian sensibility of entertainment has to take off from the real
experiences of the audience, but to draw attention to the gap between what is and what could be is
playing with fire. Finally, the essay discusses three musicals that illustrate the three broad
tendencies of musicals, including those that keep narrative and number clearly separated, those
that try to integrate the numbers by papering-over-the-cracks devices, and those that try to
dissolve the distinction between narrative and numbers, thus implying that the world of the
narrative is also (already) utopian. 

Part 3 
The essay discusses the relationship between the realist narrative and the non-realist musical
numbers in the film "Golddiggers of 1933." While the numbers occur in the film in a way that
reflects real life, their presentation on an abundant scale and in non-realist ways suggests that they
are a capitalist palliative and merely an escape from the Depression-induced problems of the
characters. The non-realist presentation of the numbers undermines the validity of realism, while
the representational level of the numbers reinforces the lessons of the narrative, particularly that
women's only capital is their bodies as objects. However, contradictions arise when considering the
non-representational aspects of the numbers, such as the juxtaposition of spectacle as materialism
and metaphysics, and dance as human creative energy and sub-human mindlessness. 
The main idea of the essay is that the film Funny Face explores the central contradiction between
art and entertainment, as embodied in the relationship between Audrey Hepburn (art) and Fred
Astaire (entertainment). The numbers in the film serve as escapes from this contradiction, either by
emphasizing the pleasures of entertainment or by presenting a transparent portrayal of love.
However, the essay argues that even within these escapes, contradictions and tensions persist, such
as the clash between different dance forms in the empathicalist cellar club scene, and the
problematic representation of Hepburn in the love scenes. The essay also notes that despite these
tensions, the film does not offer a clear utopian resolution to the conflict between art and
entertainment. 
The main idea of the essay is to examine the contradictions and complexities inherent in the genre
of the musical, particularly in the way it deals with utopianism and the relationship between
narrative and song-and-dance numbers. The author argues that most musicals follow a pattern of
removing the story to a utopian setting where song and dance are part of the culture, but this
utopia is often nostalgic and backward-looking. However, the author also points out that in some
musicals, such as On the Town, the utopia is a modern city and the narrative is about transforming
it into a better place. The essay also examines the gender dynamics of musicals, particularly the way
women are portrayed in the genre, using the example of the "Prehistoric Man" number in On the
Town to illustrate the contradictions and challenges of representing women as historical actors in a
musical. 
The main idea of the essay is that musicals and other forms of popular entertainment can be
understood as a combination of two modes: the narrative and the musical number. The essay
argues that while many musicals present utopian fantasies, they do so in a way that often reinforces
traditional gender roles and nostalgia for a past that never existed. However, the essay suggests
that musicals have the potential to be more politically progressive by using the combination of
narrative and musical number to create a sense of historical utopianism, where people actively
work to transform their world. The essay draws on the work of Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch to
argue that the utopian impulse in popular entertainment can be understood in terms of both the
movement of the world towards the future and the adequation of object to subject. Ultimately, the
essay argues that we need to pay more attention to the possibilities of popular entertainment as a
means of organizing enjoyment and creating more positive visions of social change.