Abstract
Fun is central to entertainment—which both gives its consumers fun and offers them the intellectual resources to think about fun. In this chapter McKee explores two key ethical questions about fun addressed by entertainment: What is good fun? and When should we have fun? In relation to the first question McKee analyses the television programme Scandal in order to argue that entertainment insists that fun must do no harm—those characters in entertainment who hurt other people ‘for fun’ are always villains. In exploring the question of when should we have fun, McKee uses the programme House to show that entertainment argues that even though suffering exists in the world, it is still acceptable to take time out to have fun.
Notes
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My thanks to Carol Williams and Cody Jarrett for this insight.
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McKee, A. (2016). Bad Fun. In: FUN!. Palgrave Entertainment Industries. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-49179-4_5
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