thefourthvine: Two people fucking, rearview: sex is the universal fandom. (Default)
Keep Hoping Machine Running ([personal profile] thefourthvine) wrote2010-06-08 11:58 pm
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How does entertainment entertain you?

This is going to sound strange coming from someone who reads a bucketload of slash, but I don't actually like romance. In movies, when the couple (m/m, f/f, f/m, other/other, whatever) leans in for the big kiss, backlit by an exploding planet, I tend to be thinking, Oh my god, people, would you get out of the way? There's an EXPLODING PLANET back there! Or in a book, when the couple takes a few minutes out of saving the universe for a roll in the hay, I am generally thinking, Save the universe FIRST. Fuck in your own damn time. And you never, ever want to go see a romantic comedy with me. If you're lucky, I will just leave the theater in the first act and you'll come find me in the hallway when it's over. That's if you're lucky.

So romance novels are not the best fit for me. But Best Beloved reads a lot of them, and if she's interested in something, generally I end up interested in it, too. Some months back, we started a deal where she recommends some of the romance novels she thinks most appropriate for me, and I read them, and then we discuss them. And I find them fascinating, both as a comparison to fan fiction and in their own right; it's amazingly interesting to figure out the rules and tropes and interests and focuses of a genre that is in no way your native territory, and it is just indescribably gripping to figure out what those things say about the writers and readers of romance and the society they come from.

And of course I explain all that to Best Beloved at - well, let's be polite and simply say at great length - and she asks me questions and makes comments and provides necessary context (like the time, early on, that I noted that I felt the relationship in the book had been rushed because the protagonists got together after only six months, and she, after she stopped laughing, noted that often protagonists meet on the first day, have sex on the second, and are married by the end of the week) - and we discuss it all extensively. And then, usually right before one of us looks at the clock and realizes that we once again have lost an entire evening to the analysis of romance novels, given that it's approaching midnight and the earthling will be waking us up at six, Best Beloved says this:

"But are you enjoying the book?"

And I just stare at her in utter confusion. To me, that is a wholly nonsensical question, coming at that point in the conversation. But recently I decided she'd asked it enough that it had to have some meaning that I just was not getting, so I asked her what she meant by "enjoying the book." And she said, "Well, like, do you look forward to reading it?"

I was floored, because that would never occur to me as a possible definition or symptom of enjoying a book. I expressed, at some length, how completely alien that was to me - I mean, I can be dreading reading something and still absolutely enjoying it - and she asked me what I meant by enjoying a book. And I gave what is, to me, the obvious answer: if the book gives you something to think about, both while you're reading it and when you're not reading it, then it is an enjoyable book.

Best Beloved found that equally strange, although she noted that that explained a lot about how I deal with entertainment just generally. (It also, though she didn't actually bring this up, partly explains why I love fan fiction - fan fiction is someone writing out her thoughts about some media that she's consumed. In other words, fan fiction is a way for me to experience other people's enjoyment of some media.)

But the thing is, BB and I have been together for 18 years, and for all that time, we've been watching the same movies and reading a lot of the same books and stories. And yet we have totally different ideas of what enjoying entertainment means. So now I'm wondering what you all mean when you say you're enjoying a book or a movie or a TV show or a manga series or whatever. How does your entertainment entertain you?
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[personal profile] out_there 2010-06-09 11:14 pm (UTC)(link)
This is really interesting. Personally, like many other comments here, I consider enjoyment to be a combination of engagement and escapism. I want a movie or a book that completely drags me into another world and another character's head while I'm reading/watching. I want something that makes me think -- whether it's thinky thoughts about human nature and the social attitudes shown here, or time-wasting thoughts of previous cons Neal Caffrey once got into or how White Collar would play if Peter and Neal were the married couple and El was the cunning thief (and those last thoughts are the type that eventually lead to fic) -- I want to be actively engaged.

Basically, I want to think and feel and forget that there's work tomorrow and washing to be done at home.

Or in a book, when the couple takes a few minutes out of saving the universe for a roll in the hay, I am generally thinking, Save the universe FIRST. Fuck in your own damn time.

Hee! I'm actually the opposite. Inside my head, I call it "The Torchwood Effect" and the rule is this: in times of immense danger, when everything is on the line and the body is ruled by panic and adrenalin, human beings will make-out/shag when they have nothing better to do. Even if they have something better to do, sometimes they'll still go for it. I think it's a combination of stress relief (yay sex) and distraction (thinking of romance and sex is easier than death and war). Mostly, it makes me laugh that as amazing and epic as people can be, a lot of hte time, we're really quite simple and basic as well.
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[personal profile] blushingflower 2010-06-10 12:14 am (UTC)(link)
See, I don't care about the exploding planet. Exploding planet time is bathroom break time. Well, not entirely, but I generally feel that nearly everything is this world could be improved by having more kissing and less killing. Foreign policy, Lord of the Rings, lots of things (someone tried to sell me on the LotR books- which I appreciate for the world-building but don't like reading and have never finished- by telling me how great and vivid the battle scenes were. I pointed out that this was not a selling point for me).

I want stories with good dialogue, interesting, relate-able characters, and maybe some though-provoking insights to human nature and a steamy sex scene or two. The characters can be from different times or places or races or genders (I was a comparative cultures major, I'm all about putting myself in the shoes of someone different), but there should be something about them that I can connect to. Which in the Park Service we call "Universals": love, hate, desire, family, justice, etc. These are the things that everyone can connect to across all other barriers, and that help us relate to the past (or the future, or the other side of the world).

The ironic thing is that my favorite thing in all the world is a well-told story: out loud, film, tv, profic, fanfic, ballet, opera, painting, whatever, but yet one of my biggest weaknesses in fiction writing is plot. I can do dialogue and scene-setting, but plot escapes me. I just want to write about people cuddling and having dinner and having witty conversations and fantastic sex, and I have a problem setting up conflicts that make things happen.


Anyway. So, I like a story. A story I can disappear inside of for a while, a story that stays with me, or that I stay with. And sometimes I want romance, and sometimes I want comedy, and sometimes I want deep emotional catharsis. When I was a little girl, I assumed that all art was always about a story, and was constantly trying to figure out the plot of the modern dance my mother loved and took me to see (because ballet has a plot, right, so all dance must!). This is probably why I frequently have a problem with long non-fiction, and definitely impacts the way I share history with people.

When I enjoy a story, I want to stay in that world, I want to spend more time with the characters. I want to pick the book up again because I want to find out what happened, maybe I want fanfic because I want more time in that universe, with those people. And maybe it's funny, or maybe it's sad, but it gave me pleasure. Sometimes I enjoy chocolate cake, sometimes I enjoy a nice crisp pickle. Different sensations, but pleasurable all the same. Sometimes I can appreciate the quality of writing, or the great emotional depth of a work and not enjoy something.
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[personal profile] peoriapeoriawhereart 2010-06-10 11:54 am (UTC)(link)
But if you don't finish LoTR you don't get all of Sam and Frodo or Merry and Pippin.

I've not read Asimov in a very long time, but because his was what I read most that wasn't chapter books, it was the first I tried to figure out what he as writer was doing to get me into the story intensely.

Perhaps you need to find the non-Aristotlean conflicts? These would be the plots that if tv writers could find them, they wouldn't need six seasons of UST and jump the shark at relieving any of that tension.

TVF, thanks for opening this conversation. Btw, have you read The Silver Metal Lover (Tanith Lee) or R.A. MacAvoy's The Book of Kells or Knight in Shining Armor (Jude Devereaux)? I think these might be interesting 'romances' that have lots of thinky so you and BB could teeth sink in your own ways and have lots to discuss.
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[personal profile] paceus 2010-06-10 07:34 pm (UTC)(link)
This is such an interesting post! And it's funny how you knew each other for 18 years before discussing this -- but then, who would discuss this? To enjoy something and be entertained by something, and maybe most words and expressions in general, are taken for granted by everyone, and no one stops and asks if people mean the same things when they use the words. It's fascinating (if not surprising) that they don't mean the same things at all.

For me, enjoying entertainment would probably mean fanfiction, and I enjoy fanfiction by feeling very positive feelings -- pleased, thrilled, elated, excited. Sometimes I quiver in fear and dread when I'm afraid that something bad is going to happen in the narrative, and very rarely, I feel sad when the ending isn't happy (or isn't happy in the way I wanted it to be), but I don't read a lot of things that make me sad or anxious. I want to laugh and feel satisfied when I read, and those things happen when there are stupid puns and sarcastic dialogue and nifty, intellectually engaging narratives, plots and storytelling feats.

This is really difficult to explain so in the end I don't really know if we enjoy or are entertained in the same way or not. I hope you got something out of this answer though. :)

[identity profile] bibliokat.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 07:18 am (UTC)(link)
Hmmmm... I think I'm mostly with Best Beloved on this one. I read mostly fantasy/mystery books because I enjoy them. Enjoy to me means they bring me joy. They make me happy in the end even if I'm sad during parts. Same with tv shows and movies and so on. On rare occasions I read nonfiction, usually about dinosaurs or ancient civilizations. I enjoy these because I'm learning about something I find interesting.

I do think about what I read and watch, but I do it mostly for pleasure so if something is going to make me sad or upset or scared, I tend to avoid.

And now I'm going to bed, but I eagerly await everyone's thoughts!

[identity profile] thefourthvine.livejournal.com 2010-06-11 05:02 am (UTC)(link)
See, I also tend to avoid things that are going to make me sad or upset or scared (bored, I'm fine with), because that gets in the way of the fun kind of thinking - I can't think well when I'm emotional. And I also look for things to bring me joy, but, just, the joy they bring me is from the pleasure of figuring stuff out or learning stuff or imagining what the characters would do if Archie and Saul were fucking or whatever.

But, yeah, you sound like you live in the BB Camp. It's a good place to live! You have lots of company! I bet your potlucks are AWESOME.
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[personal profile] shinealightonme 2010-06-09 07:21 am (UTC)(link)
Hm. I guess when I say I'm enjoying something, I mean it makes me happy. And some of that happiness comes from satisfaction of thinking about it, during and after the fact, but sometimes I'm just happy when I watch it and then I move on with my life and never think of it again, except with a fond bit of nostalgia.

But now that I think about it, I suppose the ones that occupy more of my thoughts are ones that I enjoy more. But they're not the only ones.

[identity profile] thefourthvine.livejournal.com 2010-06-11 05:10 am (UTC)(link)
So, okay, it seems to me that the difference is an emotional v. cogitation divide - I'm focusing more on my thinking reaction, whereas BB (and almost everyone else) is focusing more on her feeling reaction. (Which is not to say that I don't also have an emotional reaction or that it doesn't also influence how I feel about a work, of course.)

I feel like pretty soon Meyers-Briggs is going to come into this.

(no subject)

[personal profile] shinealightonme - 2010-06-11 06:13 (UTC) - Expand
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[personal profile] minim_calibre 2010-06-09 07:24 am (UTC)(link)
My entertainment entertains me in ways that vary! I used to be a much bigger fan of what my friend Kat once called Spinach Books and Spinach Movies than I am now: I was all about the Deeper Meaning Behind It All, so I'd sit there and read/watch things where miserable, shitty events happened to people due to accidents of birth compounded by the cruelty inherent in the class system of Victorian England. (Which is to say, at 14, holy shit I was a huge fan of Thomas Hardy.) And therefore, my entertainment was entertaining me by illuminating me about the tragedy of the human condition. But then I would read romance novels by the ton, because I could get them 10 for a buck at the thrift store, and my entertainment would be all about the sexy funtimes and flirtation and pretty clothing and escapism! Really, really (in retrospect) problematic escapism. But they didn't make me think, and all I was really finding illuminating was that I had bulletproof kinks.

Now, if it's a book and I say I find it entertaining, I mean it for whatever reason held my attention and didn't trigger the tl;dr response. The older I get, the less patience I have with (fiction) books (other than vintage erotica), I'm finding. It's increasingly rare that I find a book that makes me really start thinking about it beyond, "this trope needs to be taken out behind the woodshed." When it happens, I'm thrilled, and then I devour the author and am sad when I RUN OUT OF STORIES BY AUTHOR! NOES!

I enjoy a lot of TV as a "this is an entertaining enough thing to hold my attention for a few minutes" and even the TV I don't feel like taking apart and musing on, I sort of take apart and muse on just on reflex: that's how I enjoy TV! I like to watch it with my brain picking it apart! If it *really* makes me have Thinky Thoughts *AND* somehow engages me emotionally with the characters, then I enjoy it and am *fannishly* enjoying it.
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[personal profile] vass 2010-06-09 08:21 am (UTC)(link)
Spinach Books! That's a great name for what I'm doing now.

[identity profile] dramaturgca.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 07:29 am (UTC)(link)
Interesting subject!

I think, to me, enjoyment/entertainment and intellectual stimulation are two separate categories. They're not mutually exclusive, I enjoy a number of things that also provide me with intellectual stimulation, but there are also a variety of things that I enjoy with no real intellectual component at all. And sometimes, often even, what stimulates my intellect keeps me from enjoying things on a more basic level.

For example, I enjoy Star Trek novels (no! hear me out!) but there's nothing intellectual there. It's characters I like doing stuff. That's entertainment.
I love a well-written fantasy book with strong characters. I also love Shakespeare. Like, a lot. That's intellectual, I get a huge kick out of wordplay and meter and stuff. I'm a freak that way.
Particularly in the last two years, my enjoyment of things, the warm fuzzy glow part, has been seriously curtailed by my issues with bad writing and misogyny. I can't watch most TV because I get hung up in my intellectual interest.

I guess I would say, like Best Beloved, that I define enjoyment/entertainment as looking forward to consuming some form of media.
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[personal profile] fleurrochard 2010-06-09 09:39 am (UTC)(link)
I think, to me, enjoyment/entertainment and intellectual stimulation are two separate categories. They're not mutually exclusive, I enjoy a number of things that also provide me with intellectual stimulation, but there are also a variety of things that I enjoy with no real intellectual component at all.

This. If a book/movie gives me both - fantastic! But one of both can be enough so I keep reading/watching it and don't regret it after.
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[identity profile] selfinduced.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 07:32 am (UTC)(link)
it holds my willing attention.

if it makes me smile, laugh, turns me on, or think (plot is good for this--even if it's not something i care about too deeply, if a plot is enough like a puzzle, the act of following it and finding out what comes next is good enough) or makes me feel like it is a worthwhile cause, i will spend time on it.
ext_14661: (buttwax)

[identity profile] selfinduced.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 07:38 am (UTC)(link)
i may have taken this too literally. i am "entertained" by many things that i don't go back to. so if i like the entertainment, then it is something that makes me happy and has a chance of producing more happiness if i go back to it, for example, favorite books or fics, or tv shows.

now what makes me "happy" -- well that's a bit more complicated, and changes with time/context. like, if i'm lonely, i might like episodes of SG-1 with happy team/family bonding, or if i am bored, something with lots of action and things blowing up, or if i'm self-indulgently sad, then something angsty that might make me cry, etc.

[identity profile] amnisias.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 07:54 am (UTC)(link)
I think [livejournal.com profile] dramaturgcahas put it very well:
I think, to me, enjoyment/entertainment and intellectual stimulation are two separate categories. They're not mutually exclusive

If I'm enjoying a book or a show I'm looking forward to reading it/seeing it and it gives me a good feeling (I'm staying away from 'happy' since some books I've enjoyed a lot made me sob...). Some things occupy my thoughts for days and weeks after, other things I just 'enjoy in the moment' without giving it much thought after wards. The emotions it evokes (e.g. fuzzy, warm feelings, happiness, silliness) can linger for while after wards.

[identity profile] roseblight.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 08:47 am (UTC)(link)
Casting my vote for this definition as well.
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[personal profile] china_shop 2010-06-09 08:01 am (UTC)(link)
I think I enjoy a book or (let's be realistic here) fanfic when I get pleasure from engaging with it -- usually because it's clever or funny or encapsulates characters or tropes in a way that I find satisfying, pleasing or surprising (in a good way). I can occasionally enjoy things that don't make me go "cool!", but usually I'm admiring the combination of technical skill, characterisation and je ne sais quois, all bundled up together in one awesome package.

Actually, it's probably more useful to think of this in terms of vidding, because I can find it satisfying and instructional to watch vids that I don't particularly enjoy. I enjoy a vid when I engage with it emotionally (song, characters, style, voice). If it's an intellectually stimulating essay, that's a definite bonus, but humour is a more important component for my enjoyment than smarts or thought-provokingness.

[identity profile] anie-chan.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 08:19 am (UTC)(link)
Interesting question.
I'd say if the book keeps me from doing something else - it's interesting.
If I can get lost in it and time flies, it's interesting.

I divide all books in two big groups:
- educational. Books that makes me think and gives me new information.
- books for fun. Crazy and fascinating plot, funny characters etc. You sit down, start to read and when you finish - it's already midnight.
Not all educational books are entertaining, but all books for fun most definitely are.

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[identity profile] halcyon-shift.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 08:25 am (UTC)(link)
I enjoy books or TV or whatever that either engage my brain, or switch it the hell off - if there's something that brings my attention to a single point or just turns it off for a while, I'm all for it *g*

Which, I guess, means I don't really per se enjoy things entirely on their own merit. I can enjoy something truly awful as along it fits the criteria, or dislike something really good because it doesn't. Awww. I feel bad now.

[identity profile] mific.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 08:32 am (UTC)(link)
1) escapism - I use fanfic/fandom immersion as a way to cope with stress. The defence of distraction. I want something very different from the stuff I deal with day by day at work. So I mostly read mysteries and sci-fi. And humour.
2) curiosity and learning. I like media where I learn something interesting - especially if it's presented in the context of escapism. Used to especially read murder mysteries that taught me about a different occupation, culture, way of life.
3) wish fulfuillment - similar to 1) I guess. But rather than any old distraction this one lets me vicariously experience excitement, romance, intimacy. Only works if there's at least one character with whom I can identify. For example Patricia Highsmith's psychopathic Mr Ripley - can't read it.
4) sexual stimulation. Fanfic has, pardon the pun, turned me on to well-written erotica, which had previously been harder to locate.
5) intellectual stimulation - your "it makes you think" reason - sadly it's well down my list. Basically, I'm lazy. I want to be entertained and a "hard" book feels like too much damn work.
6) the pleasure of language - a clever writer wielding words very skilfully also works.
7) but of course, the ultimate draw is something that combines all these. Fanfiction has been perfect, combining escapism, wish-fulfilment romance, well-written smut, interesting plots and clever, referential reworkings of favourite fandoms by some amazing wordsmiths, and some of it definitely does challenge me intellectually and make me think. Not that I don't just hoover up anything if I'm obsessed with a current fandom or OTP!

[identity profile] jeanniewal.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 09:16 am (UTC)(link)
I enjoy books which take me out of myself to such an extent that I 'see'them happening in front of me... I get a bit of a shock if someone distracts me and I glance back at the book to find just printed words on the page. I then have to read myself back into that world again (which doesn't take long usually!) Books which don't take me in this way tend to get dropped after a few pages!

Movies... hmm. I'm usually too tired to watch them! I expect this to stop happening one day, if my boys ever let me get enough sleep. I enjoy documentaries on geneaology and archaeology, but, because of the aforementioned tendency to be always tired, they need to be fairly fast pasced and not too dry or dusty. I hope too that I'm not doomed by motherhood to a life of surface doccies! Very interesting questionm btw :)

[identity profile] narcolepsy-slds.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 10:03 am (UTC)(link)
in the last couple of years 'enjoying' something regarding entertainment has changed quite a lot.
I cannot really explain it but I used to be able to enjoy watching the telly, or a movie, or read a novel - just because.
today it really depends on how tired (of the world) I am. right now I am having a week off and if a book or a movie does not make me think I get bored and hence do not enjoy it. after 36h of work I enjoy a book when I do not have to think (and there has to be a happy ending). it is different for fanfiction though, but I cannot put my finger on the why. I reckon I use fanfiction mainly to escape.

still, I can easily sit down and read for hours, but 20min watching a tv show without a break makes me nervous.

btw, 18years - congratulation!

[identity profile] misspamela.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 10:22 am (UTC)(link)
If I feel excited, interested, happy, and engaged by media, I am entertained and I want to watch/read more. So I can be reading something that may not engage me intellectually, but gives me a little thrill! in my heart! or it has a plot that has sucked me in and I must, must know how it ends, and I am entertained.

If I'm bored or sad or disgusted by media, I' turn it off/stop reading. The end.

[identity profile] jooniper-pearl.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 10:34 am (UTC)(link)
For me, I have way too many things going on in my life to invest my time into reading or watching something that is not going to give me a happy. A happy, yes. I do not read death fics, I do not read they break up in the end and everyone is miserable. I want my happy ending dammit. I want all the shit we had to go through to get here to mean something. So, if my book is not giving me a happy at all. If I cannot see SOME kind of happy at the end, if the movie is doom and gloom and fuck you and the horse you rode in on, then I'm done. Next! I need and want my happy! :D

[identity profile] vsee.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 10:40 am (UTC)(link)
This is an interesting question.

I enjoy books and movies when they make me feel connected to an idea that excites me, or an emotion that satisfies me. This goes for fanfiction as well. If the author creates a relationship that is fun and full of things that press my buttons--deep devotion, friendship, etc., then I get very involved. I want to be there.

I have watched a lot of TV shows over the years where I thought the actual show was pretty terrible, for one reason or another. Bad writing is often the problem. For how particular I can be about many things, it always surprises me how I will bend to watch these shows because I like the relationships. There are shows that I've been in the fandoms for five years or more, where outside that context, you could not pay me money to watch the shows. In fact, this applies the MOST to the fandoms I've been most passionately, giddily happy in. (I'm looking at YOU, Torchwood. I'm looking at you The Sentinel. I'm trying very hard not to look at you, Due South and the The X-Files.) My sister and I have tried to come up with a way to describe genre TV in particular. She has talked about how something she saw was the right kind of bad TV. That's pretty clumsy, but sort of fitting.

Reading is a bit different for me.
I liked the previous commenter's definition of "spinach books." I think we all go through some kind of phase like this. I'm mostly past the point where I feel like reading ONLY because it's the right thing to read. It has to engage me on some other level, and not cause me to want to jump off a cliff when I am done.

I am having a harder and harder time reading fiction as time goes on. I am more like you about romance despite my overdeveloped slash goggles. I am also like that in my attitudes about a lot of other aspects in fiction, most particularly middle aged male angst. The only author who can write middle aged male angst that doesn't make me clutch my stomach is John Irving. And maybe, sometimes, John Updike. But I no longer have any patience for fiction in which I have to experience men talking about the emptiness and pointlessness of their lives now that 20 year old women don't want to have sex with them anymore, in whatever literary/disguised way contemporary authors have of saying that. I had no idea how much fiction was about this until I decided to avoid it.

Now, I mostly read nonfiction. I love books that survey a topic, or tell me a lot about how something in the world gets done. I haven't read a whole lot of good nonfiction lately, alas. I also have a soft spot for biographies and memoirs, because I like thinking about why people end up how they are--but for me, this is more like reading fiction than nonfiction. This gives me the same sort of satisfaction as character development.

[identity profile] sallymn.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 11:47 am (UTC)(link)
I can see both sides... I'll enjoy something that bypasses the brain but engages my heart (whether happily or not... a good weepy, even if it's literary marshmallow at centre, can be wonderful), just as I can love something that is crisp and emotionally distant, but makes me think (as a reader, I like to be made to work for my reading). Even better when they manage a fair to good engagement of both heart and head...

But in the end, it's like any sort of taste, you really can't explain why you like chocolate icecream and hate creamed corn (or vice versa), it's just the way it make you feel...

[identity profile] margueritem.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 11:53 am (UTC)(link)
When it comes to books, I am more like Best Beloved: if I look forward to reading the book or if I just won't go to bed because I want to read one more page and know what happens next, I'm enjoying a book. I think I also particularly like books that fuel my own imagination (it's the fanficer fanfictioner fan of fanfiction in me).

When it comes to Podcasts, however, I like Podcasts that either make me laugh, inform me on current or past events, teach me something or make me think.

[identity profile] lolitakun.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 12:06 pm (UTC)(link)
I have a very fandom-oriented sense of entertainment, which is to say that if the narrative doesn't give me the leeway to let my imagination play in its sandbox, I usually end up grumpy and dissatisfied by the time I finish reading/watching/playing that piece of media. Great characters/relationships definitely push my buttons, especially if they have a particularly juicy history, or a really excellent dynamic (for example, a good 70% of my enjoyment of Gaiman and Pratchett's Good Omens was based on Crowley, Aziraphale, and the Them, and the other 30% was spent laughing at the footnotes.)
Plot-wise, I like my stories like I like shortribs- Spicy, shocky flavor on the outside to draw you in, with a good amount of juicy meat to sink your teeth into once the first bite's past your lips. I'm very happy when my TV shows (most of them procedural dramas or scifi/fantasy- I got addicted to them early in the course of my mental development, so now I'm hopelessly hooked *shrugs*) manage to combine a grisly murder with character development or pretty men/women crying about their daddy issues.

[identity profile] frostfire-17.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 12:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I have sort of a problem in that an excellent criterion for whether I'm "enjoying" fiction or not is how desperately I NEED to finish it. "Looking forward" sort of doesn't apply, because I will either a) finish it in one sitting, or b) if I am pulled away for some reason, I will twitch like a junkie until I can get back to it. Like, there's a good reason I don't read many novels during the school year, because if I like it, I will be sitting with it until it is done or until something forces me to stop, which leads to a lot of occasions where I fall asleep with the light on at four in the morning or whatever. Fanfiction is the same, and actually one of the things I appreciate about it--I can sit down with a 10,000-word story without sacrificing the rest of my day. (Chaptered fic baffles me--even aside from WIPs, which KILL me--because, why would you break it up? I can understand putting headings on different sections, but if you put them on different PAGES, it just means that I can't judge how far along I am by the scroll bar. "I'll just read a chapter" is, like, not something I have ever said in my LIFE. Though I am sure this would be different if I had kids.)

Your definition is really much more how I come at nonfiction. If I have Thinky Thoughts about fiction I enjoy, they usually come either after I've blitzkrieged through 600 pages in a night, or when I'm reading it for the second or third or eighth time. :)

[identity profile] janet-carter.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 12:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Enjoying media for me usually means that it made me feel some kind of emotion (mostly through connection with the characters), and that it drew my attention in enough to take me out of myself (often through either setting or plot.) Some things, mostly nonfiction but also some of my favorite fiction, engage me more on the level of "that's really cool/really interesting!"

Or just that it made me laugh a lot.
Edited 2010-06-09 12:21 (UTC)

[identity profile] prettyshiny.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 12:40 pm (UTC)(link)
I think the simplest way of putting it for me is that I know I'm enjoying my entertainment when I want to know what happens. When I saw Avatar, the only reason I sat through the whole movie was because my husband's family was all around us (and because I'd picked the movie), but I didn't really care what happened. I wasn't invested in the ending, good or bad (although I knew it had to be good because there was no way so many people would have loved it if it had the horrific ending I wanted it to have).

The same applies to TV shows. I keep watching, because I want to know what happens to the characters, how the plot lines that I'm interested in are resolved, because I'm entertained, and invested.

Other symptoms include: a complete inability to concentrate on anything other than the entertainment of the moment; thinking about the characters and their lives even after everything is said and done; early onset fangirling.
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[identity profile] ashkitty.livejournal.com 2010-06-09 12:57 pm (UTC)(link)
This is going to sound strange coming from someone who reads a bucketload of slash, but I don't actually like romance. In movies, when the couple (m/m, f/f, f/m, other/other, whatever) leans in for the big kiss, backlit by an exploding planet, I tend to be thinking, Oh my god, people, would you get out of the way? There's an EXPLODING PLANET back there! Or in a book, when the couple takes a few minutes out of saving the universe for a roll in the hay, I am generally thinking, Save the universe FIRST. Fuck in your own damn time.

THIS IS SO ME. I think this is what fanfic is good for, in a way, because I mostly read shippy happy stuff, and it's because the plot is already out of the way so it's okay to concentrate on the other stuff. I do not like romance and mushy stuff getting in the way of the story.

As for the main question though, I'm more with BB...I don't always enjoy things that make me think, and can enjoy things that don't make me think at all and are objectively total crap.

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