The Secret to Entertainment

May 2023 ‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒ 5 minute read

The secret to entertainment is surprise — Tommy Emanuel¹One of five 'Certified Guitar Players' in the world

Tommy first made this statement in an interview with Rick Beato, and it got me thinking. Surprise is the feeling of wonder at the unexpected, and inherent in most entertainment is that fundamental element of not knowing what happens next. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realised that this principle can be applied to virtually any form of entertainment in existence.

Of course, surprise is not the primary mechanism which creates entertainment. Instead, surprise is but 'the secret to entertainment'. The secret sauce if you will. Now, I have no intention of dissecting what makes something entertaining; instead, I will simply focus on this particular element. The element of surprise.

Music, Magic and Comedy

For the record, as a world renown musician and entertainer, Tommy is highly qualified to make this statement. He is especially famous for his improvisation on guitar, which tends to twist and turn in beautiful and unexpected ways. Surprising, and therefore entertaining ways. To me, what makes music entertaining is its subtlety. A computer may be able to replace the sound of a musician recorded live, but no amount of programming will be able to replicate the spur of the moment embellishments, the delicate lilts, the unexpected directions – in short, the sheer musical genius which a good musician can create. It is this quality of surprise in the tune, sound and technique which makes music entertaining for me. As stated before, it's the secret sauce, not the primary ingredient.

Interestingly, Tommy also acknowledged to having first gotten this idea from Penn and Teller, the famous Vegas magician duo. And in that land of entertainment, Penn and Teller are practically royalty. From what I have seen from Penn and Teller themselves, magic is much more than a mere trick; magic is an act, a show, entertainment to the extreme. How? Well, magic is the inexplicable dancing with the unexpected.

Where did the rabbit go? Oh, it came out of his pants!

The inexplicable breeds intrigue. The unexpected breeds entertainment.

Comedy has perfected the art of entertainment through surprise. What even is a joke in the first place? A joke is a question with an unexpected answer, that is a punchline. Thus, entertainment. More generally, the premise behind comic 'bits' involve looking at the common everyday things in a different perspective.

Stories

The most popular entertainment types – movies, TV shows, books – all have a story. A plot. A series of unexpected and dramatic twists and turns, all culminating to create something which is entertaining. On the other hand, predictability within a book or movie makes it boring; nothing is worse than guessing what happens next. The exception to this rule is when the sheer quality of the material makes up for it – for example, when rewatching a movie, in which case its sheer quality is enough to watch it again. Most people would rather rewatch a movie that they know is good as oppose to watching an unseen, but poor-quality movie.

The basic structure of a story involves a complication, rising tension, a climax and finally, a resolution. It then stands to reason that if surprise is the secret sauce, then tension, suspense and anticipation of that final finale are all key ingredients in that sauce.

Alfred Hitchcock, the legendary Hollywood director, knew this better than most; in fact, Hitchcock basically invented the idea of suspense within a movie. But suspense is only as good as its climax, and the most entertaining of climaxes is that of a plot twist.

Now a plot twist is more than any mere uncertainty or anticipation of what happens next; if surprise is the secret sauce, then a plot twist is a jalapeño hot sauce. Nothing spices up the entertainment of a story than a moment which flips the entire thing on its head. Although some plot twists may actually fall apart on closer inspection, their initial entertainment value cannot be denied. Similarly, a movie or book may be entertaining, but lack infallibility of plot, and therefore overall quality.

Sport

Sports are entertaining because they are unscripted – each moment of the game plays out in a way which is impossible to predict.²Though of course people do try, and tend to lose a fair amount of money in the process. Ultimately, the main factor of this is that nobody knows who is going to win. So, whatever does happen will be a surprise.

Like stories, the elements of suspense and tension also come into play, though the anticipation is directed towards the moment in which you know your team has won. In this way, a close game is a good game, not because it is close, but because you don’t know who’s going to win. Similarly, unexpected thing happening within a game – an underdog team winning, a team making a comeback – all these add entertainment value to the game. Though sports admittedly are not particularly intellectually stimulating, they are undeniably entertaining.

Well, for entertainers of every type, knowing how to surprise an audience is evidently paramount. Most of the time, surprising an audience involves doing something new and different; something original. Unfortunately, this is difficult. This difficulty is apart of the reason entertaining people is so difficult in the first place, and why in the entertainment industry, only the very best are able to have any success.

For us, the person being entertained, knowing this principle - of surprise being the secret to entertainment - allows to make better judgements on what is entertaining us. In this way we are then able to differentiate between the true quality of a movie, book or performance, and the entertainment value due to the novelty of experiencing it for the first time.

Let me zoom out a bit. The best writing is able to both inform and entertain. The best informative writing doesn't show us entirely new things, but instead highlight the things that were right in front of our faces, thus: entertainment. Surprise!

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