Passage6
Questions 26 to 30 are based on thefollowing passage.
During thelatter part of the 19th century, two kinds of entertainment developed inAmerica to meet the needs of the new urban dwellers—the ballpark andvaudeville. Both kinds of entertainment helped to fill the growing amount ofleisure time that workers enjoyed. Both later were transformed intomass-mediated (大众媒体化的)activities.
The firstprofessional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was founded in 1869,and soon there were teams in all the major Eastern and Mid-western cities. Theballpark brought together crowds of strangers who could experience a sense ofcommunity within the big city as they watched a baseball game. Immigrants wereable to shake loose their ethnic ties and become absorbed in the new nationalgame, which was becoming representative of the “American spirit.” The greenfields and fresh air of the ballpark were a welcome change from the sea ofbricks, stone and eventually concrete that dominated the city scene.
Workers couldtemporarily escape the routine and dullness of their daily lives by indirectlyparticipating in the competition and accomplishment that baseball gamessymbolized. Baseball reflected the competitiveness of the workplace and thecapitalist ethic, as players were bought and sold and were regarded asproperty. The ballpark also provided a means for spectators to release theirfrustrations against authority figures.
As professionalbaseball emerged as a popular pastime, it became an increasingly commercialenterprise. Stadiums were built to seat the spectators, and the hawkers (小贩)of beer, soda, hot dogs, peanuts and popcorn soon appeared.Advertising on signboards, streetcar posters, balloons and in newspapers helped“sell” the ballpark to the public.With the arrival of the electronic media inthe 20th century, baseball and other sports would become a form ofmass-mediated entertainment.
Vaudeville wasthe other popular form of entertainment in the 19th century. Vaudeville tookthe traditional forms of popular entertainment or folk art, such as ethnichumor, juggling, dancing and clown acts, and made them part of the new massculture.
Vaudeville setthe mold (形式)for entertainment programs on theelectronic media that eventually displaced it in the 20th century. Radioincorporated the style and humor of vaudeville, and television in turn tookover the entertainment format of radio when it developed in the late 1940s and1950s. The quick cuts and action of modern-day television are ultimately basedon the conventions of vaudeville entertainment.
What did the ballpark mean to immigrants in America in the latter part of the 19th century.
A.A place where they could make friends with local people. B.A place where they might sense unpleasant urban atmosphere. C.A place where they would feel free from ethnic difference. D.A place where they might start to worry about their identity.正确答案C
