Art vs Entertainment

I recently went to a David Williamson (Australian playwrite, kind of trashy IMHO) play which challenged the league of critics by stating that within the worlds of literature and performing arts there is need for both art itself and pure entertainment. Many people see the latter as being pure trash, or is this just snobbery? For example, can we view a simple novel (pick something that seems lame to you) and compare it to the great Russians, or Orwell, or Tolkien, and if so why?
I guess what I'm trying to ask is whether or not Literature/Theatre/Film can be both art and entertainment or purely one or the other without suffering relentless snobbery/laughter from it's polar extreme? Please provide examples where possible

 

I want the person who said "What is art? Are we art? Is art art?" to be beaten with broom handles. As to your question, how do people seperate art in todays world, maybe...maybe it's that so much stuff today is being made solely for profit..maybe a guess? For example back in those days I'm betting artists, novelists and such didn't make much money from whatever successful work they sold, and they didn't tend to make sequel after sequel or have the mentality to sell themselves out and cheapen original work. Having a sequels to War and Peace for instance would be art? War and Peace part II? War and Peace part III? Today writers, filmmakers, and such can make millions off of extending their ideas so doesn't the art kind of get lost? Maybe I'm lost in the art...Yay now I sound like one of those guys in that movie where everyone talks to everyone else.

An explaination for the snobbery could be one similar to an older generation superiority to younger generation mindset, you know because time has passed them by, what they liked has changed, so they become more and more cantankerous "My music is better than your music or back in the day we had some real music, not like that mess you listen to today. Or my music was the first and therefore the best." It could be like that.