Edutainment means shows that blend an entertaining story with educational material. For example, The Magic School Bus tells stories while also teaching about science.

There are educational shows for adults, they’re usually called documentaries. But any that blend educational material with fiction? I guess an argument can be made that biographical films fall into this category but they usually take creative liberties and aren’t fully historically accurate. An argument can also be made for medical dramas and legal dramas, but I’m not sure how accurate the medical and legal information in them is. Of course, The Magic School Bus also takes creative liberties and has inaccurate science, but there’s always a segment at the end explaining where they took creative liberties.

How I Met Your Mother kind of had the vibe of a kids show that teaches moral lessons, but for adults. Edit for clarity: the reason I bring this up is I consider “moral of the week” a genre closely related to edutainment but not quite the same thing

Edit: now that I’m thinking about it, I guess Jeopardy and other trivia based game shows could qualify as edutainment. They’re not fictional, but they do blend entertainment and education

  • balian
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    19 hours ago

    What science and sociology did you learn from these shows?

    • FreshParsnip@lemmy.caOP
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      16 hours ago

      I guess it isn’t so much that Star Trek and the Orville teach facts (boy do the writers misunderstand evolution) as they explore what if questions about society, like what if there was a society where it’s taboo to identify as a gender (TNG episode). It’s more thought provoking than educational