Many scholars have been lured into a fascination with the extinct demimonde of dime museums, exhibition hails, saloons, and industrial exhibitions. During this period entertainment relied upon artful deception, comparable in importance to such contemporary forms of amusement as minstrelsy and melodrama. The cultural activities were forms of representational play in which spectators are caused to doubt their perceptions and judgment. Entertainments that tricked, or duped the paying public flourished in America's cities in the 19th century. What distinguished these cohorts of entertainers, was not their ability to perpetrate fraud but that they understood the dynamics of a new urban audience that enjoyed distinguishing the genuine from the fake and the authentic from the concocted. The willing audience for artful deceptions maintained a double consciousness in which it simultaneously marveled at the qualities of the object or action displayed while enjoying the act of appraising the quality, audacity, and performance of the deception.
By offering semiotic analyses of a range of Victorian performances, we learn there was more to these exhibitions than appeared at first viewing. The tricks and lures of these entertainers deserve a more than marginal position in American cultural history.
The author thinks current entertainment is relatively poor because

A. it doesn't have enough charlatanism.
B. it is controlled by corporate electronic media.
C. there is a lack of vigor in current entertainment.
D. people's tastes have changed for the worse.