Watching Billy Elliot , I suddenly realised I was building up a resistance to the obvious tugging at my heartstrings. And they say violence desensitises. I think all this emotion is far worse. After all, if I see real life violence, it remains highly disturbing. The problem with movies is that they tend to be reductive.
Emotion is Hollywood's main thing.
Getting desensitised to emotion through too many movies can be insidious. Violence never gives me the keys to real life, or to how to behave. If someone breaks into my house, the last thing I will do is grab a bazooka and blast the burglars to hell although, after the trauma is over, I may fantasise about that. But if someone I know dies, I feel I should start looking solemn and expect to hear a mournful swelling soundtrack in the background. I shouldn't think about death and what it means, but wonder what Harrison Ford, coping with the death of a screen wife, would do.