On film.
Dear Friend,
Why I'm here, writing, instead of following the sane path and sleeping, I don't know. I've had about five hours of sleep per night for the last two/three weeks, and it's fascinating to see the steady deterioration of my body without it. First was simple dizziness and slight confusion; now I've lost most of my hand-eye coordination, and I'm prone to falling asleep almost anywhere. Plus, I'm breaking out.
The moral of this story is that sleep is a good thing.
Had a thought today: Hollywood is terrified of death. And because it mirrors the beliefs of the masses, most of the population must believe likewise. The latest trend in movies seems to center about youth, sex and violence, which can be as ultimate antitheses to death; it helps to think of death being the opposite of birth, rather than the whole messy business of life itself.
Brawny, busty, and/or rosy-cheeked Youth's role is obvious- what could be more defiant of the popular notion of the interlinking of death, decrepitude, and decay than a preoccupation with the healthy and idealized? Sex then. The technical purpose of sex (heterosexual sex at least) is the propagation of life, resulting in birth. Sex in the modern sense can be seen as a (relatively) new awareness of the body and its more pleasurable functions. Death on the other hand destroys both genetic lines and the body itself. Thus, the possible motivation for the movie industry's embrace [hah! puns!] of the subject.
With the inordinate amount of violence to be found in the 'arts' and media, it isn't surprising that a sizable fraction of the population has developed unrealistic expectations about reality. For example, after the release of Fast And The Furious, street-racing became much more popular. People seemed to have forgotten that hurtling at 100 miles per hour, albeit in a metal shell, could have possibly disastrous consequences. And so, some inevitably died. The excessive use of violence in media, where participants usually escaped with slight bruising, engendered a popular mindset of indestructibility. And indestructible people can't die. Even the masses that are destroyed by the 'good guys' are barely considered- their deaths mean nothing because, as undeveloped characters, they don't living in the first place. Punching bags can't die either.
Rock on.
Why I'm here, writing, instead of following the sane path and sleeping, I don't know. I've had about five hours of sleep per night for the last two/three weeks, and it's fascinating to see the steady deterioration of my body without it. First was simple dizziness and slight confusion; now I've lost most of my hand-eye coordination, and I'm prone to falling asleep almost anywhere. Plus, I'm breaking out.
The moral of this story is that sleep is a good thing.
Had a thought today: Hollywood is terrified of death. And because it mirrors the beliefs of the masses, most of the population must believe likewise. The latest trend in movies seems to center about youth, sex and violence, which can be as ultimate antitheses to death; it helps to think of death being the opposite of birth, rather than the whole messy business of life itself.
Brawny, busty, and/or rosy-cheeked Youth's role is obvious- what could be more defiant of the popular notion of the interlinking of death, decrepitude, and decay than a preoccupation with the healthy and idealized? Sex then. The technical purpose of sex (heterosexual sex at least) is the propagation of life, resulting in birth. Sex in the modern sense can be seen as a (relatively) new awareness of the body and its more pleasurable functions. Death on the other hand destroys both genetic lines and the body itself. Thus, the possible motivation for the movie industry's embrace [hah! puns!] of the subject.
With the inordinate amount of violence to be found in the 'arts' and media, it isn't surprising that a sizable fraction of the population has developed unrealistic expectations about reality. For example, after the release of Fast And The Furious, street-racing became much more popular. People seemed to have forgotten that hurtling at 100 miles per hour, albeit in a metal shell, could have possibly disastrous consequences. And so, some inevitably died. The excessive use of violence in media, where participants usually escaped with slight bruising, engendered a popular mindset of indestructibility. And indestructible people can't die. Even the masses that are destroyed by the 'good guys' are barely considered- their deaths mean nothing because, as undeveloped characters, they don't living in the first place. Punching bags can't die either.
Rock on.