Aesthetic-Moral Blindness

Note--I apologize in advance to my readers.  I am not able to choose every punctuation mark I would like to choose on the computer I am currently using...

I would like to suggest a sort of equivalence between:

"that film is no good because it hasnt got enough --any?---action...."

and

"I can listen to any music.......except opera."

The first person is expressing a preference for movies which feature violence.  It is not actually action at all which they are favoring.

It is not hard to imagine that in a country where an enormous amount of the social surplus is devoted to killing foreigners, or threatening them with death, and where an enormous amount of money is devoted to propaganda, the preference for violent films is fully in harmony with the preferences of the rulers.

But, of course, actions may include mental actions, and violence itself can be psychological.  However, all of those psychological skills that can be developed by engaging psychologically with others are not developed in the course of viewing violent films. 

I am reminded of an interview that Catherine Deneuve gave when Belle de Jour was re-released.  A USA commentator suggested that French movies were boring because they laced "action".

--parenthetical remark:  At the time, I seem to recall, he also seemed rather smug about it.  And that smugness itself is part of the confidence which comes from knowing that one is on the side of the rulers......

back to the main point:

Deneuve said that in this respect the French differed from Americans.  They like not merely to act, but also to talk about what they are doing.  --or words to that effect.

opera?

This morning I briefly enjoyed listening to a few arias from Dido and Aeneas.  I cannot imagine a life without that sort of beauty....

After-thought
Of course, the depiction of violence itself in so-called 'action' films is not at all realistic......