thisisby.us - How Fantasy Works, by jebrice

thisisby.us - How Fantasy Works, by jebrice: "The critics of American culture are usually quick to point out the trivial, the absence of the thoughtful, the intellectual. I myself once mocked the A & E network's Dog the Bounty Hunter in an article after finding that many of my co-workers thought he was cool. Shooting fish in a barrel, you say? Of course, but what I did not see is that American culture, meaning music, movies, books, television, is , with a few exceptions, about escape. Also the dumber and more worthless something seems, the greater the escape it provides. If you can let go of your reality enough to be sucked into something as truly absurd and worthless as, say, The Star Wars movies, then your reality has no control over you. It's like a doctorate in escaping misery. Trash culture, meaning romance novels, soap operas, pop music, Lindsay Lohan movies, all represent the effectiveness of American culture, not it's demise."

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