Marduk wrote:I'd like to expound on a point which Katya, by way of a Mr. Sanderson, introduced. To what extent are we required to display in our media, and by conjunction deal with personally, things in the world which we would rather not deal with? Ought I to see violent portrayals of war to make less abstract its awful consequences? Ought I to see sexuality in all its forms to define my reactions to it? Is this necessary, or does it have any place?
For me, the intuitive answer is pretty clearly "no," but articulating why is a bit harder. I think it's because an overexposure to violence or sexuality actually makes it more abstract, not less. There are other circumstances that can make violence too abstract. E.g., if I hear that one person died, I'm likely to be sad, but if I hear that 4000+ US soldiers died in the Iraq war, I can't comprehend that level of death. I've noticed that some news organizations will choose to focus on the death of one representative soldier (e.g., by reporting on his childhood, interviewing his family and friends, etc.), as a way of re-humanizing the loss, which I think is a very effective strategy.
Also, if the point is to make the consequences of violence less abstract, then you should seek out media that focuses on the
consequences. E.g., imagine if every person who was killed in an action movie had a full backstory, got an on-screen funeral, had friends, family and associates who were shown to grieve for years afterward, etc. That would be a step towards showing the actual consequences of violence.
(Of course, this kind of positioning doubles back into questioning, again, whether any kind of lightly-treated violence or sexuality is appropriate in media. These paragraphs are merely an initial stab at answering Marduk's questions.)