I caught this in today’s Detroit News, and thought I’d share.
Tom Long writes about the flurry of summer sequels this year, but decides to dip in to social commentary…
“More worrisome, though, is what this all says about Americans as an audience. Can we be led like blind, conditioned sheep to shell out $10 every year for a slight variation on a movie we just saw the year before? Is that really what we enjoy at this point?
And if so, why? Has the world around us become such a scary place that we are forced to find comfort in the familiar, no matter how mediocre or brief-lived that comfort may be? Have new ideas — even ideas expressed in movie form — become frightening?”
“Are we so uncomfortable in an outside world filled with senseless war, wanton violence, religious fanaticism, economic disparity and injustice that we’re forced to take refuge again and again and again in a dark room with an aging cop who shoots terrorists and a teenager who fights evil with a magic wand?”
It isn’t a very long article, for those of you who hate reading. It’s certainly worth checking out.
