Section 14 Group 3 (11/15)

Today we talked about Alex Neill and the paradox of tragedy. The basis for his idea was that we get pleasure from watching other's pain or misfortune in the form of movies, and he found this paradoxical. He thought that we watch tragedy (and some horror) movies for the insight they give us. He said "I think it's just that we are the kind of creature who can take pleasure in experiencing emotions of being thrilled, of being shocked, of being alarmed, of being, in some loose sense of the word anyway, terrified." We pretty much agreed with this thought, although we think that one of the reasons we enjoy tragedy and horror so much is because we know that it isn't real. Watching somebody in a movie being chased down by a murderer with a knife may be an enjoyable adrenaline rush, however if you were to be in that situation you would still experience an adrenaline rush, but I don't think you'd find it enjoyable. This is because watching something that you know is fake can be suspenseful, but having it actually happen to you is truly horrifying. Dr. Oliver also brought up that there may be something in our genetic code that makes people predetermined to be thrill seekers, which could be the reason that we don't all love suspenseful horror movies or want to go sky diving.