Thursday, September 12, 2013

the sissy factor

A friend of mine insists on sending me email with links to gruesome, grisly movies ... stuff about zombies or slice-and-dice fantasies. He does it, I am convinced, in part so that he can razz me as a "sissy" and worse for not watching them.

And it's true -- I am a sissy. I comfort myself in the excuse that "there's enough real-life cruelty available; why should I add to the unpleasant load with fictionalized mayhem?"

I really don't like cruelty.

But I do like movies and any decent movie is bound to include some uphill battle, sometimes in the form of cruelty. For example, "King of Devil's Island" depicts a fictionalized version of events at a notorious Norwegian island prison for boys. Cruelty is one of the threads woven in its cloth and yet I watched it more than once and consider it a good movie. And even such light-hearted fantasies as "Matilda" rests in a hay loft containing stabbing truths.

So where is the line between sissy and willing?

I don't honestly know, but I do know that zombie movies are off my charts.

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