>>Is there a difference between a Roman citizen's enjoyment of a fight to
the
>>death in the Coliseum and our enjoyment of a representation of the same
>>fight in the movie Gladiator?
that's an easy one . . . sure there's a major
difference . . . not merely that in one case
the dude is dead, really dead, and in the
other case not . . . but more crucially that
it's specifically our knowledge that the
death is feigned that permits or solicits
our involvement . . . our culture finds snuff
flicks unacceptable, even while indulging
endlessly in re-presentations of death . . .
like the man said, what we've got here is NOT
an action but "an imitation of an action" . . .
of course the question of whether this
[obvious] difference makes a difference
is another breed of animal entirely
mike
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