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From: lwe3207@acf4.UUCP (Lars Warren Ericson)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: Purple Rose of Cairo
Message-ID: <1110006@acf4.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Apr-85 23:39:00 EST
Article-I.D.: acf4.1110006
Posted: Wed Apr  3 23:39:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Apr-85 01:45:41 EST
References: <1110005@acf4.UUCP>
Organization: New York University
Lines: 26

[]

seismo!elsie!ado writes:

.	Message-Id: <8504031831.AA12162@seismo.ARPA>
.	Subject: Re: Purple Rose of Cairo
.	In-Reply-To: your article <1110005@acf4.UUCP>
.
.	Would you have preferred to see the wife-beating depicted?
.
.				--ado


Ado misses the point.  The point is that a thoughtless trivialization of a
real social problem should not be a minor element of a comedy, if the comedy
is not about that minor element (then it is not comedy, but nihilistic
satire).  If "PROC" is not a comedy, then the portrayal of the social
problem should not be a distorted and pale shadow of the reality.  "Ado"
seems to assume that I get off on seeing sexual violence as a form of
entertainment.  I am saying that if violence of any form must exist in a
movie, it should be to inform, not to entertain.  I walk out of movies which
use violence purely for the purpose of entertainment.  (A rape-strangulation
scene in one of Hitchcock's later movies is a good example.  "Marathon Man"
is another.)  Woody Allen's incorrect portrayal of a form of violence
disinforms people as to the nature of that form of violence, and does so
purely in support of entertainment.