The identification, or what Vernon Lee has
called empathy, [Footnote: _Beauty and Ugliness_.] may be almost
infinitely subtle and symbolic. The mimicry may be performed without
our being aware of it, and sometimes in a way that would horrify those
sections of our personality which support our self-respect. In
sophisticated people the participation may not be in the fate of the
hero, but in the fate of the whole idea to which both hero and villain
are essential. But these are refinements.
In popular representation the handles for identification are almost
always marked. You know who the hero is at once. And no work promises
to be easily popular where the marking is not definite and the choice
clear. [Footnote: A fact which bears heavily on the character of news.
_Cf_. Part VII.] But that is not enough. The audience must have
something to do, and the contemplation of the true, the good and the
beautiful is not something to do. In order not to sit inertly in the
presence of the picture, and this applies as much to newspaper stories
as to fiction and the cinema, the audience must be exercised by the
image. Now there are two forms of exercise which far transcend all
others, both as to ease with which they are aroused, and eagerness
with which stimuli for them are sought. They are sexual passion and
fighting, and the two have so many associations with each other, blend
into each other so intimately, that a fight about sex outranks every
other theme in the breadth of its appeal.
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