ABSTRACT
Because of its function as entertainment, film, especially Hollywood film, is commonly believed to lack seriousness or to bear only the most superficial meaning. Although more colleges and universities are offering courses in film, it has not lost its reputation as trivial. Popular film seems to offer a range of devices (such as glamour, exotic or absurd situations, grand spectacle, intrigue) designed to help viewers escape the responsibilities of their everyday lives rather than to know themselves and their world more fully. Film presents its share of social problems, of course, from marital infidelity and prostitution (Indecent Proposal) to the Holocaust (Schindler’s List). Yet many critics argue that these problems only function to excite or titillate viewers, rather than to challenge them to engage in profound thought. Indeed, some influential critics have argued that film desensitizes viewers to the problems of their immediate experience and of the world at large (Horkheimer and Adorno, 1989).
