Altering Our Emotions

Question: 

Why are we entertained by movies that alter our emotions?

      Fiction allows us to escape from reality. Even so, it is so peculiar that we watch movies that make us sad or angry. It seems odd to want to escape reality into a fictional world in which the events alter your emotions negatively. I think people like having their emotions altered because when they are, they forget about their reality. We want the movie to engage us and make us forget about the problems in our lives. It is fine to be sad or angry cause of fictional events and characters because they do not affect your everyday life but it is not satisfying to be angry at real events and people because they have an impact on your lives. We know the movie is fictional so we don’t branch out to reach the characters in distress. We want them to be distressed so there can be a movie. As odd as it may seem we like having our emotions altered from watching a movie because we know it isn’t reality.

Half Believe or doubt ?

Question:

Is it possible to half believe or is it just doubt?

You rather believe or you do not believe. If you are experiencing half belief then you just doubt yourself and your mind is playing tricks on you. For example if you shut your closet door because of the thought that something may be lurking in it, even though you know no one isn’t, you aren’t half believing in a fictional character coming out of your closet, you are reacting to your thoughts from the movie or book. When you interact and engage yourself in a horror movie, the thoughts you created while watching the movie do not have to go away. When you are with people you are fine and don’t think of these thoughts but once you are alone free to yourself to think, these thoughts come back. They scare you because you made this fictional character or event something that you can personally be afraid of. For example, Walton uses the example of watching the movie Jaws. You may not be afraid of Jaws but you can be afraid of the being attacked by a shark in general or in situations where you are in open water. This half believe is just doubt, doubt that your mind creates by questioning what if. You never believe it, it is just human instinct to make sure oneself is secure because you do have these thoughts in your head; thoughts that scare you.