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Alex Neill - the Paradox of Tragedy

Philosophy Bites

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The Paradox of Horror Movies

Horror movies are superficially similar to tragedies in the sense that they invite us to observe often quite gruesome murders or terrible events, and we take some pleasure in them. Do you think the same explanation could hold for those because it's not obvious what insight we get from watching The Omen as compared with King Lear? Yes, I agree entirely, and horror movies are a problem for me because on the one hand they are similar. And yet my solution patently won't work," he says. "Very few horror movies can plausibly be thought of as a source of great insight"

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