On this developing desensitization issue in recent Hollywood movies, readers
may want to look up Geoff Brown's review of TWISTER in yesterday's (July 24)
LONDON TIMES (also available in Web format). Brown commented upon the tendency
within this Spielberg-Crichton product to treat human beings as playthings
for special effects dominance. It is a feature characteristic of other
contemporary films.
  Perhaps this tendency may parallel Kracauer's thoughts in his "Mass
Ornament" essay involving the fetishistic usage of human beings? As we live
in an era paralleling tendencies within the Fascist epoch of exploiting
human beings within uniform structures and attempting to disavow difference
of any type, a return to reconsidering some of Kracaeur's ideas may be
valuable - as long as we consider later reworkings amd redefinitions of
the concepts.
  Tony Williams
 
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