readings for 4002 - march 8

7/29/2019 Readings for 4002 - March 8

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Foundations of th e Philosophy of the ArtsSerict Editor: Philip Alperson, Temple UniversityThe foWldations of the Philosophy of the Arts series is designed to providea comprehensive but flexible series of concise texts addressing bothfWldamental general questions about art as well as questions about theseveral arts (literature, film, music, painting, etc.) and the various kindsand dimensions of artistic practice.A consistent approach across the series provides a crisp, contemporaryintroduction to the main topics in each area of the arts, written in a clearand accessible style that provides a responsible, comprehensive, andinformative accow1t of the relevant issues, reflecting classic and recentwork in the Held. Books in the series are written by a truly distinguishedroster of philosophers with international renown.I. The Philosophy of Art, Stephen Danes2. The Philosophy of Motion Pictures, Noel CarrollForthcomina:The Philosophy of Literature, Peter LamarqueThe Philosophy of Music, Ph1lip AlpersonBlack is Beautiful: A Philosophy of Black Aesthetics, Paul Taylor

The Philosophy ofMotion Pictures

Noel Carroll

fiJ BlackwellPublishing


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146 MOVIN(.; IMAGES

rejected by Dllvid Bordwell in Narr


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148 Alfi::CT AN!J TH I . MOV!Nt; !MALl

developing countries.* Furthermore, ce rtain motion pictures can evenalford us sclf-lmuwledge, by awakening feelings in us we never knewwt had and enabling us to examine them apperceptively. But whetherfor the sake of bracing affective stimulation or fo r ;he purpose ofexpanding ou r emotional reach - either socially or introspectively -the link between the moving image and ou r affective life is one of itsmajor draws.However, it is no t the case that moving pictures engage ou r alfective~ e a c t i o n s in some simple, unitary fashion; motion pictures engenderleeling-rcspmu;es in u.s in a nwnbcr of different ways. This is not onlvbecause movies possess several difTercnt chaimels of .Jrcctivc address b ~ t also bec.1w;c our repertoire of aflcctivc responses is itself variegated . That is,the motion picture can elicit a range of allects not only because it has a batteryof_diverse t r i g g ~ r s at its disposal, bu t also because there is a multiplicity ofaflec't.S available for stimulation . These affects indude reflexes, phobias, affectprograms, cognitive emotions, and moods . "AfTect'' is our name for thisentire domain; others might prefer to call it the "emotions," but for reasonsthat will emerge in what follows, I reserve that label for only certain specieswithin this genus.

It is the purpose of this chapter to explore, to varying degrees,.l diversity of phenomena in the realm of affect in relation to variousstructures of the moving image. Because there are a number of differentaffects and a number of ditlerent structures at issue, I will attempt tolffipd on one of the perhaps most important leversmovies have upon audience affect.

And, perhaps needless to say, other motion pictures can be particularlydangerous for stoking morally inappropriate hatreds between people.

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Audience and AffectThe gamut ?} ajfccc

Bv "affect," I am referring to felt bodily states ~ t a t e s that in\olvc d i n g s or sensations. The co mpass of affect is broad, comprising, among otherthings, hard-wired re llex reactions, like the startle response, sen.s.1tions(including pleasure, pain, and sexual arousal), phobias, desires, variousoccurrent, feeling-tomd mental states - such as fear, anger, and jtalousy and moods . Through various strategies and devices, motion picturespossess the capacity to kindle and even to inl1am(' a number of these states.In this section, we will begin to examine a selection of these capacities inrelation to the kinds of atTcctin: expericnn:s that the y arc suited to enlist.

Through the manipulation of sound and imag\.', the creators of movingimages can induce changes in our bodies . The plummctmg c a m ( ~ r a in This IsCinerama caused roller -coaster chills in the stomachs of audierKes, whilesome of the abrupt cuts in Bulliu made ou r bellies flip . M o r e o v t movingimage arrays have the power to activate the involuntary and automaticreflexes of audiences at a .subcognitive, or cognitively impenetrable, I{velof response . For example, loud noises - either recorded e!Tccts or musicalsounds - can elicit instinctual reactions from spectators .

A sudden explosion even if expectd is apt to make the viewer tlincb.The response is cognitively impenetrable in the sense that, despite the factthat you know that you are not in danger, your body ,.,-ill respond otherwiseand prepare you alTectively for Hight or some other sdf-protecti,e bchaior.Adrenaline will rush into our veins as we are primed for action. r u . r t h t .mo re, this "high" can be enjoyable can be savored if there really is noreal danger in the vicinity.This kind of response is called the " s t ~ s p o n s e ." It is an innate I C . ~ a t u r c of the human organism. All things being equal, the adrenaline rush elicited bya fiction is pleasurable - as it is in the case of fireworks (as o p p o ~ ~ t . ~ tobattlefield bombardments) . This is why so many movies, come seasonalvacation periods, are tantamount to fireworks displays; they literally excitespectators by triggering inborn perceptual/hormonal mechi}nisnu; for thepurpose of throwing audiences into heightened affective states. So manygenres are devoted to this enterprise from disaster falms to war !Urns(whether on earth, or in outer space, or in some fantasy realm, like Narn.i.l,or in the distant future, like The Time Machine or Planet ~ ? f rhe Apes).


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ISO AFHCT ANU H IE MOVING IMAt.;EThese rdlcx states, of course, are not onl) tripped by loud noises .

Sudden movements toward the camera or of the camera or rapid movements laterally acToss the screen can pu t the body on high alert. The mawof the giant ~ h a r k surges forward and we start backwards. The movieS


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!52 AHECT AN D TilE MOVING IMAGl:graphically, the perception of danger (an appraisal of the large, hulkingthing in my vicinaty) leads to a chill down my spine (a visceral feeling)which makes me freeze in place (an evasive behavior). Altogether these addup to an instance of the emotional state of fear. Since, as we have seen,there arc other sorts of affects, like the startle reflex, which are moreprirllitive structurally, we will reserve the label the "emotions" lor onlythose affects that have the preceding, complex structure that integratesdifferential computations with feelings .

The emotions arc a good thing to possess from an evolutionary standpoint. Compared to processes of conscious, rational deliberation, theemotions are very ta:;t, "down and dirty," decision-making routines . Theyscope out situations quicldy and ready the organism to react, sometimeswithin the blillX of an eye. lh.is is no small advantage in a tight spot. Ofcourse, the emotions are sometimes mistaken. What I may at first size upas a large, potentially dangerous creature standing in the shade may in factturn out to be nothing bu t a curiously shaped bush. However, way backwhen in the environmental circumstances on the African veldt where theemotions first developed, it was better to be safe than sorry.

The emotions were evolved by natural selection in the first instance torespond to percipient's conception of the situation . That is, if the percipientbelieved that the large shape in the shadows was a dangerous creature, thenthe organism was thrown into a state of fear, even if the stimulus was reallyonlY a bush.

Yet if this is how the emotions are supposed to work, it seems to raise aquestion immediately about how our emotions can - for better or worse -be aroused by llctions, including motion pi


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154 Af fECT AND THE MOVING IMA(; ffrustration, entertain the idea of saying something hurtful to a person whois mentally disabled, confused, utterly dependent upon you, and who, aswell, worships you. A feeling of shame may overcome you, though yourlips remain sealed.

Belief - holding the content of proposition x before the mind assertively -can bring forth emotions. But so too can something that has been merelyimagined - that is, a propositional content entertained in thought nonassertively. Or , in other words, believing that x and imagining that x - in theappropriate circumstances - are both psychologically empowered to elicitou r emotions.

Moreover, it is easy to see the evolutionary advantage to be had inpossessing the capacity of the imagination to arouse emotions. For by thismeans we can enhance the survival prospects of ou r conspecifics by instillingfear in them with respect to counterfactual states of affairs. In order to warnchildren otT trusting strangers, we may, for instance, tell them tales aboutwhat might happen to them if they wander away with just anybody.

Here, of course, we can see an immediate connection between the naturalhistory of ou r emotions and ou r emotional responses to fictions. For are notmany of the earliest stories that we tell (and show) children counterfactual,cautionary tales - such as what befalls Walt Disney's Pinocchio when hethrows in with the fast-taUdng strangers on his way to school? That is, ourcapacity to respond to fictions emotionally is rooted in the capacity -endowed by natural selection because of its adaptive advantageousness - ofthe emotion system to be aroused not only by that which we believe, but alsoby that which we imagine.*

Motion picture fictions are sense-bearing vehicles that mandate viewersto imagine the statcll of affairs and events that they depict audiovisually.With respect to (apL


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156 Al' l ' lCT ANIJ TilE MOVIN t > IMAl;Eour fright all the more. But the relevant point at this juncture is that there amay be enough information in these very early, very general stages of thetraddng process to send the emotion system into a state of terror, eventhough there is not yet sulricicnt information to determine the exact natureof the threat.

Emotions can originate near the site of perception and prime the bodyfor at."tion without any further need for computation: the groom slips on abanana peel and we burst into laughter. Or the emotion may arise afterbeing processed cognitively, either tacitly or consciously. Professional envywith regard to your colleague's executive bathroom privileges takes a lot ofthinking. Motion pktures, of course, allord opportunities for the emotionsto erupt through a variety of routes - some mediated by consciouscognitions, some by tacit ones, and others even more immediately. Thequickly moving, dark shadows may send the icy rush of fear down ourspine without ou r apprehension of whatever is casting those shadows. Onthe other hand, in order to admire the bravery of the hero, we mustcognize his actions under the concept of courage and also recognize thatth.lt satisties the pertinent LTiteria for admiration . Of course, whether agiven motion picture involves a greater degree of primarily pen.--eptuallymotivated emo tional states versus ones calling for more cognitive processingcan only be determined on a movie-by-movie basis.

Nevertheless, what these emotional states have in common is that theycomprise appraisals or evaluations relative to certain recurring humanthemes, such as persona! dignity, which appraisals then engender bodilystates of feeling that dispose the organism to behave in certain ways. Thesamurai, for example, appraises the mud splashed on his brother's sandalsas an affront: this causes his blood to boil, and, in consequence, he drawshis sword from its scabbard, with lethal consequences. Of course, withrespect to motion picture audiences, the behavioral portion of the emotionscenario rarely obtains, since we are only imagining that such-and-such ishappening. For example, we are only supposing that somcon e's sandals havebeen muddied; thus, even if we arc partial to that character, we have noreason to act, since, among other things, no one has really been insulted .

It is a remarkable fact about motion pictures that to an arresting extentthey are able to elicit across diversilled audiences - roughly the same orconverging general emotional responses to the fictions on screen. Suppose ,as might happen any day of the week, that an ordinary couple is arguing ona street corner. The affective responses, if any, of real-world passers-by arelikely to be all over the map. But, contrariwise, a couple argues onscreenand we all - or nearly all of us - feel indignation at the way in which the

.HI 'ECl :\ND lH l MUVINt; IMAGE Iheroine is being demeaned . Wh-.:ther we are in Madras or Manhatt.m,whether we are Lutheran, Jew, or atheist, Republican or Dcmonat, anymotion picture worth its salt can usually elicit roughly the emotion itintends from its target audience, no matter how far flung, most of thetime, its members may be. How is this possible?

To begin to answer this question, tlrst c a l l that emotions a n ~ appraisals -they appraise situations in light of certain interests. The emotion of fearappraises events, objects, and people with respect to concerns lor the safetyand proteL'tion of oneseU, one's interests, and the interests of one's c o n i ~ - . d erates foremost in mind . Moreover, t h e s t concerns, which we can sununariuas a preoccupation with harmfulness, funt-1.ion as the criterion UliCd to appraiseor evaluate a predicament as fearsome. That is, emotional appraisals arcgoverned by criteria, as the emotion of fear can only he mobiliz(xl upon atleast a suggestion of hannfulness.

Upon detecting circumstances that are perceived to harmful ordangerous, fear takes over. It operates like a searchlight. It diret..'ts ourattention, organizing the details bctore us into significant wholes or gesu.lts.In the ilrst instance, it throws certain of the elements of the situation intobold relief, leading us to attend to the mugger 's knilc, r a t h t ~ r tha.n to thestriped design on his tic. Fear then further guides ou r scansion of the art'ilY topid::. out further relevant features for notice - lor example, that the muggerhas several large, equally well-armed companions.

Note here that the presiding emotional state does no t batten on thesedetails wUly-nilly. They have all been chosen because they a r t ~ pertinent toalerting us to the level of danger that conironts us. That is, these dementsall meet the evaluative criterion of harmfulness. The emotion of fear solvesthe problem of what we must attend to. It weighs elements of ourcircumstances in light of our intetests, specifically ou r intacsts in selfpreservation and the avoidance of h a r ~ r organizes situations in termsof the evaluative criterion of harmfulness.

Like fear, ou r other emotions arc also critcrially governed . ln order tobe angry, I must believe that me or mine h


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IS!! AFFECT AND THE MOVING IMAGEThis is how the emotions work in everyday life. But what does it have to

do with viewing motion pictures? ln particular, what does it have to dowith the way in which moving pictures quite frequently dispose diverseaudiencelj to vent extremely like-minded emotions in response to onscreenfictions - to the degree that all or most of us feel suspense, at the samelime, for example, over the issue of whether or no t the diminutiveprotagonist will make the football team of his dreams or whether or notthe over-the-hiU boxer stands a chance against Apollo Creed?

In life, in contrast to fiction, our emotions have to select the pertinentobjects upon which to focus from a plethora of largely unstructuredstimuli. But in fictions, including motion picture fictions, things aredifferent. Ou r emotions are not called upon to organize the situationsbefore us, so to say, !h novo. To a much greater extent than usuallyencountered in everyday life, the situations in fictional motion pictureshave a1ready been structured for us by the director and his team. We donot typically have to depend, from the first instant, upon our emotionsto organize fictiona1 events for us as much as we rely upon the emotions toperform this task for us in the ordinary course of events. For, in the main,the states of a.lfairs and events in moti on pic tures have been, i n a manner ofspeaking, emotionally p r e d i ~ u d for us by the creators of the fiction.

ln.at is, the creators of the motion picture have a1ready done much ofthe work of emotiona1ly sculpting scenes and sequences for us through theways in which the salient features of the tlctiona1 situation have beencarefully designed to satisfy the criteria for drawing forth the emotiona1state intended by the production team. Details that suit the conceptualconditions of the emotional response desired by the moviemakers havebeen selected, ftltered, foregrounded, and emphasized in the narrative,the dialogue, and the composition, and through the camera positioning, theacting, the musical commentary, and so forth.

ln contrast to the way that the emotions have to start from scratch whenit comes to managing our attention in daily life, when it comes to thegeneral run of motion pictures, the events on screen have been emotivelyprefocused for us by the creators of the movie. They have selected thee l e m e n t ~ ; of the scene or sequence that they think are emotively significantand thrust them, to pu t it bluntly, in our face. The means to this end at thetilrnmak.er's dispoiial include : camera position and composition, editing(including the processes of bracketing, scaling, and indexing discussed inthe previous chapter), lighting, the use of color, and, of course, musicalaccompaniment, acting, dialogue, and the very structure of the scriptor narrative .

AFFECT AN[) THE MOVING IMAGE 1>9

Quite frequently in everyday We, when an ac


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160 AFfECT AND TH E MOVING IMAGEThe maker> of mummy-monster movies want to put us into the

emotional sUte of horror. Horror is a compound emotion, involving fearand disgust. As we have seen, harmfulness is a criterion for fear. Impurity isa criterion for disgust . Thus, to elicit the horror response from viewers,the makers of a mummy picture will emphasize certain of his properties -namely, those that count as fearsome and those that count as disgusting. Hiscapacity for harmfulness, of course, is satisfied by the lavish attentionpaid to his killing innocent people, while his impurity is esublished byelaborating on the fact that his dead body is rotting and badly in needof rejuvenation.

likewise, s u s ~ n s e is arguably an emotion with two criteria - improbabilityand the desire that the good shall triumph. When, due to the nefarious plot ofrome Lex Luthor type the two trains steam toward each other on a collisioncourse it is unlikely that disaster can be averted. Moreover, the death of allthe n . i c ~ pt."'ple on clte train is clearly evil. Can even Supe rman save the day?The narrative and the editing forcefully direct our attention in such a waythat it is virtually impossible to miss the unlikelihood that good can come ofthis sUte of affairs, and, aJl things being e


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164 Af H C T AN() THt MO V IN( ; I M A G ~as)' is in, and (2) because y is in - or x imaginesJ to be in - that emotive state .To speak metaphorically, the viewer has been uinfected" by the ostensibleemotive state of the character. For convenience, we can refe r to this as themjeawn modell!f' idamflcation.

The lf!{ection mode./

Now I have no reason to belie,e that som t:thing like the phenomenon ofalflctm: infection never occurs, especially in real life. There is empiricalevidence that infants feel distn:ss when they detect distre ss in their caregivers.But I am not sure that this is a full-blown emotional state , rather than merelya certain kind of affective reflex called the mirror reflex which we willdiscuss at the end of this chapter.

However, that notwithstanding, it is not the shee r possibility of occur rences of the infection model that concerns us . Rathe r, we want to askw h c t h ~ r th e infection model is up to the task for which its proponentsrecommend it. That is, is it a comprehensive or nearl y comprehensi veact'ount of ou r emotional relationship to characte rs in popular fictions?

it accowlt for ou r standard emotive relationships with fictionalcharacters ? Is it the emotional bo nd that typically tics us to them ?

.is)'mmetric cmoLionsa cursory review of cases indicates that the infec--tion model of

identillcation is unlikely to provide an ything even approaching a generalaccount of our emotional relationships to the fictional characters in motionpictures . Imagine : the candidate is pumped up by the adulation with whichhis acceptance speech has been greeted by the adoring crowd; bu t we knowthat he is standing in the cross-hairs of the high-powered, laser-guided rit1eof a merciless hired assassin. We do not !Cel the thrill that the candidatedoes; we feel suspense, even anxiety. Ou r emotional state is no t typeidentical with the candidate's . No r should it be , since the movie mandatesthat we should fear fo r th e candidate .

Moreover, this species of asymmetry of atfect is rile throughout comicfictions . Every time the would-be suitor is discovered in a compromising

.".. ' rE CT i\N D lH I: M U \'IN(O I M t \ l ; ~ 165situation, we are amused , while he is discomllted . Recall, lo r e x a n t p l ( Mec:rthe Parents . And with respect to th e BBC series fuvei and li


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166 AFFECT AND THE MOVI NG IMAGEor even very frequently, perfectly match those of the pertinent charactersis highly dubious. So, again, the infection model looks like it must beabandoned as a comprehensive picture of our emotive relations to movieprotagonists.

Indeed, there are certain cases, perhaps many, where the audiencemember's emotional state can only plausibly be thought to be that of anonlooker rather than one that could correspond to the mental state of itsobject, the fictional protagonist . When we feel nail-biting suspense as theprotagonist claws his way to safety, he is highly unlikely to be feelingsuspense or, lor that matter, any other emotion. He is probably numb withconcentration. He is apt to be so caught up in and focused upon his taskthat his anxiety is on hold .

In my own experience of extreme situations, such as skidding at highspeed on ice in my car, I have noticed that I do not go into an emotionalstate, like panic, bu t react very deliberately, as if affectively anesthetized,and do what my driving instructor told me to do decades ago. If I were torespond emotionally - if I were racked with suspense - I'd crash. Mypassengers can afford suspense , bu t I can't. Isn't it likely that the sameasymmetrical distribution of emotion occurs quite often with respect tomotion pictures, partic--ularly action -packed ones?

Nevertheless, the friend of infectious identification may retort that , evenif there are many cases where the presumed inner states of audience membersand those of the characters diverge, there are also a significant number ofcases where the emotive states at issue would appear to be type-identical.The character recoils in contempt at the child molester 's ploys; so do we.Emotive symmetry obtains . Therefore, it may be maintained, even if theinfection model fails to be applicable across the board, perhaps the argumentcan be made that it has compelling authority in cases like the preceding one,in which the emotions of the viewers and the protagonists correlate. However, in order to probe this suggestion, we need to introduce a distinctionbetween emotions that are held in common or coincidentally and emoti onsthat are shared due to some intimate causal relation between them .

Coincident versus connected emotional statesAmerican jet bombers have streaked past their fail-safe points and they arewinging their way to Beijing. They are freighted with nuclear devices.Atomic warfare looms; millions will die . One of the protagonists, thePresident of the United States, is stricken with fear; us too . lsn t this a casewhere the infectious identification holds sway?

AFFECT ANO T HE MOVING IMAGE 167No. Why not? Remember that the infection model of identification

requires not only that our emotions match those of the protagonists, butabo that ou r emotions be a causal conscguence of the protagonists being inprecisely the self-same kind of mental state. However, in a great many ofthe cases in which we Hnd ourselves in the s ame type of emotive condition asthe protagonist, including the preceding example, it is pretty clear that wehave gotten there by our own route, so to speak. We arc no t anxious bec.wsethe President is anxious . We are anxious because we have been encouragedto imagine that a nuclear armageddon, threatening a catastrophic number ofdeaths, is in the offu1g.

Maybe some evidence for this is that the llction could be told withoutreference to the President 's anxiety and we would still feel anxiety. Werethe President made of steel, I speculate that we would still fed suspense.We would feel the same species of consternation pn ciscly because thefictional situation has been stru(.'tured in a way that makes certain featuresthat are appropriately conducive to the state of fear salient - such .u;repeated assessments of how much explosive power those jet bombers arecarrying, their capacity to evade radar detection, their imperviousnessto any and all anti-aircraft defenses, as well as the putatively uneasydiplomatic relations between the United States and China.

In other words, in the vocabulary of the llrst part of this chapter, thefilm has been structured emotively in terms of tTitcrial prefocusing. Thatis, by means of its visual depictions, ena(.1ments, and/ or verbal descriptions, its circumstances have been organized or filtered in such a way thatthe features the moviema kers have elected lor emphasis are predomi.nomtlyexactly those suitable lor or LTiterially apposite to the emotional statesintended to be excited by the work .

In the Odessa Steps sequence of his film Potemk.in, the director SergeiEisenstein selects out of the s t r e a ~ i o t and highlights the callousmassacre of old people, a mother and her adolescent son, and then anothermother and her infant child - in short, he places brackets arow1d thosepersons w ho are culturally figured as harmless and defenseless. His sele


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168 AFFECT AND THE MOVING I MAGI::prefocusing, not infectious identification. The diUerence is that in the casewhere criteria! prefocusing leads to emotive uptake on the part of viewers,the correspondence between what the audience feels and what the characters are imagined to feel is co-incident or conjoint rather than causal.That is, the audience has been effectively led to the emotional state it is inby a pathway that can be causally independent of what, if anything, theprotagonist feels. Thus, cases of congruent emotions between viewers andprotagonists, though admittedly guite frequent, are typically not true-blueinstances of infectious identification, but are better regarded as cases ofcoincidentally congruent emotional states engineered by means of criteria!prcfo


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170 AFFECT AND THE MOVING !MAGE

a.n attempt to disavow them. For cases like these should not be taken ascases of infectious identification in the llrst place.

True, the emotional states of the characters do cause us to be in aeuphoric state. But our euphoric state is not precisely the same type ofeuphoric state that the lovers are in . Their emotional state is infatuation.That is not our condition; we are happy for the couple. I am not in lovewith Georgia nor am I identifying with that aspect of the Tramp. WereI m love with Georgia, I wouldn't be so happy. I'd be jealous of the Tramp.So I am not in a state of infectious idcntillcation.

Yet I am in state of roughly the same emotive valence. They are, let us say,euphoric and I am euphoric as well. Ou r emotional states converge - theyboth belong on the positively charged side of the scale of the emotions. Weare no t in the same emotional states , but our conditions are in broadcategorical agreement and we are in that vectorially converging state withthe state of the characters because that is the condition in which we imaginethem to be .

Contrariwise, when the monster in the concluding scenes of Bnde C!fFrunkenswn is reviled by his reanimated betrothed, we feel sorry for him.Ou r emotion docs not match his. We do not feel the pain of an unrequitedlover. Indeed, I doubt that any viewers, no matter how desperate, harbor anydesires for the frizzy-haired, electrified corpse, played by Elsa Lanchester.Yet we do respond to the monster's misery with sorrow. It is in this sensethat we share his misery. We are not miserable for being lovelorn, but we dopity the monster.

Both misery and pity, of course, are dysphoric or negative emotions .Both sit on the distressful, discomforting, disturbing, or painful pole ofemotional states . Agajn, our emotions arc broadly similar in their generalvalence. They converge vectorially in their negative directionality. Ou remotions arc causally coordinated. But this does not count in favor of themodel of infectious idcntitlcation, unless identiflcation means nothingmore than a somewhat similarly charged feeling. However, why mobilizethe notion of identity to describe that?

Simulation theorJWe appear to be emotionally tied to movie ilctions predominantly through ourrelations to characters, particularly those called protagonists. But what is thelldture of that relation - at least in the largest number of cases? We have justbeen .u-guing th4t the concept of identitlcation does not seem to do it justice.Perhaps the relationship is an instance of what is nowadays called "simulation."

AfFECT AN D Hl!:: MOVING !MAGE \71

Simulation is a concept from the philosophy of mind that has recentlybeen imported into aesthetics . ln the philosophy of mind, the idea is thatwe understand and explajn others, ascertain what they arc feeling, identifytheir intentions, emotions, and motivations, and predict their behavior bysimulating them. That is, we input their beliefs and desires into our ownoff-line cognitive-conative system. Since, ex hyposchesi, our cogrutivc-conati,carchitecture is the same as theirs, if we run their bdids-dcsircs program onourselves - using their software on our hardware, so to spe.lc. - then weshould be able to derive a reasonable fix on what people just l i L . ~ us (l


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172 AfFECT AND THE MOVING IMAGEtlctions, like movies? In short: putatively our relationship with fictionalcharacters is generally like the relationships we have with other people inthe world outside the cinema. The movie fiction invites us to understand them,to apprehend w hat they are feeling and intending, to speculate about what theywill do next, and so forth, just as we must mind-read ou r conspecillcs ineveryday lilc. ln order to do so - in order to fllow the motion picture fiction(the unfolding of the intentions and feelings of fictional characters) - wesimulate them, or at least the leading ones, primarily the protagonists.(Probably it is implausible to suppose that viewers simulate the situations ofminor characters, like the plight of the lawyer in the outhouse in the firstinstallment of Jur I y designed to be understood -- indeed , they are designed to be understoodquickly and clearly by untutored audiences.

Needless to say, this aspiration extends to the way in which the lktion.alcharacters are constructed . Perhaps in ou r ordina.rv experience , our con specilks strike us as opaque in a way that calls ll:lr simulation. I would not


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174 AFfE CT AND THE MOVING IMAGEsay that this never happens, though I am no t convinced that it is happeningall of the time. Nevertheless, I do contend that the kinds of situations thatcall for simulation occur rarely with respect to the kind of fictionalcharacters who inhabit movies, because those characters are intentionallyfabricated in such a way that they wear their feelings and their thoughts ontheir sleeves. Thus, there is little or no need to hypothesize the operationof simulation in response to popular motion picture fictions, since weusually lmow exactly what the fictional characters are feeling and thinkingfaster than it would talce to simulate said fictional beings .

Does it seem impossible that we might penetrate into the heart ofa fictional being so easily? To establish that it is not impossible, let us takea brief digression into literary fiction before returning to the case of movies .Most popular literary fictions employ the device of free indirect discourse.This means that the author can narrate what the character is thinkingand feeling from both the inside and the outside. We have her contextdest.Tibed for us, often in emotionally suggestive terms, her physical statesdelineated, and we are also made privy to he r thoughts. In such circumstances there is no call for simulation. We are just told what the characteris feeling and thin1cing. Perhap s some readers use the text as a script forattempting to raise similar emotions in themselves. I do n 't, but I wouldn'twant to claim that others are like me in this respect. Nevertheless, itshould be dear that there is no pressure to mobilize simulation theory incases like this in order to explain how we come to grasp the feelings andthoughts of the protagonist. We are told them outright.

Of course, this feature of literary fictions is no t as common in audiovisual fictions (though there are exceptions, from Diary if Country Priest toThe Twil19ht Zone). That is, we do not typically enter the minds ofprotagonists as frequently in movies and TV as we do in literary fictions .But, on the other hand, it is true that quite often the characters in theseartforms do tell us precisely what they are feeling and what they arethinking, often by way of dialogue with interlocutors. And even in thosecases where the characters do not explicitly articulate their state of mind,I would still urge that the characters in movies manifest their feelings andthoughts so openly that simulation is efl"ectively beside the point.

How is this possible? Perhaps one way to get at this is to ask whetherwith respect to everyday experience simulation and the theory-theoryexhaust ou r way of gaining access to the feelings and thoughts of others.Arguably, they do not. Often - in fact, probably most often - we imputethougbts and feelings to others on the basis of schemas, scripts, prototypes,contextual cues, exemplars, and other heuristics, rather than by means of a

AFFECT AND THE MOVING IMAGE 175theory or a simulation. These stratagems, in turn, enable us to inler theinner states of others.

Confronted with a co-worker who has just been !Ired or friend who baslost a loved one, we infer on the basis of a culturally shared saipt th.tt, allthings being equal, they are down. lf their shoulders are slouched and theireyelids heavy, we recognize these as signs of distress in virtue of ou r prototypefor distress . We have no need to perform a 11imulation, because, throughexperienc e, we have amassed a repertoire of schcmas, scripts, prototypes, andcontextual and/ or recognitional cues, among other heuristics, to k.cy us to theinner states of conspecifics .

When we hear that a relative has secured a long-sought-after job, allthings being equal, we suppose that she is happy and we rejoice tor her.There is no need for simulation. We have access to a body of prototypesregarding emotional responses in certain contexts as well as recognitionalcues, such as tacial expressions and postures, which enable us to as$CSS theemotional states of others . T h e ~ arc not theories and they are not appliedby subsuming particuJar situations under nomological generalizations as thetheory-theory might have it. Rather, th.:y are p r o t o t y p e s ~ schemas, s


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176 A fH oCT AN D TH f MOVIN(; IMAGE

MorcoYcr, with respect to this particular TV series, ou r surmise will almostalways be confirmed when Samantha slyly, albeit redundantly, confidesher desires to he r friends, Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte. No r does thisseem to me to be a peculiar example of the way in which characters inpopular motion pk1:ure fictions function . Instead it appears to be the norm.

Perhaps supporting evidence for this hypothesis can be drawn from ourreactions to movie villains. Movie Villains, especially very, very evil oneslike Michael Meyers, are probably among the most psychologically opaquebeings arow1d . By rights, then, we should try to simulate them . ButI conjecture that we never do . Why? Because, we render them intelligibleby means of ou r schema for stalker/slashers (though this is a schema thatadmittedly derives more from the movies than from daily experience -thank God) .

The point of emphasizing the operation of recognitional cues and otherheuristics in negotiating ou r emotive relationships to fictional charactersin movies, of course, is to show that there is little motivation for hypothesizing the operation of simulation in response to the protagonists in popularmotion pictures . For the problem that simulation is supposed to solve withrespect to understanding the teelings and thoughts of others in everyday lifedoes no t gencra1ly arise with regard to popular motion picture fictions becausemovies intensively exploit the schemas, scripts, prototypes, exemplars, andcontextual and recognitional cues that comprise ou r heuristics for discerningthe inner lives of others.

Movicmalc.crs build chara


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178 AFFECT AND THE MOVING IMAGEendurtng weU-being of its object - a desire that things worlc. out "her. In order to be the object of this pro-attitude, the person tn qumust be thought to be worthy of our benevolence in light of ou r interprojects, values, loyalties, allegiances, and/or moral commitments.some fictional character so-and -so is appraised to be worthy of ourpasstng desire that things go well for her and this is linked to pfeeling tones when gratified and negative ones when frustrated, we are in theemotional state that I am calling sympathy. If "sympathy" st:riles you a.ssaccharin-sounding, then you are wek"'me to refer to it as "benevolence, oreven more aridly as "a pro-attitude."

Though sympathy may initially appear to be just another examplevectorially converging state, i t is important to note that it need not be .sympathy does not always -- and in any event does not necessarily - tteven vcctorially, the way in which the character feels. This is due to the.that sympathy concerns what we believe to be the genuine well-being of thecharacter. Should the heroine fall head over heels for some lounge- lizardlLothario, she might be in ecstasy, whereas our sympathetic response w uldbe anxiety-ridden, since we surmise that she is headed for trouble. Altbou bon occasion, sympathy may converge vectorially upon the emotions ofcharacters we care for, this is not required tor the state in question to untas sympathy.

The suggestion that sympathy plays a role in our emotional involvem ntwith fictional characters is fairly unexceptionable . However, what is beingclaimed now is more than that . I am arguing that sympathy, along withantipathy (which we will discuss presently), constitutes the major emotivecement between audiences and the pertinent movie characters. But whysuppose that sympathy holds this place of privilege?

Obviously, during the course of a motion picture , the viewer undergoesmany emotional states. On e is angry for awhile, then sad, then happy, thengripped with suspense, some laughter erupts, some tears, and then we arehappy again . Sometimes sympathy for the protagonist is so strong that youcan feel it. At other times, it may appear to take the back seat for aninterlude of comic an1usement. So why select out of this welter of affectssympathy as the premier emotion? '. The first re.l.Son might be called its breath. Sympathy for the protagonistts the most pervasive emotion from the beginning to the end of the movie.As soon as sympathy is secured, unless it is later intentionally neutralizedby the creator of the motion picture, it stays on the alert, following theprotagonist's fortunes throughout, registering distress as they waver, andpleasure as they rise .

AFFECT AND THE MOVIN G IMAGE 179

thy, once enli.sted, is constantly on call throughout the movte.y no other emotive stance - save perhaps antipathy toward the

- i s so long-lasting. 'The indignation we feel toward the surly prison,who cuffs the hero comes and goes . But ou r sympathy tor the

D n J t a ~ n i s endures. it provides the emotive optic through which wethe narrative from one end to the other. Typically, each event inry is weighed in light of ou r sympathy for the protagonist; of every' n it is pertinent to ask: whether it advances or deters her fortunes, even

some cases, the answer is neither.protagonists in motion pictures have goals and i n t c n s t s that are

to miss. The narrative trajectory usually involves the accomplishmentth goals and the satisfaction of these interests in the face of variouses . We follow this quest from the per:spectivc of sympathy, cheering

protagonists onwards as the y advance a.nd feeling consternation whenfalter. Of course, as already noted, sometimes our sympathy for the

ter puts us out of synch with them - as when believe the person protagonist trusts to be a scow1drel . But still we track the tmfolding

narrative in terms of a sympathetic viewpoint, one that disposes us to careut his best interests rather than his subjective assessment of them.

Sympathy is the most persistent emotional bond that we have withr p t to the fictional protagonists; in this sense it generally possessesm r breadth than other emotions elicited by moving pictures. Furthcr

re, sympathy also has what might be called special depth. For it is ourrmpathy toward the protagonist that shapes our overall reception of the~ o n . When we are angered by the way in which the heroine is mi.s tT 'd , that anger itself is subsidiary to the sympathy that we bear towardh r. That sympathy underlies and reinforces our anger. It is ou r symp.1thyfor the character that disposes us to regard her as inside ou r ndwork ofconcern, and, therefore, to assess an ~ c e done to her as somethingperpetrated against one of "our own." The negative emotions that wemuster in response to the protagonist's setbacks are a function of oursympathy for her. Sympathy is the real foundation here. That is why we sayit has depth, even special depth .

Two considerations then can be marshaled to endorse the hypothesis thatsympathy is the leading emotional bond between viewers and movie protagmrists, namely, that sympathy appears to have greater breath and greaterdepth than any other competing candidate . The obvious exception heremay be the antipathy, distaste, and hatred we often direct to antagonillts,a.k.a. movie villains . However, though more needs to b t said about this, sinceantipathy for the bad guys is usu.illy the reverse side of - and, indeed,


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180 Af fECT ANIJ THE MOVJNt; IMAGF.furu:tion of - the sympathy we feel toward their rival protagonists, the

of antipathy is less of COWltercxample to ow- hypothesis than it i acorollary.

Granting that sympathy is the glue that keeps us connected emotito the protagonists, the question remains about the way in whichare able to relTUit our sympathies as effectively as they do. In life u ithe movies, our benevolent or altruistic attitudes toward others depend ofactors such as lc.iruhip, group memberships of all sorts, and group in l! rests. Of course, for both artistic and ftnancial reasons, the creatorsmovies are aiming at larger audiences than a single extended family doften at audiences that cross regional, ethnic, national, and religiboundaries. And even where their targets are less than global, they mustbe careful not to trigger the sectarian difl'erences that always exist invirtu.ally every large group . This clearly presents the creators of pop ulilfmotion pictures with a problem to be liolved, namely, how to enlist thecare and concern - the sympathetic feelings - for their fictional protagonists from mass audiences of heterogeneous backgrounds and different;often potentially clashing, interests.

That is, if sympathy is the crux of our relationship to the relevantcharacters in the movies, how is this sympathy mobilized? In everyday life,we extend ow- sympathies to those with whom we share interests or projectsor loyalties, or to those who exemplify values of which we approve, or tothose who fall under the protection of certain moral principles. But mostof the interests, projects, and loyalties upon which we base many of owquotidian sympathies are highly specific to us . Needless to say, the moviemaker cannot hope to activate on behalf of the protagonists the individualizedinterests of every viewer. Rather, she must aim at engaging the audience at alarrly generic level of interests, projects, and loyalties. That is, she must fmdsome common ground or touchstone amongst the diverse audience whichwill encow-age us to find the protagonists to be worthy of ow- good will.

This is a design problem for the popular moviemaker. She must fmd away in which to elicit from a disparate audience the converging desire thatthe protagonists do well - that is, she must elicit our felt conviction that itwould be good for the protagonists to do well, or that they deserve to dowell. What is the solution to this problem?

As a matter of empirical generalization, l conjecture that the mostcommon answer to thia challenge is the creation of protagonists whocommand the audience's moral endorsement. In other words, morality, ofan extremely broad cast, provides the moviemaker with an interest, orproject, or loyalty upon which viewers of diverse backgrounds can converge.

AFFECT ANIJ THE MOVINt; tMAt ; f 181

er, inasmuch as there are certain moral t o u d L ~ t o n e s shared a.:.rosspopulations, the moviemaker has a lever on their allegiance .

B presenting protagonists who are morally appealing, the movicmak.erures the criteria! wherewithal to garner the sympathy that is requ.in.>d

r intended audiences to be absorbed by the story. Such protagonistswill meet the criterion of being deserving of ou r benevolence beU&use they

morally deserving. It is no accident that the protagonists in movies areguys. Good guys are precisely what the movie doctor calls for -r s likely to e n g e n d t a pro-attitude from hett:rogeneous audiencestherwise varied and often conflicting interests and loyalties. Morality offairly generic sort found in movies is just what people from ditferent

ounds are apt to agree upon, at lea.lit roughly. For im;ta.nce, few' uld disagree that Maximus is wronged when his family is sl.lughtcred in1 diator, or that Cinderella is badly treated by her s t t ~ p m o t h c r and sisters,

that Superman is a very nice person or that Story in Lady m the m1w\! uld no t be eaten by the Scrunch.

Morality, especially of a fairly widely shared and often nearly u n i ~ e r s a l u e, supplies the moviemaker with the interests, or projects, or loyalti or touchstones of affirmation which audiences from similar cultures,Jdeven, frequently, from dissimilar ones, c-.m agree. The protagonists, for

pie, will typically go ou t of their way to protect the lantc and tht. halt,th helpless and the sick, the very young, the old, and the defenseless,\\ hile simultaneously treating them with dignity and respect. They e v i n e t ~ asense of fairness, justic-e, loyalty, honor, and honesty, and .u-e altogetherpro-social and especially pro-family (in principle, even if they're single), atleast where the families in question arc portrayed as wholesome ones (asopposed to the Texas Chai..nsaw Clan). These characters tell the truth andtheir keep their promises to good people, because they, themsclvc.s, .u-cwhat we calloood people. _The protagonists in movies arc presented as morally righteous. This isundeniable in the greatest nwnber of c a s ( ~ s . But even so-called anti-heroesusually oppose some form of compromised moral order in the nanlc of adeeper sense of rectitude. Once you get past their gruiT e x t e r i o r ~ ~ , hardboiled detectives always seem to discover that society is even moredisreputable than they. are. In the end, with respe


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182 AfFEC T AN O TH E MOVING IM .Gfhow anti-social the protagonist appears at llrst glance, he or she is qu1revealed to be pro-social at heart. Moreover, this is bow it shouls.H w er, they fall in love and kiss their way to some kind of prO\idential

uilibrium; they will live happily and unhappily ever after in the normalpr rtions . .What is striking about just ,l1y Luck and this is also t r u ( ol many otherr 1 tic comedies - is that there is no real villain. There arc somt' peoplew present temporary obstacles to the m.un charactt:rs, bu t they ~ I T notuU ..fledged antagonists. They arc not on tht: S


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186 AFFECT AND THE MOVING IMAGEfellow conversationalist - grimacing when she grimaces - we secure someinkling of her inner state . The feedback from the disposition of our facial~ u s d e s buzzes our autonomic nervous system in a way that is presumablytsomorphic to what is going on in her system, so long as she is notdissembling. This does not give us full access to he r emotional state butit provides an important clue, since it yields something like a facsirru'te ofthe bodily-feeling component of her overall state. It does not tell us herprecise appraisal of the object of her state, but it does relay the visceralsensation that goes with that appraisal .. S i ~ l a r l y , gestures and postures are also mimicked - though usually onlym a highly truncated manner - in order to gather information about whatis percolating inside our conspecifics . If everyone around us starts lookingupward, we do too . This mimicry is predominantly automatic, not intentional. It is, in all probability, part of our biological herit age.

Children on their caregiver's knee evince mirror reflexes in abundance.Clearly this behavior is a boon for learning the emotional repertoire - andmuch else - of one's culture, for it enables the child to discern thesituations the caregiver associates with feelings of distress or elation.Among adults, mirror reflexes are also highly adaptive, since they facilitatesocial communication. Albeit subliminally, one can intuit - at least veryb r ~ a d l y -,the temperament of a room or the disposition of one's spouse byusmg one s body as a detector of the kind of internal sensations that are aptto be associated with the manifest expressions of others. These communicative advantages, moreover, are so adaptive that they are probably bredin the bone .

When hy mimicry 1 "catch" the negative vibes or feelings of distress ofanother, I immediately survey the environment in order to locate thesource of 1m discomfort. His negative affect alerts me in my own musculature to the likelihood that I may soon need to mobilize some vectoriallyconvergmg emotton, such as fear or possibly anger. Mirror reflexes, whichmay be linked to what neuroscientists call mirror neurons, are no t onlyrelevant for gleaning information about what surrounds other people . Byrelaying to us something of what they are feeling, mirror reflexes help uscope with others. Detecting that one's boss is in a foul mood via mirrorreflexes is useful in deciding when to ask him- or not ask him- for a raise .And, in addition, mirror reflexes are immensely functional for coordinatinggroup aL--tivities - for getting the troops reeved up as they march otf intobattle in lock-step camaraderie . In sum, the human capacity for mirrorreflexes is, in all likelihood, a sturming asset from the perspect ive of naturalselection, since it is a means for gathering affective information about

AFFECT AND THE MOVING IMAGE unp cities and for synchronizing joint ventures, from facc-to-tacc

nversations to cheerleading to military maneuvers.. Aestheticians have been aware of the phenomenon of mirror retlexes at

t since the writings of Theodor Upps . And the filmmaker SergeiLein explicitly attempted to exploit Upps' insights not only in bis

th ry of filmmaking, but in his practice as weU. Though neither he norUpps employed the terminology of mirror reflexes, Eisenstein i.ndudedclose-ups of stereotypical facial expressions and body parts, such asclenched fists, in the hope of inspiring the sort of mimicry in viewersthat would prepare them viscerally for the ltinds of emotional states that hewished to arouse in them. Less theoretically inclined motion picture makersalso discovered the importance of such affective modeling intuitively and ithas been a staple of popular cinema since the 1920s. This is a legacy,furthermore, that fUm ha.s bequeathed to TV. Undoubtedly, a significantamount of the affect stirred up by audiovisual entertainments is connectedto the way in which they educe muscular mimicry in their audiences .

Watching a videotape of Ril'erdance, the audience taps its feet, accessing asimulacrum of the spirited pulse of the dancers . As Bruno in Hitchcock'sStranaers on a Train reaches for the lighter that he hal; dropped into thesewer, our arm muscles flex, within the circumSLTibed ambit of our theaterseat, in a manner echoing his in order to help u.s fed his intention withinour body. It is not that we identify with Bruno morally or emotionally, butwe ape bis gesture in order to help u.s determine a glimmer of what he isfeeling. At the conclusion of Al1en &surrect1on, we get a feeling, strangelyenough, for the monster's pain that results from his mother's betrayal, notbecause we identify with rupley's progeny but because we involwtt.uilymimic his facial expression.*

And even before we see the monster displayed on screen, the SLTeamingvisage of its victim, inscribed with h o r r ~ d framed in dose-up, promptsus to tense up our faces analogously in a way that signals through ourmuscles that things are about to get unpleasant. The activity on K T ~ primes mimicry of a partial or limited variety which can deliver information about the internal states of charru.:ten which we sample in terms ofsimilar sensations in ourselves. Though no t full-scale emotions - but onlyfeelings sans objects and, thus, without appraisals thereof -- these sensations may nevertheless be a serviceable source of the aficctive grip suchmotion pictures have on us in at lea.st two ways.

* I owe this example to Amy Coplan .


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188 AFH:CT ANO THI' MOVING IMAGE

fint, these mirror r e t l e x e ~ contribute to keeping the excitement I v Iin our bodies elevated, thereby realizing one of the abiding prom.ise$popubr movies. And second, they may mae available information t h a ~ can integrate into our more encompassing emotional responses tocharacters. The bodily feelings of distress that are imprinted on thecontorted features of the protagonist are relayed to us by ow- sel tiimitation of his expression so that we can use the dysphoric taste of tsensation as a recognitional cue for the kind of emotion that is approprion his behalf - a$ , tor example, sorrow would be appropriate were we tdetect by motor mimkry that he is feeling some sort of pain. That ,mirror retlexes may function as sub-routines in the formation of uremotional responses to fictional chara


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190 AFFE CT AND THE MOVING IMAGEover our affective life, including, notably, our emotions, that nexus ofmind omd body.

Movies can, so to speak, reach under our skin and stir up our feelings.Moviemakers, in this regard as in others, are amateur psychologists,experimenting intuitively with the human sensory apparatus for thepurpose of art, fame, and money, but often with results that sometimesreveal how we, as incarnated beings, work. This is no t said in order toattempt to reduce the moving image to a repertoire of biomechanicaltriggers. The moving image is undeniably a cultural creation . But it isimportant not to lose sight of the fact that culture, including our affectiveand emotional life, is constructed out of the biological possibilities delivered up by natural selection, often for purposes never dreamt of on thesprawling savannahs where those possibilities took root.

Suggested ReadingT h ~ l ~ a d i n g v o l u m ~ with respect to motion pictures and the emotions is PassionateV i ~ w s , edited by Carl Plantinga and Gregory Smith (Baltimore, MD : JohnsHopkins University Press, 1999) . Though not devoted to affect in motion picturesin particular, but to ar t and the emotions in general, another very importantvolume is Emocion and tht Arcs, edited by Mette Hjort and Sue Laver (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1997) . On the range of affect in motion pictures, seejinhee Choi, " F i t s ~ Startles: Cognitivism Revisited,"Journallf Aesthetics and .tireCrilicism 61 :2 (Spring 2003), 149-57.

The contemporary discussion of the paradox of fiction was introduced by ColinRadford in u How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina? " Proceedinas dthe Ariscocdian Sodtey, supplement 49 ( 1975), 67- 81. One of the most importantattempts to solve the paradox of fiction is Kendall Walton's "Fearing Fictions,"Journal of Philosophy 75:1 (jan. 1978), 5- 27 . Interesting comments on Walton'sarticle include Alex Neill, "Fear, Fiction and Make Believe," Journal l j Aestheticsand At! Crnicism 49: 1 (Winter 1991), 47--56, and Richard Moran, "The Expressionof Feeling in I m a g i n a t i o n , ~ The Philosophical Review 103:1 (jan . 1994), 75- 106 .Kendall Walton responds to some of his critics in his article in Emotion and the Arcs .

Concerning the relation of the emotions to movie genres, sources include FloLeibowitz, "Apt Feelings, or Why 'Women's Films' Aren't Trivial," in Post- Theory:A.econsuuctina Film Studies, edited by David Bordwell and Noel Carroll (Madison:University of WiJcoruin Press, 1996), and The Philosophy ofHorror, by Noel Carroll(New York. : Routledge, 1990). Carroll's view is criticized in many places,including Bcrys Gaut'a "The Enjoyment of Horror: A Response to Carroll," BritishJournallfAesthaics 35 :3 (july 1995), 284--9. On suspense, see Noel Carroll, "The

AFFECT AND THE MOVING IMAGE 191Paradox of Suspense," in his &yond AestheCJCJ: PhJiomphJCal E=ys (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2001 ) .

On the issue of identification, see Amy Coplan, "Empathic Engagement inNarrative Fictions," Journal l j Aesthetics and Art Crrtlcum 62:2 (Spring 2004) , 141-52 .See also Berys Gaut, "Identification and Emotion in N a r r a t i v ~ Film," in P=onauViews, ed. Plantinga and Smith. Criticism of Gaut and Coplan can be found in NoelCarroll, "Sympathy for the Devil," in Phil0$0phy and che Sopronm, ~ d i t c d by RidurdGreene (LaSalle, ILL: Open Court, 2004), and id., ~ o n the Ties th.u Bind:Characters, the Emotions, and Popular F i c t i o n s , ~ in P h 1 l o s c p ~ y and c h ~ lnurpral.ltionljPopular Culcure, edited by William Irwin and Jorge Garcia (Lanham, MD: Rov.m.m& littlefield, 2006).

The most seminal articles regarding simulation theory with respect to aestheticsare Gregory Currie's "The Moral Psychology of Fiction," ,iustr.Uasian Journal l jPhilosopJy 73:2 (1.995), ~ . 5 0 - 9 , a n d ~ " l m ~ g i n a t i o n and S i l n u l . t t i ~ : :\esthcTMeets Cogruuve Soence, m Mental 5rmulacion, edited by Marun Davies and To!yStone (Oxford : Black.well Publishing, 1995). Critidam of this view IDA) be foundin Aaron Mesk.in and jonathan Weinberg, "Emotion, Fi

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