Whissel got to her most interesting point in the last page or two of writing. She pointed out that the dramatization of the digital multitude has mediated important issues that are significant problems. While she mostly presented examples of the digital multitude and its effects, rather than evidence for this specific claim, it is a reasonable conclusion to make, and it helps to explain a certain complacency that we find in place of outrage that might be more appropriate, given the myriad of crises the world faces and the way they're being handled. It's also worth noting that the world outside the U.S., with less addiction to/access to movies, is also less complacent.
This idea could even go a step further, to digital effects other than the digital multitude. A number of "Disaster Movies" have come out in the last decade, based on digitized effects depicting exaggerated versions of real problems: global warming, meteor strikes, the switching of the poles, etc. These are real problems, that are largely ignored, but could have catastrophic impacts on humanity; but they are largely ignored. The question can certainly be raised: how much of this is just normal head-in-the-sand human nature, and how much because the threats have been made into myth by digital depiction?
Let's be a bit more careful about generalizations, Mike--after all, Hollywood makes a giant chunk of its profits outside the U.S. these days (and even historically). What you're referring to in Whissel's argument, namely the possibility that virtually dealing with or conquering a problem like ecological disaster or alien invasion might lead to real-life complacency or feelings of control/security, is something worth pursuing (but as you note, easier to posit than to prove). You call it numbing, but it's almost the opposite--overstimulation that leads to catharsis or apathy?
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