"Real life is becoming indistinguisable from the movies"

With regards to the above statement, I believe that it all depends on the context on which you look at it. If you look at it from a literal sense, it isn't true. You wouldn't walk down the street and see a superhero saving somebodies life, or see a giant creature destroying a city, it just wouldn't happen, which is obvious.

However, you can see the point of this statement by looking deeper. The way families are portrayed in the films is like an ideal of family life: what the movies is dictating that you should aspire to for your family: The Man providing for his wife and his children, the Woman staying home and looking after the house, the Children getting good grades at school and generally being respectful and content. Anything other than this is considered dysfunctional in the world of the movies. It is the same case with conversation, as each person takes turns in saying a statement and replying in a very linear format, and to talk over one another and interrupt is not just seen as rude, it simply does not happen in the movies.

Real life isn't like this. The point Adorno and Horkheimer are trying to put across with this statement is not that superheroes are beginning to reveal themselves, but that we are starting to get sucked in by the ideals of fiction and idealism. We are starting to look out ourselves and compare our lives to what is portrayed on screen in the cinema and it is destroying the natural progression of the individual human culture and generating what Adorno and Horkheimer refer to as 'mass culture'.

I believe this statement to be true in some aspects, but I also think that human intelligence and common sense are key factors in this. It doesn't take a lot to recognise some aspects of the movies are not like real life and In my opinion, the only people who are going to be sucked in to this kind of thinking are the people who want to be sucked in, as a form of escapism to a way of life that is better than their own. It is all down to the individual to decides against this way of thinking, then perhaps the masses will follow.

In modern times, I feel that the movies are becoming more like real life, with the creation of gritty dramas and science fiction. These kind of films only ever seem to find a cult following, as they represent real life too well, making audiences uncomfortable: It doesn't suit the escapist nature of the average person. In the end, I do not believe real life is actually becoming like the movies, I feel more that the masses are trying to emulate the movies in their daily lives, but it's a battle we will fight and lose as real life doesn't permit the laws of film.