bonnie and clyde

This post isn't really about Bonnie or Clyde, but I'm in a hurry and wanted to at least remind myself to talk about this at some point. In a letter to the New York Times, a reader talked about seeing Bonnie and Clyde when she was a teenager. She found the violence extremely disturbing, but that's not the point either. It's what she then wrote:

I thought the point of engaging with a narrative was to identify with those portrayed and thereby enlarge one’s own experience.

I suppose it goes without saying how wrong-headed I think this statement is. But for now, consider this a bookmarker, in case I come back to the point later.