h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I watch RomComs - I have even said "Darling, let's watch a RomCom tonight". Do I do this because I feel my cultural norms have forced me into a dead end from which there is no escape, only re-affirmation? Maybe.

The real problem for me is that I can't do suspense or stress at the moment. My life is full of it. So I am limited to escapist drama with totally predicable outcomes (the only question is whose upper arm is bruised) or non-fiction. Theatre and opera is good too.

I know quite a few others who are stuck in the same space. Their bookshelves are now almost entirely devoid of stories and are filled instead with biography, social history and various sub-genres of engineering reference. Oh, and science fiction.

I get your point about avoiding stress in entertainment - but I have a question about opera.

Opera's so emotionally....er, fraught. Does it not make you anxious because it's so over-the-top? Or because you can't tell what they're singing about, anyway? Or is it just that nobody takes opera seriously anymore?

The pace of it helps - it can take a full 10 minutes to die from a dagger wound.

But more seriously, emotions are the subject of the work, narrative is secondary. So you don't have to feel fraught yourself, the singers do all of that for you.

It may be draining, as all good art can be, but the fraughtness is all experienced vicariously.

Stress free in other words. Alleviating stress as a problem in this galactic civilization at least.

Hey, cool analysis! I agree: it's hard to get too anxious when listening to the end of 'Manon Lescaut'. The ability of sopranos to sing their hearts out while dying picturesquely is one of the charms of it all.

Personally, I'm a bigger fan of baroque opera than bel canto. And there, you realise you're practically crying with joy, and somebody's singing a song to a tree, and they're dressed up like the Duke-of-Somebody's comical idea of a Greek god.

I'm a fan of romcoms for similar reasons to you - a bit of a 'guilty pleasure' but they are entertaining and good for watching with a loved one, so I say why not .

(unlike the first film I saw at the cinema with my partner, where there was a horribly violent scene that set off my worst nightmares, so my darling had to hold me, rather than the other way round like I had planned for our first date!)

I agree with you about opera being vicarious angst in general - The Ring Cycle left me in pieces at the end, but even La Boheme was relatively refreshing with cathartic songs, and I particularly enjoyed Die Fledermaus