Warning: Do NOT follow the link in this story if you do not wish to know potential spoilers for the new season of Alias. I wish I didn’t know, but I already did, so I read it. End of warning.
While reading this story about the new season of Alias, I noticed a reader poll in the sidebar. Consider:
The answers are stupid. Just like movie studios delayed disaster/terrorist films after September 11th, 2001, any new movie delays in the aftermath of new terrorism are attributable to obvious business logic. When a major calamity strikes a society, impacting most members, even if the impact is merely on an individual’s national pride, demand for calamity entertainment withers. Why would a movie studio, in the business of making entertainment money, release supply into evaporating demand? Yes, an event like September 11th was beyond any imaginable scale, so some sensitivity factors in (an assumption I’m willing to concede). But it makes up little of the overall decision, because what if the nation wanted that movie as a catharsis? Would the movie studio show it for free as a matter of sensitivity to the victims? Of course not.
To news outlets who offer such worthless content: if you’re going to bother me with silly, poorly-reasoned polls, show me an ad instead.