i feel like when i was younger i exclusively did the first thing, just relate to the main character. but now it’s more fascinating to zoom out more.
ex I’m watching Black Swan atm and instead of being like oh dancing is hard the teacher wants to fuck me etc, I’m thinking about like, that’s a lot of effort just to do ballet, which the opening 5 minutes establishes is a completely irrelevant art form
suspension of disbelief – I still use film / TV / movies as escapism so it’s not so much as empathizing with the lead as it is losing myself in the story