Think about this sentence for a bit. Seriously. Compare the two positions you state within it and see if you can't figure out the appeal to me. "Gee, Mr. Prospector, I can't figure out why you like that goldmine so much."



That's the raison d'etre of movie charcters - death. Movies and TV shows exist to offer access to things we can't get in real life, either through their non-existence, their financial and logistical inaccessibility, their immorality if done to real people or the lack of cooperative partners. Those offered reasons cover all of reality TV, science fiction, documentaries and pornography. It took a while for them to accept this, because when TV started out and there were only like a dozen channels and maybe four corporations controlling all the content, they didn't have to be so market driven, and for decades were able to settle for basically filming plays and live entertainment. Then along came cable, and then satellite TV and with tons of air time, they started finding out what people wanted. And they wanted voyeurism and otherwise inaccessible thrills, namely: celebrities, sex and death. In short, dying is the ultimate purpose of movie characters who are not going to take off their clothes.