A big talking point in film journalism lately is escapism: According to many writers, audiences go to movies to escape their real life, and both box office and awards shows reflect this. The Guardian claimed that only two of the top 20 box office hits of 2016—“Jason Bourne” and “Central Intelligence”—were set in “the real world.”

The nonstandardized definition of escapist films seems to offer three categories of movies: films set in a world with fantastical elements (“Rogue One” or “Civil War”), historical films (“Ben-Hur”) and films set in reality that blindly ignore all modern problems (“La La Land”). Apparently even the Golden Globes and Academy Awards nominations reflect this questionable trend. According to film critic Milos Stehlik, “very few of [the movies nominated], except perhaps for ‘Moonlight,’ offer any kind of a sense of connectedness, of trying to understand other people.”

It seems alternative facts are bleeding into film discourse because there’s nothing in the film world as blatantly false as that sentence. The truth is that all the films nominated offer important truths about life, whether presented through real world circumstances or fantasized realities.

Before I attempt to destroy the escapist argument, let’s talk about the way the concept is discussed. Often, escapism is painted in a negative light, as if humans are somehow morally at fault for wanting to spend two hours thinking about something other than their actual life. The vibe I always get from reading these critiques is that either we should be spending those two hours eliminating global poverty or that we should be watching a movie that accurately portrays the horrors of modern life. Sure, both of those options have their place in life and their own importance, but two hours away from reality isn’t going to rot our brains. This sort of condescension is bourgeois bulls—.

People should be able to watch whatever they want, but I think escapism is completely false for another reason. There’s a misunderstanding about the meaning of film that’s implicit in the escapist argument. Yes, film exists to transport us out of our sad lives and into someone else’s slightly less sad life for a couple hours. But I firmly believe that by doing so, film allows and even encourages us to process our own reality.

Hollywood doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Elements of reality bleed into movies, whether the filmmakers want them there or not, because humans write what we know. There’s no way to get around having real life situations in film, regardless of the setting.

My point is that escapism isn’t really escapist. The power of film is that it can reveal things about our reality that we may not have been able to see ourselves. This is especially the case in science fiction and fantasy films, the genre most accused of being escapist. In fact, this is the entire point of the genre. Science fiction is truly about understanding what makes us human through the exploration of the inhuman. For decades, the genre has held up a mirror to who we are.

Fantasy has a similar function. There’s almost nowhere in the genre you can go to escape Nazi analogies (consider the “Star Wars” empire, or Lord Voldemort or the literal Nazi group Hydra in “Captain America”). So is it really escapism when we’re seeing our own problems played out in a different world? How is “Rogue One” a pleasurable escape from reality when it’s a story of revolt against a fascist regime and (spoilers) everyone you grow to love sacrifices themselves for the cause? It is pleasurable of course, but not because it’s a comforting two-hour and 13-minute trip to paradise. Audiences don’t want comforting perfection; that’s why in all forms of storytelling we are told to create conflict to drive the story and entice audiences. We do eventually wrap up the conflict, often in a happy ending. But so what? Occasionally we do deserve nice things.

I think film is about more than comfort. It’s about understanding our own reality through understanding someone else’s. It’s about experiencing a sequence of emotions and emerging with a different perspective or different emotion than when we came in.

Let’s get personal.

I go to movies to cry. I can cry at just about any movie. I love to cry. I prefer happy crying, but I think sad crying is an important cathartic release. I could cry alone in my bed in a silent room, but I worry that if I delved into all the reasons I have to cry right now, I would begin to tear up and never stop. I’m afraid of the spiral. Instead, I hit up a quality film that makes me feel all the things, and I cry sporadically over a two-hour period. The movie ends and I wipe my tears and carry on, feeling refreshed. Certain things will trigger the cry, like a grandmother who makes me miss my dead grandma, but by the end of the cry, I’m not even sure what I’m crying about. The friends and family I’ve lost? The perseverance of neo-imperialism across the globe? The fears preventing me from pursuing my dreams? The inevitable march towards death? It doesn’t even matter. It’s a catharsis, in a relatively safe space and a contained time period. It prompts and allows me to feel what I need to feel and provides a reason to stop, either by wrapping up the plot in a satisfying end or just by simply ending and forcing me to show my puffy tear-streaked face to everyone around me.

I also go to movies to be inspired. I’ve been trading off between seeing “Moana” and “Rogue One” for a couple months now, as a way to mainline inspiration and hope straight to my soul. (They’re both still in theaters, for your information.) Everyone’s inspired by different things, and right now, those are the two that are doing it for me. So more than just making me cry, these two films (and many others) offer a defibrillator jolt to my heart when I’m honestly not sure how to exist in this world.

A lot of movies send a similar message: It’s going to be OK, even when it’s really, really not OK. And while I hate being told that it’s going to be OK, seeing raw survival (of characters or of causes or ideas) on a giant screen is somehow comforting. Someone might argue that I’m being placated or consuming a comforting lie, but it’s not about feeling good. It’s about being OK with feeling bad and being inspired to work to feel good again, whether by trying to change yourself or your circumstances. (Whether this is Western ideological propaganda is another article entirely.) Was the ending of “Arrival” happy? Not really. But it still felt right, and it still left me mulling over my personal life, wondering if I’d do things differently if I knew how they’d end. How can the Guardian claim “Arrival” is an escapist film when it’s about global politics, family tragedy and the meaning of life? This goes for nearly every other movie out there.

In case you think that I’m just one big emotional trash heap (I am), let me clarify that I don’t only go to movies to cry. I also go to enjoy action thrills, beautiful imagery, funny humans, rad music and all the other reasons everyone buys movie tickets. I also see a lot more movies than just “Moana” and “Rogue One,” if you can believe it. But I do truly believe that cinema is more than just thrill and distraction. There’s a purpose, intended or not.

I exit most of the movies I see changed, even if only slightly. I exit them having learned something about reality, having felt something worth feeling and having acquired a perspective that helps me live my own life. That’s a power that cannot and should not be brushed away by blind arguments about escapism. Reality is ever-present (sometimes unfortunately), even in the unreal. Seeing it refracted through the lens of cinema can actually inform rather than distract. And even if it didn’t, we deserve a couple hours spent together in a dark room with a nice snack every now and then.