But, it turns out what we're exposed to on the news might not be enough to fill our needs for violence and death. Ulaby describes the view of author and professor Mikita Brotman, a "horror scholar" educated at Oxford. (Aren't most graduates of English private schools, whether perpetrators or victims, laureates in torture?)
Regarding Iraq, Brotman maintains "that although we hear about war atrocities, the only pictures we've seen that can compare to the shocking images from other, earlier wars are the photographs from Abu Ghraib."
"And so there's this massive disconnect," Brotman herself says, "between what we're told is going on and what we're seeing, which is nothing, nothing at all -- not even coffins. . . . So maybe these vignettes are compensations for what you don't see in real life."
By "vignettes," Brotman means not just the most gory scenes in horror movies, but "war porn" such as the videos made by US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. They feature killing and dead Iraqi bodies scored to death metal or metalcore.
In fact, writes James Harkin in London's Guardian, "Grotesque new horror film franchises such as Hostel and Saw might be movies imitating war porn."
By effectively absolving viewers of being complicit in creating a demand for these films, Brotman goes too far. But, in fact, observing violence, however morbid, may be the product of a natural urge to become familiar with death.
In the process, we may only be trying to deprive it of its sting. But removing death from life breaks a circuit in the life cycle.
Once, people died in our midst and often bodies were laid out in our houses. Today, some may have spent a loved one's final moments with him or her. But most of us only see dead bodies in funeral homes, where the impulse to commune with death is inhibited by modern mortuary practices that reduce bodies to waxen effigies.
Whether or not we're exposed to realistic portrayals of war, terrorism, and torture on the Web, there's more than enough in print and Web reading material to sate our need for violence and death. All that's required is a willingness to imagine words into images. Before we know it, we've entered that subdivision of the imagination called empathy.
As Dr. Fierro remarks in another profile of her, anybody in her field has to have a part of herself "that's willing to be empathetic -- and to suffer the consequence of being empathetic."
Even if we've never understood the difference between it and sympathy, with practice we can extend empathy to the victims of our nation's policies. Thus equipped with compassion, we can make more constructive choices in our lifestyles and in the voting booth. We're then in a position, like Dr. Fierro, to contribute that much more to the common good.
Russ Wellen is the nuclear deproliferation editor for OpEdNews. He's also on the staffs of Freezerbox and Scholars & Rogues.
"It's hard to tell people not to smoke when you have a cigarette dangling from your mouth." -- Mohamed El Baradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency
and 90% of them are firstly just very bad cinematography ( I do not mean commercial success) appeal to the ' freak inside us' that is to the abnormal features of character. Obviously a mature adult can see that it appeals to it but there are not so many mature adults nowadays and you can have a sex scene right beside the corps and no one gives a damn. Self- gratification is the source of income for a huge industry and when we have ' Kill Bill' we should not blame Bill. The US people are raving for spiritual drugs because none of them want to look at themselves in the mirror. And the entertainment industry is haappy to oblige.
BTW, I am the ONLY man in my department full of engineers who does not watch 24, does not watch police shows at all and likes the Lifetime channel.
Maybe it is becaue when I was 13 I was watching the 'Ordinary Fascism' documentary with naked corpses of real people. Nobody shielded me.
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Mark Sashine (46 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3359 comments)
on Friday, January 11, 2008 at 9:14:02 AM
...all over again. It is merely bloodsport for it's own sake...and nothing more.
While I haven't seen the "Hostel" series, I had the unfortunate displeasure to view almost the entirety of the Saw series. After each one, I kept on asking myself, "what's the point?"
I'm not squeamish about blood. Far from it, actually. About the only thing that really drags me to the gag farm is seeing (or hearing or smelling) someone puke. I have watched a few of the Faces of Death series, and even one of the Traces of Death series, and wasn't upset by pictures of true death and so on...to the point that I went to a party set up by a friend with the theme of Italian food and Faces of Death. So, there we were, eating spaghetti, pizza, and other tomato-infused treats while watching real blood flow. Grisly? Yeah, but I was young and always up for the unusual.
But, after watching the Saw series, all I could think is, "what's the point?" Oh sure, we're treated to a parade of Art Nuevo "death", some pretty nasty torture contraptions, and an insane mass murderer getting his jollies while supposedly dispensing justice with the words, "let's play a game". But after all that bullshit, there is no moral, no message, and no point. All there is to the series, IMHO, is "let's see how gross we can make this film." Is that the basis for entertainment?
Apparently. Judging from the prevalence of slasher films, it is.
It would be one thing if movies of this nature explored the true dark side of humanity. Goddess knows, we have more than enough REAL monsters in our history (and even our present) to never have to trot out bullshit like the Saw series.
However, and unfortunately, all we ever get is hackneyed garbage written by kids who masturbated before, during, or after fly wing removal sessions. There is not one drop of redeeming social value in any of that crap...not a bit. AND those films aren't even close to scary...not even close!
And suspenseful...oh, come on! The present crop of slasher writers and directors wouldn't know true suspense if it plunged a dagger into their beating hearts in a darkened back alley, on a full moon night, with bats flying around a street light in the distance, and wolves howling. I mean, where's the suspense when one is watching a bleached blond big busted bimbo bite the dust? You knew her number was up as soon as her face came on screen. Where's the mystery? Where's the suspense?
In what is arguably one of the most suspenseful films ever shot, Psycho, as in the Hitchcock original, you only see one corpse, Norman Bates' mother. You don't see the knife plunging into Janet Leigh's skin in the shower scene. You see a knife moving up and down, and "blood" running down the drain, and the infamous screeching strings behind it all. Scary? Oh yeah, next to The Exorcist, it was one of the most frightening things I have ever seen. The only thing that made me jump higher was when the head rolled out of the hole in the boat in Jaws.
The picture was drawn with enough detail that you knew what was happening. There was no need for immortal, machete-wielding, goalie-mask-wearing fiends. There was no need to watch as Norman Bates licked the blood off the knife, or whatever. Just the implication of what was happening was enough to generate nightmares. No need to swim in a river of gore.
Today's cinematic fright-fests simply aren't frightening. They are superfluous, gratuitous strolls through a slaughterhouse. And they are predictable. Given a choice, I'll watch all of the Faces of Death and Traces of Death series again in an all-day marathon rather than watch one minute of Saw IV.
Blessed be! Pappy
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Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 863 comments)
on Friday, January 11, 2008 at 2:44:27 PM
one must wonder what barriers to entry into the screenplay writing business exist that Hollywood can find no better movies to make than sequels of sequels, or remakes of the old classics. Are there not scripts submitted for consideration by producers that actually address the human condition in exciting, yet truthful and bloodless storylines? When the best we can do is SAW III, and another Rocky movie, one starts to consider whether real writers are being filed in the O file, without even being given a cursory read.
I have similarly noticed the incredibly fast rise and staying power of the female author within the novel publishing business. Yet, with a couple of exceptions, the works I have read are formulaic and uninspired. Yet, so many previous female writers have obtained the status of giants of American literature that we know somewhere women are writing the best fiction they, as a gender, have ever penned. The same holds true for the lesser number of male authors receiving the blessings of the large publishing houses. When an author can turn out books at the rate of two or more a year, plainly that author is no master of characterization, plot, rhythm, and the many and varied uses of classical, literary technique.
In the early to mid-twentieth century, critics already recognized the authors who were masters of the craft while the authors were still publishing. A surprisingly large percentage of the American population could tell you that Ernest Hemingway, F.Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner and Saul Bellow were literary giants. Today, although some novelists have had one or two possible classics published, with the exception of Maya Angelou, a serious reader is hard-pressed to predict a novelist who will rise to greatness with time.
What is it about our current era that seems intent on celebrating the mediocre and stifling the genius? Whether in politics, corporate life, the professions, and even sports, it seems that genius is always quietly and quickly struck low with the scythe so that the mediocre might seem to be genius.
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W.M.L. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 281 comments)
on Friday, January 11, 2008 at 7:13:40 PM
What is it that keeps good writers low, and promotes the hell out of shitty writers? The fact that nowadays, everything in society is geared towards the lowest common denominator...or LCD.
For some reason, someone somewhere has decided that crap is king. I'll not even try to theorize on why this might be. Suffice it to say that originality is comatose, and playing follow the literary leader is way in. The last time I saw a movie that showed anything like originality was The Fifth Element, and even it had more than its share of caricatures...and more muppets than perhaps were necessary.
As far as books, well, things are even more dismal there. About the only thing really readable that has come out in past memory is the Harry Potter series. It's pretty bad when a series of kid's books are the modern model for literary achievement.
Of course, JK Rowling does spin a lovely yarn. And please know, I would never take anything away from arguably the most talented writer of this time period. Ms. Rowling certainly deserves all the acclaim she has garnered. Not too shabby for a one time welfare mother.
So, until those who hold the purse strings stop feeding us an unending diet of schmaltz, we can be assured that the LCD will be catered to, and the rest of us will be dumber for the experience
Blessed be! Pappy
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Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 863 comments)
on Saturday, January 12, 2008 at 3:02:08 PM
Until we choose not to watch this trash, it will still make piles of money. For those who claim to be 'above it all', some one has to be watching this trash, vicariously feeding off of filth. We are a nation infested with emotional parasites and vacuous vampires.
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M. Davis (39 articles, 2 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 137 comments)
on Friday, January 18, 2008 at 12:26:44 PM
