WARNING! WARNING! There will be violence in this post!

SCREEN VIOLENCE

In this lecture we examined the claim that exposure to screen violence causes desensitisation in today’s youth. Bill discussed On Killing by Lt. General Grossman who argues that violent videogames (or “murder simulators” as he prefers to call them) work in the same way as modern army combat training to acclimatize soldiers to the concept of killing. In World War II it is reported that the majority of soldiers never fired their weapons, because as human beings most of us have an innate resistance to killing another person (yet it's so easy to murder poor little animals what's the difference really? Humanity disgusts me.) So after the war the government introduced measures to break down this resistance and instill the 'warrior instinct' to provide the necessary aggression to meet the enemy unflinchingly in the important situation of kill or be killed. Apparently it really worked but i don't see why they had a problem anyway i think modern warfare's cowardly. Where's the bravery in shooting some speck in the distance or bombing people with a missile while you're all cosy inside? I'd be so pissed off if someone shot me, i mean if you're gonna kill me at least get my blood on your hands. 

Maybe videogames with their infamous headshots have caused this but i doubt it. After the shocking Columbine school shooting people blamed the shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's  actions on a videogame, Doom that they were obsessed with. It was a first player shooter game with graphic and interactive violence. The movie Natural Born Killers (1994) which follows a pair of mass murderers was also targeted as was poor Marilyn Manson and the Goth subculture even though the shooters were found to not like Manson's music or be any more involved in Goth subculture than wearing trench coats. Whether or not Harris and Klybold were emulating Doom when they killed 12 fellow pupils and 1 teacher, is pointless speculation to me. Thousands of other kids played that game and the massacre was just one isolated case so it's clear to me that they would be likely to commit these crimes regardless of any media influence. Most people are able to differentiate between what we see in the media and what is real life and I think it is unfair to condemn screen violence just because a tiny percentage of people cannot. For example, I don't play videogames (i enjoy watching someone play one with a good storyline though) but I love horror and gore films with with a sick pleasure and listen to supposedly satanic music yet i'm overly empathetic and a vegetarian and feel in no way that i've been influenced to shoot someone in the face. 


Oh, i would rip out Ruggero Deodato's eyes and make him eat them though for killing 7 animals (1 of them just for a reshoot) in Cannibal Holocaust (1980)!  Which brings me onto what we discussed in our seminar: what are our responses to violence in films and what are our limits?  


I'm not really shocked or disgusted by anything i've seen, i know humans are capable of all the horrific things portrayed in films and worse. My favourite is in Hostel 2 when the ugly chick gets strung up naked and a goth chick walks in with a scythe and proceeds to slice the girl up and bathe in her blood. This is obviously based on the legend of 'The Blood Countess', one Elizabeth Bathory who supposedly bathed in the blood of virgin girls to retain her youth. I'm sure goat's milk would have been less messy.

 But horror films are just getting silly now trying to be more gross and disgusting than the last with no real storyline. *yawn* We know they're not real so they have to rely on excellent special effects to make the films even worthy of watching and merit. Of course there is the matter of 'snuff films' which would be very different if they actually exist. The aforementioned Cannibal Holocaust was so strongly thought to be a real snuff film that Ruggero Deodato had to appear in court with the cast to prove they were actually still alive. The fact that he had actually mutilated and murdered several animals just for the purpose of the film didn't matter though urgh! That's where i draw the line. Do not bring animals into humanity's sick desires! There was just no need, he clearly had a great special effects team working for him to make the human deaths seem so real why couldn't he do the same with the animals? I felt similarly uncomfortable watching Freaks as i knew the cast were real deformed people. I would've reacted differently if it was prosthetics i could've admired the creative skills then but i just felt awkward and bad watching real people =S 


Not that i think they should be censored. Humans are violent sexual beings and any attempt to deny this is just self denial. Just because we don't go out raping and murdering it doesn't mean we don't have the capability to do so we just choose to live more moral lives. Our ancestors were prone to such acts we just live in a more civilised culture now where that behaviour is rightly disproved of and punished. Ivan suggested that we enjoy screen violence so much because it's a form of catharsis and i believe this also.If we didn't watch these films featuring fictional people pretending to smash peoples head's in maybe we would go around doing just that.  

30 Seconds to Mar's Hurricane video was first banned then censored to death because of it's terrible violent and sexual scenes. Grow up. It's not even that bad it's an exploration of our dark dreams and secret fantasies and people shouldn't hide from this.

Flyleaf's Cassie is based on the alleged exchange between Cassie Bernall and Eric Harris in which the latter asked the former if she believed in God and when she answered 'yes' he shot her dead.