I love checking out imdb.com for what is the latest and bestest (yes, that is a word. i heard it on Buffy) movie releases. I've noticed in the last couple of years that Torture Porn is almost always number one at the box office.
Torture Porn: It is a genre of film that revels in torture.It uses torture
sequences in the same manner as pornography films use sex.
Now i like pretty weird things. i like some genres of horror. i like suspense. i like drama but i always HATE gore. I see no reason to revel in torture or deaths. It turns me off faster than you can say "please refund my ticket".
I realise that my tastes don't (or maybe shouldn't) be enforced on the rest of the world, but why in the world would movies like this be so popular?
I've suggested before that the reason could be the strange power struggle in people right now. They feel powerless and thus enjoy entertainment where they can be submerged in that feeling yet finally overcome at the end. Thus giving some form of relief to their fears.
Andre Mayer from cbc.ca wrote an article about the use of torture in mainstream
entertainment. Mayer has some very interesting insights that might be worth
checking out. (this is also where the picture came from)
It scares me that many governments around the world are implementing torture. It scares me more that the average person seems to be thinking it is more and more acceptable.Is it because of these movies? or are these movies around because the subject is less unappealing than it was 10 years ago?
I suppose in the end it doesn't really matter why these movies are popular. It really only matter what we're willing to put into our brains and why. But I still don't get the need for Torture Porn.
3 comments:
There was something I saw about slasher flicks from the 1970s (such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and how they were created as a reaction to things like the Vietnam war and the horrors/violence/senseless loss of life involved in that sort of thing. Apparently it's like some variety of cathartic experience.
But that said, I think slasher/gore/torture porn flicks these days are more just for the pure enjoyment of said gore (rather than a protest or whatever). It's just gross.
And having seen one of the documentaries in the "Why Democracy" series on SBS about torture (highlighting the death of one man who was beaten so severely (and subsequently died) that the coroner said it was like he'd been run over a speeding bus), I think it disgusts me even more about the way torture is endorsed and we become so numbed to it that it seems like a fantastic idea for terrorists. Or people who annoy you. Or whoever...
WHY did you have to have the photo.... yuck!!
I don't get it either. I love good horror movies like Interview with the Vampire, but stuff like Hostel, Saw, and other gore films seem truly evil to me. Reveling in another's pain goes against my grain.
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