Is There Justification of Violent Images?

[CM Crünk is teh 'CRAP!]

Especially in movies. There are a lot of people who will not watch a movie because it's too violent or to graphic sexually. I respect there choice of not viewing it, but what about the presentation of the subject material. Consider the movie Requiem For A Dream, it shows the true horrors of what drugs can do to you. People blast these movies saying there are different alternatives to show that drugs are bad. They portray these images of watered down versions. The point I'm making from that it's impossible to water things down especially these kinds of movies because people won't understand the point of the subject. I believe it's justified to show those images in those kinds of movies because it's reality. This is a prime example of movie Full Metal Jacket and Saving Private Ryan. These movies show the true horrors of war. They have violent images, but I believe they can be justified because of the subject they are taking on.


This thought wasn't fully developed, it's something that I had on my mind and wanted to express it.

[default]

There's definitely justification. There are some people that can handle violent images. If there weren't, there wouldn't be doctors, nurses, police officers, prison guards, etc.

Not including them in movies would severely limit the medium. There's ratings for a reason and the "woman in Michigan" should understand that.

I can deal with almost all violence in movies. Granted, I'm not really into gore or even horror films as there's not many interesting stories, imo. I could care less that there's not really much justification because "for each their own". Plus, no matter how good the special effects are, it's not the same as seeing the stuff for real. Hell, the most cringe-worthy violence scene I've seen in a movie personally was the Jackass papercut scene.

[Rorschach]

Here's my thing, and I know there are a lot of people who don't agree with it, but anyway: I think here in America, we're actually TOO fast and loose with the acceptance of violence but have FAR too much of a puritan sensibility when it comes to sex and sexuality, especially that of gays and lesbians.

To wit: the instance I've talked about before where a dad came on the official forums for the video game WET (which features a HUGE amount of gratuitous violence) and was complaining that there better not be any nudity in the game, because he was buying it for his son.

*facepalm*

Yet these same parents will buy their kids tickets to see SAW XVI: The TORTURE PORN-A-LYMPICS, and ten copies of the latest GTA game, but heaven forbid that little Junior see a bare breast or a butt cheek. I just do not understand HOW the image of sexuality or nudity could possibly be worse than a child seeing a person tortured to death in a movie.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Certainly. The free market is justification for the existence of everything.

I think Miley Cyrus and her ilk will be the downfall of Western Civilization, but it exists for a simple reason, people buy it.

Same goes for violence, porn and anything you want to add.

If it exists, it's because someone will buy it.

That's the justification.

Not everything is for everyone and that's when you can go elsewhere.

I hate Miley Cyrus, so I skip past her section in the CD store and head to the rock section.

[Unaffiliated]

I don't think there's a need for violent images to be justified. Gratuitous violence/gore in horror movies have as much right to exist as serious depictions in serious movies.

[slasher911]

There's been depictions of sex and violence in art and literature since their creation, so....f*** it.

[default]

Dec 17, 2009 3:41:40 GMT -5 Rorschach said:

Here's my thing, and I know there are a lot of people who don't agree with it, but anyway: I think here in America, we're actually TOO fast and loose with the acceptance of violence but have FAR too much of a puritan sensibility when it comes to sex and sexuality, especially that of gays and lesbians.

To wit: the instance I've talked about before where a dad came on the official forums for the video game WET (which features a HUGE amount of gratuitous violence) and was complaining that there better not be any nudity in the game, because he was buying it for his son.

*facepalm*

Yet these same parents will buy their kids tickets to see SAW XVI: The TORTURE PORN-A-LYMPICS, and ten copies of the latest GTA game, but heaven forbid that little Junior see a bare breast or a butt cheek. I just do not understand HOW the image of sexuality or nudity could possibly be worse than a child seeing a person tortured to death in a movie.

Yeah, I don't get this either. Then again, I grew up in a house where I my dad didn't really care if I watched Skinemax late at night... when I was six or seven. My mom didn't overly care as I got older, it was more that she didn't want to see it.

So by the time kids were sneaking Playboys and playing cards from nudie decks to school it was like "big deal". After high school, I was floored by the amount of friends who'd never really seen any of that stuff. Then again, I had a friend and knew some other kids that weren't even allowed to drink caffeinated beverages at home. Nothing's sadder and funnier and sadder again than a GROWN MAN getting "ripped on Mountain Dew."

My sister said by the time she graduated, these were the kids getting busted with drugs/drunk driving/etc. at a higher rate than the rest.

[biafra]

Violence exists in art because it does in life.

Like Jello Biafra said, "gagging those who tell it like it is won't make your problems go away."

[Solid Stryk-Dizzle]

Dec 17, 2009 3:47:00 GMT -5 Cranjis McBasketball said:

I think Miley Cyrus and her ilk will be the downfall of Western Civilization, but it exists for a simple reason, people buy it.

Oh yes. A teenage popstar with a gigantic fanbase. Never seen one of those before.

[Deleted]

Justification? No way - what is considered a "violent image" is completely subjective so any attempt to justify it is an exercise in futility and more offensive than any violent image ever could be.

There are two types of people who are offended by violent images:
1) People who don't look at them.
2) People who condemn the creators of the image, others who watch it and those who don't take action to have it removed from soceity.

People who fall into option 2 are the ones expecting "justification" and should never - EVER - receive it as they should just learn to accept that not everyone agrees with them and they have no right to dictate what others should be able to view.

In short - they're wankers.

[bob]

yes because literature used them first

[tap]

Dec 17, 2009 1:43:58 GMT -5 CM Crünk is teh 'CRAP! said:

Especially in movies. There are a lot of people who will not watch a movie because it's too violent or to graphic sexually. I respect there choice of not viewing it, but what about the presentation of the subject material. Consider the movie Requiem For A Dream, it shows the true horrors of what drugs can do to you. People blast these movies saying there are different alternatives to show that drugs are bad. They portray these images of watered down versions. The point I'm making from that it's impossible to water things down especially these kinds of movies because people won't understand the point of the subject. I believe it's justified to show those images in those kinds of movies because it's reality. This is a prime example of movie Full Metal Jacket and Saving Private Ryan. These movies show the true horrors of war. They have violent images, but I believe they can be justified because of the subject they are taking on.


This thought wasn't fully developed, it's something that I had on my mind and wanted to express it.

I think there are a couple things to parse out first.

1) There is a difference between images (representations) of violence and actual violent images themselves. What we seem to be talking about here are representations of violence. In this sense, most representations, even those mentioned in the original post (Requiem for a Dream, Saving Private Ryan, Full Metal Jacket) are not REAL representations of violence (meaning, literally happening). They are mimetic, they are like reality, but they, essentially, are a fiction, a construction. In this case, inherent to the power of the image, no, they are not violent. That does not mean they do not support the dominant ideology that supports violence (Bertolt Brecht says something to this effect (which I paraphrase), that only in a world that condones violence could violence be seen as an answer, THE answer).

In this case, then, Full Metal Jacket is more of an anti-war film than Saving Private Ryan, but both still prop up the representations of war without questioning the system that produces real war (which these films in turn represent and re-present). The fact that so many people seem to love both films suggests that even though they take a certain critical perspective, both films render war enjoyable, entertaining. THIS is where I suggest the violence of representations of war lies. Most narrative films, typically out of Hollywood, that represent real-world issues, I would say follow this trend (although there would be variances between the war film and the drug film, via something like Requiem for a Dream).

The only way to break the cycle of the entertaining factor of images of violence (that feed back and support the dominant regimes of real violence) would be to make films that deny visual pleasure, that are NOT entertaining. Ironically, then, these films would be more 'real' than films that represent events in 'actuality'; this post-modern elision (for want of a better word) I think is part and parcel of a mode of filmmaking that supports profit motive first before anything deemed artistic (in this sense, the Edison style filmmaking, to generate capital, usurps one aspect of Lumiere, documentary-like representations of the real, and channels them through Melies, the fantastic possibilities of the cinematic medium). There is no profit to be made from unrepresenting violence, so it isn't done, so the representations of violence still stand in for violence of representation that is the dominant social, political, economic order.

2) How we react to real representations of violence. The irony, of course, is that we are all too willing to enjoy fictional representations of violence, but when we see real representations of violence, we treat THAT as the true violent image, and not the fact that the image and its content occurred at all. In some bizarre way, our fantasies (fiction films) become reality and our realities (real acts of violence and terror that we both commit and are victim of) become completely unimaginable. There could be a reason for this, however. Much of my MA research consisted of researching the Holocaust and how it is represented. Two trains of thought emerged. One one hand, it is necessary to show images of/from the Holocaust so we don't forget it happened, to remind future generations of its occurrence; on the other hand, in representing such horrors, the content of violence becomes new violence in form.

I don't think these two parsings necessarily answer your question, however, even though I find them still relevant to the discussion.

[Rorschach]

Very well put, T.A.P.

Again, I believe that films that present the true weight of violence and it's aftermath are shunned in favor of movies that render the acts and actions themselves weightless and meaningless. A film like Saw or Hostel is always going to be looked at differently than a film of stark, brutal, (and very realistic) violence such as Irreversible or Martyrs. The former two films treat violence as a freak show, something so over the top and insane that we disconnect from the act and aftermath, safely insulating ourselves from having to feel anything for the victims. The latter two, however, give us no such safety net, surprising we the viewers with acts of cold, hard violence that stun us, yet do not allow us to disconnect from the act being perpetrated. There are not any over the top moments that allow us to say "Oh, that could NEVER happen in real life" in those latter two films, nor are there any insane traps that come out of comic books. There is only physical, raw violence, and the aftermath of it is shown to us in detail that does NOT become fetishistic like Roth's does, or Wan/Whannel's does in Saw, but serves to show us every painful bruise and contusion, all the missing teeth and broken gums.

Guess which two films the movie-going public (and the ratings boards) were more comfortable with?

[Non Banjoble Tokens]

You know what justifies violent images? This kitten...





VIOWENCE IZ OKAY WIT MEEEEEE!!!

[AriadosMan]

I don't have a problem with staged/fake violence. I do have a problem with inflicting bodily harm on humans/animals for pleasure, taping the event, and laughing about it online.

[The Line]

Dec 17, 2009 7:19:53 GMT -5 biafra said:

Violence exists in art because it does in life.

Like Jello Biafra said, "gagging those who tell it like it is won't make your problems go away."

ding ding!


Until violence stops getting thought about, it will always be written about/re-enacted.

[Ass Dan]

Something has to go with my Tom Morello mixtape.