to be sickened by the level of violence and gore in horror films these days?

[dontmeanto]

...and the sheer volume of them??

DP and I went to hire a film Saturday night as a treat and couldn't believe just how many of these films were on the New Arrivals shelves.

Various plots on abduction, torture, force, maiming, etc.

I guess I just don't get why people are entertained by these films? I find them disturbing at best and absolutely disgusting at worst.

I just don't want those types of things in my head, and I worry there's a generation out there that will in some way become desensitised to this level of violence by making these films "cool" to watch with friends.

I remember being shocked by Scream when I was a teen, but these now are a billion times worse!

AIBU?

'1984' was ok.

But a few zombies chucked in would have spiced it up a bit.

'I think I have a pretty good understanding of what goes on, thanks.'

This is from a Washinton post review of her book, The Dark Side

By the way the Dark Side is an apt description of the evil of the promotion of violent horror gore movies too.

"With the appearance of this very fine book, Hillary Clinton can claim a belated vindication of sorts: A right-wing conspiracy does indeed exist, although she misapprehended its scope and nature. The conspiracy is not vast and does not consist of Clinton-haters. It is small, secretive and made up chiefly of lawyers contemptuous of the Constitution and the rule of law.

...

Under the guise of "enhanced interrogation techniques," it has succeeded, in Mayer's words, in "making torture the official law of the land in all but name." Further, it has done all these things as a direct result of policy decisions made at the highest levels of government.

...

Above all, the story Mayer tells is one of fear and its exploitation.

That fear should trump concern for due process and indeed justice qualifies as a recurring phenomenon in American history. In 1919, government-stoked paranoia about radicalism produced the Red Scare. After Pearl Harbor, hysteria mixed with racism led to the confinement of some 110,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps. The onset of the Cold War triggered another panic, anxieties about a new communist threat giving rise to McCarthyism. In this sense, the response evoked by 9/11 looks a bit like déjà vu all over again: Frightened Americans, more worried about their own safety than someone else's civil liberties, allowed senior government officials to exploit a climate of fear

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/07/11/ST2008071101354.html

The silly conspiracy theories that you know little about often say similar things.

Horror movies with extreme violence are also about fear
They also exploit fear and they desensitise people to violence.

Oh and by the way, shows like "24" also desensitise people to violence and torture and even show I think government agencies doing it, although I don't know, because i don't watch horror gore crap or "24" crap either.

VerySmallSqueak, that made me guffaw.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is my favourite personally.

Although I do like the bit in Jason X where he batters the camping girls in their sleeping bags.

"But on the present season of "24" torture has gone from being an infrequent shock bid to being a main thread of the plot. At least a half-dozen characters have undergone interrogation under conditions that meet conventional definitions of torture."

Normalizing Torture on 24

The desensitisation occurs in horror gore movies, in violent coputer games and in mainstream TV series as well.

Coincidence?

Just about money?

Or deliberate.

Claig, what DO you watch? I bet Casualty is a "no no" on a Saturday night at your house too.

From a New Yoork times article on the series 24

"Through this artistic sleight of hand, the show makes torture appear normal."

"Has "24" descended down a slippery slope in portraying acts of torture as normal and therefore justifiable? Is its audience, and the public more generally, also reworking the rules of war to the point where the most expedient response to terrorism is to resort to terror? In the world beyond the show, that debate remains heated. How it plays out on "24" may say a great deal about what sort of society we are in the process of becoming."

www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/arts/television/22gree.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Did some progressive with a camera decide to commission this programme? Or is there more to it and its plots and messages?

is the normalisation of violenceand torture in films that are shown to the public just something that happened by chance because there was money to be made or is there more to it and the desensitisation and acclimatisation that it facilitates?

In the question that those silly conspiracy theorists often ask
Cui bono?

Yes, I don't watch Casualty either.
I watch good wholesome entertainment, comedies and the news and I reqd the Daily Mail. I try to steer clear of the crap that they throw in our path.

Do you read the "side bar of shame" too? I bet you enjoy looking at those nice wholesome photos of Kim Kardashian.

I avoid the "side bar of shame" because it is full of crap about people I have no interest in. I read the political stories and major news stories which I find enlightening.

If after all that, I find the time, then I also make it a priority to read the classic commentaries by Melanie Phillips, Peter Hitchens and Richard Littlejohn. I fully understand why it was voted Newspaper of the Year 2012!

I also understand why, against some progressive objection, Peter Hitchens was once awarded the prestigious Orwell Prize - an honour beyond compare!

Interesting. How do you know that the same paper that publishes a lot of "crap" about people you have no interest in, also publishes factual and precise political stories with no added sensationalism?

Of course there is sensationalism in many of its reports and i don't believe everything it says. But it is the best we have!

"However, I am concerned about some of the ways that art influences life."

It is the other way around. The progressive with a camera does not influence power. Power often influences and funds art to sell its message to the public. Power and finance use the progressive and the artist to desensitise the public.