Sick of Violence

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Roger Ebert once elaborated on a few simple truths about media violence everyone needs to be aware of. Since I can't find the source to quote, I'll have to paraphrase, but I agree with essentially everything he said, especially the first two points:

1) You can't talk about the use of violence in a particular movie or TV program being "justified" because it is a "good one", because which of us is to say what's good and what's bad? I may have admired the use of violence in One False Move, but you may have admired the violence in Friday the 13th.

2) You can't talk about "gratuitous" violence, because everything in a movie or TV show is gratuitous, meaning that none of it is necessary. It's all escapism entertainment, that's why it's made, and everyone knows it. The violence in Macbeth is just as gratuitous as the violence in The Evil Dead.

Please think carefully on these points, everyone. Many of us suffer from the delusion that the quality of the art is dictated by the subject or intention, and nothing could be further from the truth.

Now personally, I hate jejune violence and exploitation. I also hate exceptionally cruel violence when it is portrayed in a manner that invites the audience to enjoy it. I also hate nihilism, sensationalism, and grittiness masqueraded as 'depth'. However, I loved certain films which portrayed obscene ammounts of violence, but not for this reason. I loved Kill Bill precisely because it was so preposterous. I admired the use of violence in A Clockwork Orange, though mostly because of Kubrick's unbroken camera shots, which made us seem like spectators observing the spectacle of depravity. I loved Passion of the Christ because the violence was, for the most part, accurate and made the suffering of Jesus real. I also thought that this movie deserved an NC-17 rating. I loved the violence in Rob Roy because it had the most realistic and spectacularly choerographed sword fight I've ever seen. I loved the violence in Starship Troopers and RoboCop because both provided a stark and contrast to the assured and hypocritical societies they portrayed. Both were sly political satires (Starship Troopers more so, though RoboCop is a better movie because it has a heart).

I don't expect you to agree with my opnions about the movies I posted above, but I hope to demonstrate the point that it is not the fact of the violence by itself, or the degree to which the violence is portrayed, that counts. If you'd heard awful things about the violence in the movies I mentioned above and would rather not see them, I understand. But don't tell me they have 'gratuitous' violence, or are 'bad' movies because of their violence. The first rule of assessing any kind of art is to completely surrender yourself to it, and leave your predjuces and assumptions at the door (they will still be there when you come back).

As far as video games go, it's a statistically proven fact that the generation of kids that's played the most video games has been the least violent. These are the FBI's statistics we're talking about here. The rate of violent crimes amongst the youth has actually gone down in the last 10 years. What decade was that? The Playstation era. I don't know if the correlation implies causailty, but those who claim that violent video games make violent children have no evidence in their favor. Of course, I think games should be treated as movies in terms of who can get access to them, and should perhaps borrow the MPAA's ratings rather than those of ESRB to get more adults to take them seriously, but there should be no banning of games or prevension of releases.

Much as Michael Moore sucks, he made a good point in Bowling for Columbine that other countries with access to the same violent movies, video games, and firearm access can have much lower crime rates. This, the documentary suggested, may have something to do with the sensationalism that characterises media news coverage. I think Ebert also suggested that once more funding was put into our education systems, America's appetite for endless, meaningless destruction would go away. I think both have valid points.