SPOILER ALERT
At the end of season 2 of the television series Game of
Thrones, basically everyone dies. Here is a video of some people reaction while
watching the episode.
I noted a lot of cursing, screaming, crying, falling to the
floor. Some said “I need a moment, I feel physically ill” and “I cant handle
this show”. Some even shield their eyes, BUT THEY ALL KEEP WATCHING.
Thus my questions are; what is our modern day reaction to
violence and why does our reaction seemed to be based off of fascination? Is it
because we are more immune to blood and gore in our current moment? Is there a
disconnect between the visual outcome of violence and the actual act of
violence?
Do we live in a time where we actually have less violence,
than say, the Victorian era, thus we have some sort of fascination? Or do you
think the opposite, that we actually have become immune to violence because it
has increased?
And what is the link between media entertainment violence
and wartime violence? How do our reactions differ between the two?
We talked briefly in class about how the Gulf War was
extremely sanitized in terms of what was shown to the public. The public’s
belief was that is was a more advanced war and that new technology made the war
cleaner. That was later found to be untrue, and the war was stilly as messy as
any previous war fought. SO what does this fact mean in terms of violence in
entertainment? Why do we feel a sort of self- satisfaction with a media-created
image of a “clean war” yet flock to theaters to see violent entertainment. Violent
tragedies go all the way back to the early Shakespeare plays, (Titus Andronicus
is extremely gory) this is nothing new people.
Sorry for posing so many questions. I’m very curious to hear
your thoughts, fellow students _Alli Haylings
Hi Alli, your thoughts are soooo interesting especially in relating our topics in class to The Red Wedding. I personally saw the red wedding finale when it came out after the live showing and OMG why did I watch it?! I think through it all, I was thinking "is this really happening"...I was kind of in shock? Or maybe in denial that so many people died. (I also liked Robb :( ) Also I hid my face through most of it or looked away when the gory parts were happening....so with that I didn't feel like I was "fascinated" but maybe that's just my point of view and how I don't like scary movies, but I guess we all have our definitions of what scary is. To answer your question about the difference about media entertainment violence vs. wartime violence. I think the media entertainment violence is used to "thrill" people, and wartime violence is to humanize an experience that . But let me ask you this, do you consider the Red Wedding media entertainment violence or wartime violence? After all, they killed the Starks not just for their amusement but the people behind this violence intended to "paid their debts". Thanks for your post!
ReplyDeleteHey Alli,
ReplyDeleteWhile I have never seen an episode of Game of Thrones, I was really intrigued by all of your questions about violence in the media. After reading your post, I went to YouTube and watched the link you provided as well as the Red Wedding scene. While the scene was very violent and gruesome, I was able to sit through the whole thing because of two reasons: (1) I knew it was fake, and (2) I did not spend an entire season establishing a "relationship" with the characters that got murdered. I did not feel ill or turn away from my computer watching the Red Wedding because I was aware that what I was watching was a typical Hollywood horror/gory depiction of violence. I believe many people have become desensitized to images of violence in movies and video games because they can make the same distinction that I have noted above and because many of the mainstream horror movies are so riddled with fake blood and crazy men trapping unsuspecting characters in a basement to "play a little game".
On the flip side, when we watched Collateral Murder, I was really disturbed by the images that the film depicted. I knew that what I was watching was real and got chills every time I saw one of the men on the ground fall after being shot. I also had to look away a couple of times and got really uncomfortable as well as depressed after watching the video.
Although both videos were violent, I am still surprised at my personal lack of emotional response to the Red Wedding scene but I am just going to tell myself that since I knew it was fake, everyone was okay and no one was really hurt. You posed a lot of great questions that I also had surrounding our fascination with violence. Thanks for posting this...even though now I don't know how to feel about my own personal lack of emotional response to violence in the mass media. Thanks again for sharing.
Allison,
ReplyDeleteYou're post actually is something I was thinking about myself. We watch these shows and see all the gore and I think in my mind I tell myself "Its not real," just as in the Red Wedding scene, although, just like what Meagan said, I haven't watched all of the episodes to establish the characters on the show. I don't think our fascination of blood and gore is out of desensitization. I think we go to see these movies and shows because we want to see the blood, we want to feel like we're watching someone die, its a feeling many have not experienced and we're are fascinated by that unknown experience. We want to see someone dying because we think it'll show us something about dying that we didn't know before. The same with war photos and the like, I even found myself straining to see clearly a dead body when we watched the war video. We want to see the bodies, real bodies, we want to see death and know it because then maybe we'll be a little bit more prepared when it comes for us. But we never really get to know that, and we never will. Thus the fascination continues and so it will. Those are my thoughts, maybe I'm wrong but thats what I think the fascination stems from, for me at least. Thanks for the interesting blog post.