babble home
rabble.ca - news for the rest of us
today's active topics


Post New Topic  Post A Reply
FAQ | Forum Home
  next oldest topic   next newest topic
» babble   » rabble content   » rabble reactions   » Do violent cultural productions cease to be cultural?

Email this thread to someone!    
Author Topic: Do violent cultural productions cease to be cultural?
martin dufresne
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11463

posted 03 November 2008 05:30 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Is this an improvement over the fact that when violence wraps itself in the mantle of culture, it often gets a pass?
I am surprised that the apparent murder of Mr. Altinger by Filmmaker Twitchell - and the excitement it creates in forensic psychologist Liam Ennis - has been immediately shut out of discussion, on the claim that that item "doesn't belong in culture."
Is it significant that this same thread was also shut down prematurely in "national news" where it had been moved?
Neither culture nor reality... I guess it doesn't exist, and we can now safely go on enjoying splatter films and TV shows about methodical killers.

From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
pogge
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2440

posted 03 November 2008 05:38 PM      Profile for pogge   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by martin dufresne:
Is it significant that this same thread was also shut down prematurely in "national news" where it had been moved?

It looks open to me.


From: Why is this a required field? | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
Timebandit
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1448

posted 03 November 2008 05:43 PM      Profile for Timebandit     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The thread's still open.

To answer the question posed in the thread title: No, they don't.

Since film is my area of specialization, let's take horror films. Terrifically popular, but rarely positive. However, they express something about our culture -- their very popularity and the demographic that love them is very much indicative of an element within the greater culture. Granted the genre has a wide range, and films such as Hostel or Saw are, in my opinion, grotesque expressions that I find abhorrent, but there they are. I still can't just pretend they don't mean anything.

Not entirely sure what this has to do with the Twitchell case. Obviously, the man fantasized about the killing and wrote about it -- had he stopped there, most people wouldn't have batted an eye.


From: Urban prairie. | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
bigcitygal
Volunteer Moderator
Babbler # 8938

posted 03 November 2008 06:58 PM      Profile for bigcitygal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The story in question is a news story. What the accused does for a living is less relevant than what the story is about, which is a real-life murder allegation. Hence it's in national news.

As for why remind's thread was closed, I don't know who closed it, but it was a redundant thread, started after the one Catchfire started, and the general rule for moderators is to close the later thread and keep the older thread open, even if it's older by a few hours. This happens all the time and is unrelated to content.


From: It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent - Q | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11463

posted 03 November 2008 07:33 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
OK, I obviously disagree with BCG's claim of disconnection between act and culture -- Twitchell's (alleged) murder and what appears to be his film project about the said murder.
This disconnect existed neither for his victim nor for him, and it doesn't exist either for the general population confronted with this death. One can make distinctions but claiming a disconnect would be denial.
Catchfire's "but there they are" and "express something about our culture" argument could be said equally of physical violence.
Indeed, the circularity of her argument - "(violent cultural productions) express something about our culture" - makes my point.
We have to start thinking of words and cultural acts as actions.
ETA: Sorry for the confusion. Suddenly there were three threads on this topic, two of them closed, two of them with the same title, and no simple way of ascertaining where to maintain a discussion about the cultural dimension of Twitchell's violence (or vice-versa).

[ 03 November 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Timebandit
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1448

posted 03 November 2008 07:56 PM      Profile for Timebandit     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
We have to start thinking of words and cultural acts as actions.

So who said we don't?

That being said, it is a far cry from making a violent production to actually carrying out a murder.

Are you attempting to make a case for censorship? Because it sounds much like the preamble one gets just prior to someone insisting that we must, for the greater good, only make projects entitled "Puppies in a Box" or "Sweet, Fluffy Marshmallows for Adorable Urchins". Mustn't talk about all those base, nasty aspects of human nature.


From: Urban prairie. | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15681

posted 03 November 2008 08:08 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Timebandit:

So who said we don't?

That being said, it is a far cry from making a violent production to actually carrying out a murder.

Are you attempting to make a case for censorship? Because it sounds much like the preamble one gets just prior to someone insisting that we must, for the greater good, only make projects entitled "Puppies in a Box" or "Sweet, Fluffy Marshmallows for Adorable Urchins". Mustn't talk about all those base, nasty aspects of human nature.


As someone involved in a number of arts [including video] I am virulently anti-censorship.

A number of my pieces could be considered quite "violent" because the reality is, this society is not only enamored of violence, it is steeped in it.

Does that mean snuff films are art?

Let's face facts here. I don't think this fellow wanted to kill someone on camera for the sake of great art simply because it's extremely difficult to get good camera shots of anything live in action--staging is far superiour as anyone who videotapes or uses cameras could tell the jury.

So what did he kill someone for?

The same reason Bernardo and a number of murderers have filmed their victims.

So he could re-live the thrill vicariously, over and over.

It wasn't as if he was about to enter a film of him committing a felony in the Sundance festival.


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
Papal Bull
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7050

posted 03 November 2008 08:34 PM      Profile for Papal Bull   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Killing someone or being overtly violent isn't an activity you can do day in and day out without significant risks.

Killers film their actions in order to get a rise and relive the exhilaration of murder/violence over and over again to get their jollies.

edit:: just noticed the above post where TVParkdale said it better than I could. I know of an interesting documentary that can be found online about this topic. If anyone is interested I can post it or just send me a PM.

[ 03 November 2008: Message edited by: Papal Bull ]


From: Vatican's best darned ranch | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
RevolutionPlease
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 14629

posted 03 November 2008 08:49 PM      Profile for RevolutionPlease     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I don't see anything wrong with trying to remove gratuitous violence.

Might help the optics, eh.

Damn depressing this world.


From: Aurora | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15681

posted 03 November 2008 10:05 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by RevolutionPlease:
I don't see anything wrong with trying to remove gratuitous violence.

Might help the optics, eh.

Damn depressing this world.


I enjoyed "Shoot 'Em Up" for example. Highest body count in the history of movies. Was it "gratuitous" or was it an excellent spoof of action films?

On the other hand I did not enjoy "Saw". A pacifist friend of mine with a penchant for horror films, did, however.

The USA has decided that showing the bodies of those they bomb, and their own soldiers that die, is "gratuitous" thus distancing their citizens from the realities of war.

What precisely is "gratuitous"? And who would have the power to decide that answer?

Therein lies the question.


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15681

posted 03 November 2008 10:07 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Papal Bull:
Killing someone or being overtly violent isn't an activity you can do day in and day out without significant risks.

Killers film their actions in order to get a rise and relive the exhilaration of murder/violence over and over again to get their jollies.

edit:: just noticed the above post where TVParkdale said it better than I could. I know of an interesting documentary that can be found online about this topic. If anyone is interested I can post it or just send me a PM.

[ 03 November 2008: Message edited by: Papal Bull ]


Can you add the link perhaps, not necessarily the clip?


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
bigcitygal
Volunteer Moderator
Babbler # 8938

posted 04 November 2008 04:04 AM      Profile for bigcitygal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Okay, one last time.

Please note that I'm choosing not to comment on my personal reflection of this news item (male violence, the depiction of violence in our culture, art versus action, violent fantasy versus violent reality). I'm only looking at where is the most appropriate place to put the thread in question, given the way the OP was constructed.

Please see my most recent response in that thread, link posted above.

If one cares to look at the past 100 days' worth of items posted in the "culture" forum, one would see that the topics (except for some that I've posted that could have also gone in the "activist" forum) are pretty clearly about culture, aspects of culture, etc.

I welcome anyone who wants to, to open a thread in the culture forum (or body and soul, or feminism) to discuss the ways in which violence by men is depicted in our society and what the impacts and connections are, regarding both depictions of violence and violent actions.


From: It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent - Q | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
Catchfire
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4019

posted 04 November 2008 04:34 AM      Profile for Catchfire   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I rarely start threads, but when I do, 90% of the time they are in the culture forum. This can be because they are about productions we immediately associate with culture: films, literature, magazines, music, etc. But more often than not, they are about things that others would never put in the culture forum: the internet, copyright law, facebook, and murder. I study culture every day, so I have to admit that it has always got me kind of ticked that this forum is only populated by youtube clips and hockey talk (as much as I like both of those) when really, in my opinion, as progressives we should look to change our world in culture as much, if not more than we do in electoral politics, which so often turn out to be a sham anyway.

Raymond Williams famously said that 'culture is ordinary'. Meaning, we should wrest culture from its privileged place meaning 'high art' to the symbolic realm of everyday life. He traces the etymology of the word to its original meaning: what a society produces, its productive output. A Marxist would therefore believe what Timebandit is saying: that cultural products--both high and low--are expressions of our society. They are inextricable from the social material of everyday life.

So when I see a story like Twitchell's, I find it interesting because it makes this linkage between art and life explicit: is it that without Dexter this crime never would have happened? Or did Twitchell find in Dexter a language for whatever psychosis was afflicting him? Our response is usually to marginalize these horrific crimes and isolate them from culture, or from ordinary life. 'What a tragedy!' We say, and then turn the page.

Speaking of tragedies, Oedipus Rex offers a helpful commentary on stories like Twitchell's. The reason Oedipus is so often cited as the perfect tragedy is because it flawlessly shows the contradictions of Greek society and how they affect a single man and tear him apart. Incest, religion, pride, ambition all come to bear on a single man whose fate hangs in the balance. When Oedipus tears out his own eyes on stage in one of the most violent scenes in art, it is the price he pays for revealing the hypocrisies and impossible contradictions of the social contract. And the audience watches on, unsettled by the violence but satisfied that he has paid for his crime, that justice has been served. Yet what is truly tragic about Sophocles’s play is that we are complicit in Oedipus’s plight. Our laws and our social mores, the matrix in which we participate and which we reproduce daily, necessitate and determine Oedipus’s fate even as we punish him for it. And Oedipus, blood running from dull sockets, shows us his eyes as if to urge us to revelation.

This is the hard lesson of Mark Twitchell. What kind of society can create such a monster? How do we, as its citizens, contribute to such atrocity? How can a civilization that fantasizes about capturing and torturing women in the Saw and Hostel franchises, that imprisons children in illegal concentration camps for a third of their life, that endorses endemic rape and violence in Africa, possibly be surprised when someone shows us our eyes?


From: On the heather | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11463

posted 04 November 2008 09:12 AM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I agree... but wonder if everyone buys equally into this culture that we can call it "ours".
One can point out the clichés (creepy, ugly, gross, camera-toting murderers "getting their jollies" - as if this was merely about them, as if millions of people wouldn't have rushed to download Bernardo's videocassette had it been released). I fear that these serve to belittle the weight of and our active participation in a culture that thrives on violence toward minorities or "villains", the allegedly deserving otherized. "Live" murders and extreme cruelty have been part of the film scene since Bunuel's "Un chien andalou" at least, and became mainstream with the 1960's "Mondo Cane" film series. The world of pornography rushed to capitalize on the rumor of "snuff" films where women wer actually tortured and killed on camera. "Snuff" was an instant hit.
The alleged distinction between fantasy and reality is a sham when people really get off on the so-called fantasy and it reflects, feeds and justifies real-life violence, itself now filmed, as it always has.
If sadism has become the subtext of their productions, maybe the only thing left to do in the face of integrist libertarianism is to turn this violence back against its great-priests. As Nikki Craft wrote at the time of American Psycho: "There are better things to do to Brett Easton Ellis than just censoring him."

[ 04 November 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Stargazer
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6061

posted 04 November 2008 10:31 AM      Profile for Stargazer     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I must be an extremely bad person then, because I love horror flicks, especially well done ones. I love warped and insane movies and I adore Bret Easton Ellis and his writing.

I also read Apoclyse Culturte 1 and 2 and other books from the counter culture. I love the sociological meanings behind these films.

I am not a "bad" person. I just have a healthy interest in the arts and if being a lefty means only reading, watching or listening to left sanctioned films, then I guess I am no longer a lefty.

Oh and I have read the Redneck Manifesto. Why? because I believe that knowing about, studying and learning about how and why certain people tick is incredibly important.

That said - no to censorship. Period.

Yes, I have even watched Salo. Me, a lefty. I like to think we're quite diverse. I hope we are.


From: Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist. | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11463

posted 04 November 2008 11:02 AM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
What does this bait word "censorship" hide, reverse?
I have a hunch it is an all-out cultural war by some against the rest, suitably despised. I have been on both sides of this war and I think it is real. But unspoken as such.

From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15681

posted 04 November 2008 11:09 AM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Catchfire:

This is the hard lesson of Mark Twitchell. What kind of society can create such a monster? How do we, as its citizens, contribute to such atrocity? How can a civilization that fantasizes about capturing and torturing women in the Saw and Hostel franchises, that imprisons children in illegal concentration camps for a third of their life, that endorses endemic rape and violence in Africa, possibly be surprised when someone shows us our eyes?



BTW, I agree with you that culture isn't simply "high-brow" art. It is graffiti, it is YouTube, it is advertising, it is Christmas decorations, it is dancing in a club, it is the colour of crayons a child uses to express her feelings about her dog. All these form "culture".

************************

Humans have been violent since they erupted on this earth.

I think we have to differentiate between forms of violence. In my view, there is a difference between aggression and bullying.

Aggression is the natural animal response to perceiving violation. Whether this response is "justifiable" in the eyes of a society, in any given circumstance, is another question.

Historically, aggression has been considered "justifiable" only when it serves the interests of the state.

Bullying on the other hand, is violence for the purpose of achieving some benefit.

Institutions [gov't/religion/etc.] often claim the former, thus gaining public support for the latter.

The "culture of violence" has always existed. What has not been tolerable in some societies, is that certain forms of violence are not accepted outside certain predefined limits. In some societies, torture during war is an accepted practise. Assaulting a member of one's own community, is not.

Violence on film tends to be swift since a film is less than 2 hours in general. In real life, much bullying violence is slow and insidious and so, is difficult to portray in such a short time.

One example is starvation. Is it more violent to die within seconds from a bullet? Or to watch those around you dying for months/years from deliberate manipulation of the economic resources while you slowly waste away increasing your animal impulses towards violence in the search for food?

Twitchell used the idea of "art" to commit an act of bullying for his own emotional/psychological benefit.

Somehow, we're more horrified by this yet less horrified by the fact that 1/4 women and 1/10 men will be sexually assaulted before age 20.

We simply can't grasp the enormity of the above statement. It is much easier to grasp that some "nut" killed someone for the sake of producing a film.

I'm rarely shocked by acts of violence committed by the economically/socially/politically disadvantaged.

What surprises me how rarely we resort to it.

[ 04 November 2008: Message edited by: TVParkdale ]


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
Catchfire
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4019

posted 04 November 2008 11:11 AM      Profile for Catchfire   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm not sure I fully understand your criticism, martin. I agree, Stargazer, that Bret Eaton Ellis is a wonderful writer: in fact, he explicitly draws the connection between neoliberal fantasies and murderous male desire and misogyny. What is interesting about American Psycho particularly is the calls that the protests against its publication tended to take the form of the neoliberal politics it was critiquing: i.e. an appeal to free speech and free market principles where judicial use of your 'dollar' would ensure that the novel would fail (it didn't).

I'm also thinking of Mitchell Lichtenstein's compelling Teeth that also encourages the viewer to consider that fear of female desire underpins the horror genre.


From: On the heather | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15681

posted 04 November 2008 11:22 AM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by martin dufresne:

The alleged distinction between fantasy and reality is a sham when people really get off on the so-called fantasy and it reflects, feeds and justifies real-life violence, itself now filmed, as it always has.

Here is where I would not agree.

Did Romans, watching gladiators from a distance [most of which was sham] increase the violence of the empire?

Or were slavery, murder, rape and pillage already entrenched?

Hitler killed 6 million people with nary a TV set and few people able to afford to go to films. Stalin 10 million. Ghengis Khan? Julius Caesar?

20 million Native people were tortured, starved, biologically wiped out, raped and murdered long before there was such an invention as a camera.

The English strapped Sepoys to canons and blew them to smithereens.

The Spanish burned and tortured heretics.

I doubt any of the above were encouraged to do so from indulging in "art".

If there's to be banning of expression because it promotes violence then burn all the history books, the Bible, the Q'ran and the Talmud first.


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11463

posted 04 November 2008 11:44 AM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I am no cultural historian, but I know that in the case of Nazism, there was an abundance of anti-semetic material distributed as humor (in print and in film), or pseudo-history/horrible "true stories" (e.g. the Protocols of Zion, Le Juif Suss) in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, making hating "them" both acceptable and exciting.
The liberal meme that words don't matter, that they are only "fantasy", esp. when they only castigate "otherized" people, is morally and historically bankrupt, and I want to rip it out of the oppressor's arsenal of alibis.

From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
remind
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6289

posted 04 November 2008 11:55 AM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
martin, you keep referring to the "liberal meme" and/or are insinuating liberal thought/action as being the purveyor of all that is wrong with society. And frankly, I have to call you on that false notion.
From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
Catchfire
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4019

posted 04 November 2008 12:11 PM      Profile for Catchfire   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
martin, but you are not merely arguing that 'words matter'--with that, I wholeheartedly agree--but you are arguing, at least, it seems to me, that words not only 'matter', but that they are irresistibly coercive. As cultural historians, we should realize that coercion comes from the ground up, sedimenting in our words and art rather than having such expression assert a backwards force.
From: On the heather | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11463

posted 04 November 2008 12:34 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
No, I don't think they are coercive. But I don't think they are mere reflection or sedimentation, either. It is not the easiest thing to test but I am convinced that expressions can accelerate or impede what is otherwise at work among humans.
From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15681

posted 04 November 2008 12:59 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by martin dufresne:
No, I don't think they are coercive. But I don't think they are mere reflection or sedimentation, either. It is not the easiest thing to test but I am convinced that expressions can accelerate or impede what is otherwise at work among humans.

And *what* precisely would that be?

We are a violent species. That's not going to change.

The *expressions* of violence are simply that, usually state sanctioned in your above stated case of Nazi Germany. The Nazi propaganda machine PAID for that propaganda to be distributed for their own benefit. The films/art/cartoons didn't create antisemitism, they merely played on a theme that already existed. That art reflected the reality of the Nazi regime's agenda.

Pointing the finger at "culture" is not going to change what we are as a species. It is simply the reflection, the mirror, if you will.

The propensity for violence is neither leftist nor rightist.

As long as we see violence as "other" we have no effective means to lessen it, or it's impact. It is our fear of it that drives agendas from both sides.

The Arts merely incorporate what is already there. Artists don't invent reality. Who gets PAID to create film/paintings etc. is another story. Jews in concentration camps also produced art from their side of the story. It was bitterly violent, realistic art from the stories of their lives. The difference between the two art cultures was that there was little in the way of distribution to the populace of the anti-Nazi regime art.

Jewish-based art was effectively *censored* by the state.


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
remind
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6289

posted 04 November 2008 01:28 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Though I am not in essence agreeing with Martin, I do believe that operant conditioning plays a huge part in how people conduct themselves, as a culture and society.

Nor do I believe humans are inherently violent as a species, and I believe violence is a conditioned response to external stimulus, as well as normalized through cultural expression.


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15681

posted 04 November 2008 01:50 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by remind:
Though I am not in essence agreeing with Martin, I do believe that operant conditioning plays a huge part in how people conduct themselves, as a culture and society.

Nor do I believe humans are inherently violent as a species, and I believe violence is a conditioned response to external stimulus, as well as normalized through cultural expression.


I agree that *bullying* is operant conditioning, best explained by Lonnie Athen's theory of Violentization. [see above post on bullying vs. aggression]. This has nothing to do with TV, film, art or anything else. It has to do with direct contact with violence and the benefits that violence can bring.

However, when under direct threat, the tendency to violence is inherent. What one perceives as "threat" can be based in their experience with such threats.

What I would suggest is that, the expression of natural aggressive violence tends to be socialized/conditioned *out* not in.

Otherwise there would be thousands of dead or maimed rapists. I believe it is *abnormal* that there are not.

Little girls "hit back" as frequently as little boys until their natural self-protection mechanisms are defeated. Two-year-olds scream, hit and stamp their feet in anger when they feel violated. Usually, when their "NO!" is not respected. They aren't trained to do this, we, as a society train them *out* of their natural tendencies.

Even babies wave their arms and kick with rage when their needs are thwarted.

The difference is, babies don't have an "agenda" or choose their "victims" and they aren't easily persuaded by grandiose schemes to get them to commit violence on someone else's behalf.


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
remind
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6289

posted 04 November 2008 02:46 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I disagree for a variety of reasons.
From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11463

posted 04 November 2008 02:58 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
What I would suggest is that, the expression of natural aggressive violence tends to be socialized/conditioned *out* not in.

Otherwise there would be thousands of dead or maimed rapists. I believe it is *abnormal* that there are not.


Isn't violence gendered, i.e. both socialized into boys and men - way over and above "nature" - and socialized out of women, and directed toward "deserving" targets (aliens, "bad" women) and away from male power figures?

[ 04 November 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
remind
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6289

posted 04 November 2008 03:10 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Personally I dislike the term socialized and I think the term is making what is actually occuring less than what it is. Minimizing and normalizing the very nasty actions of operantly conditioning masses of people for a desired outcome. And supposed cultural devicees are an effective conditioning tool.
From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15681

posted 04 November 2008 03:44 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by remind:
Personally I dislike the term socialized and I think the term is making what is actually occuring less than what it is. Minimizing and normalizing the very nasty actions of operantly conditioning masses of people for a desired outcome. And supposed cultural devicees are an effective conditioning tool.

Watching a violent movie is not "conditioning" because it can't break the barriers of physical conditioning. It may influence *who* is the target, it does not influence the penchant for violence.

Ask any Wen-do or dojo instructor how hard it is, after 20 years of conditioning, to get a woman to hit a man in body armour with full force.

If art could be used for "conditioning", we could play heart, flower puppy movies that teach Gandhi Tech and de-violentize individuals.

To violentize an individual requires direct *physical* presence.

Otherwise everyone who likes Batman movies would be running around bopping muggers and that is not happening.

Contrary to popular opinion, this society, removing state intervention, is not *more* violent, it is *less* violent.


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15681

posted 04 November 2008 03:59 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by martin dufresne:

Isn't violence gendered, i.e. both socialized into boys and men - way over and above "nature" - and socialized out of women, and directed toward "deserving" targets (aliens, "bad" women) and away from male power figures?

[ 04 November 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


Violence is gendered only due to what groups are doing the conditioning.

Bullying girls have always existed, although towards bullying males seems to not be conditioned in to the same degree in most societies.

It does however happen, as anyone working in Family violence can tell you. And in some couples, both are violent, although due to the male's greater strength, he tends to do more damage.

I'd have to say that most violence is directed *away* from authority figures who have, in Euro-American history, tended to be male thus preserving the status quo. That is why authorities pay for art forms that point the way to their intended targets.

That doesn't make the art form guilty, it opens the question of which commercial arts are distributed and paid for and why.

Clearly, if there is censorship, the opposing side that shows fighting *against* authority, or how authoritarian violence impacts on people's lives, will be the first art forms to be censored.

If we look at censorship in American movies it has historically been that "the bad guys cannot win" [against the state] and it's okay to show a John Wayne sheriff killing off the rebel Indians for protecting their own land but it has NOT okay to show a woman having a consensual orgasm with another woman.


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
remind
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6289

posted 04 November 2008 04:08 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Nothing you are indicating changes my belief in the ongoing operant conditioning of people.

Moreover, my own anecdotal experience puts your example of

quote:
Ask any Wen-do or dojo instructor how hard it is, after 20 years of conditioning, to get a woman to hit a man in body armour with full force.
as only applicable in individual circumstances.

As I myself have no problem with using full force against a man, and have done so on many occasions, where the situation warranted it, over the years of my life. And one instance was not so long ago too, less than a year, as a matter of fact. The man in question found out that a middle aged woman should not be viewed as targetable, as he was in immediate and direct danger of losing his life. Had I less control he would have.


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11463

posted 04 November 2008 04:17 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
There are other analyses of what gets censored in a patriarchal society. Sade, for instance, and countless other pornographers since (sometimes) got into trouble for both acting out and expressing in writing too-blatant exercises of privilege by upper-class males against females. To believe that the only material that incurs some form of censorship is rebellion against authority is self-deluding fantasy. The enshrining of established power/authority (e.g. pedophilia) is also a staple of the pornography that sometimes get censored.
From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15681

posted 04 November 2008 04:44 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by martin dufresne:
There are other analyses of what gets censored in a patriarchal society. Sade, for instance, and countless other pornographers since (sometimes) got into trouble for both acting out and expressing in writing too-blatant exercises of privilege by upper-class males against females. To believe that the only material that incurs some form of censorship is rebellion against authority is self-deluding fantasy. The enshrining of established power/authority (e.g. pedophilia) is also a staple of the pornography that sometimes get censored.

All too often I don't think people "get" DeSade's writing--usually those who have not actually read or analyzed enough of it to understand what the man actually put across regarding the abuses of authorities and church.

Who is going to decide what gets censored? What is good taste?

As for paedophilic film/photography, the fact is that having sex with a child is ILLEGAL. So it is not particularly relevant to the discussion.

There was an attempt at censorship against Charlotte Vale's "Daddy's Girl" under the very same rules. And it WAS rebellion against the established belief that women should not talk about their abuse at the hands of their authoritarian abusers.

Kimberly Peirce was censored for "Boys Don't Cry"--not for the violence shown on screen directed against Brandon Teenan, but for the sex scene where Lana Tisdel has an orgasm.

Lenny Bruce was censored for pointing out the utter hypocrisy of banning certain words while committing acts of state-sanctioned violence and racism.

Shall we also add Michael Moore whose book became a best seller while major distributors refused to carry it? If that isn't economic censorship, what is?

Or that no American television station or major movie distributor would show Fahrenheit 9-11?

What about all the documentaries that are available that Americans do not see?

It's not even a plausible argument to say that revolutionary filmmaking or art is NOT censored and that censorship does not serve the very institutions it is designed to protect.

[ 04 November 2008: Message edited by: TVParkdale ]


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11463

posted 04 November 2008 05:04 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
TV Parkdale: What is good taste?
I defer such straw men questions to Tony the Tuna.

From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
al-Qa'bong
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3807

posted 04 November 2008 06:08 PM      Profile for al-Qa'bong   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Since film is my area of specialization, let's take horror films. Terrifically popular, but rarely positive. However, they express something about our culture -- their very popularity and the demographic that love them is very much indicative of an element within the greater culture. Granted the genre has a wide range, and films such as Hostel or Saw are, in my opinion, grotesque expressions that I find abhorrent, but there they are. I still can't just pretend they don't mean anything.

Maybe their meaning is related to pity and fear?


From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
clersal
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 370

posted 04 November 2008 07:31 PM      Profile for clersal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Years ago my children insisted that I see the Exorcist with them. They had already seen it but said that I would be really scared.

I wasn't which was a huge disapointment and even worse a father in front of us who was dragged in by his kids fell fast asleep and was snoring...
I kept giggling so I was not mother of the evening that day.


From: Canton Marchand, Québec | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11463

posted 04 November 2008 08:10 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Blasphemy! Right up there with laughing at a flasher on the scale of infamous indignities...
From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
clersal
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 370

posted 04 November 2008 08:35 PM      Profile for clersal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The first very scary movie I saw was, The Spiral Staircase with Dorothy McGuire and George Brent.

I must have been about 12 and went with my older brother.
It scared the shit out of the both of us.

The second was Psycho that I saw with my sister. We were both adults and it scared the shit out of the both of us. One of us closed their eyes and the other blocked their ears so we didn't miss a thing.

The last, I don't remember the name but there was a blind lady, there were dead people and the only thing you saw about the killer was his boots.
I saw this with my kids and we were all scared!

I saw Psycho again a few years ago but it didn't scare me!

[ 04 November 2008: Message edited by: clersal ]


From: Canton Marchand, Québec | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
remind
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6289

posted 05 November 2008 01:21 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by clersal:
The last, I don't remember the name but there was a blind lady, there were dead people and the only thing you saw about the killer was his boots.
I saw this with my kids and we were all scared!

That was Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark, I bet! That was about the last one I saw as well. And have not watched any of the latter day horror flicks, and would not allow my daughter to either. Just as she does not allow her daughter to either. Fear breeds fear.

An anecdotal experience of mine to this is a friend of my daughter's who is like a daughter to me, has a son slightly older than my granddaughter, and is into all things frightening. Having been raised Pentecostal, she believes in demons, and spiritual possession etc, and has allowed her son to watch horror flicks of all kinds, as well as reading him ghost and demon stories from the time he was small.

Nowadays, at 12 going on 13, he is terrified of most everything, and literally see demons everywhere. Whilst my granddaughter looks at him in amazement, and is frightened of very little by way of the dark and ghosts and demon possessions. Though she is terrified of spiders and who knows why?


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15681

posted 05 November 2008 01:35 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by remind:

Nowadays, at 12 going on 13, he is terrified of most everything, and literally see demons everywhere. Whilst my granddaughter looks at him in amazement, and is frightened of very little by way of the dark and ghosts and demon possessions. Though she is terrified of spiders and who knows why?


I have to wonder how much of this is related to the religious upbringing as well.

Although I have to say, letting a child of that age watch horror films doesn't seem very responsible to me.

Anecdotally, I had a foster child and all we ever said to her was "God loves you" when she asked. She was brought up with no religion, really. Which was okay by me.

A bunch of born again frootbats decided to have an evangelical hoopla outside of our house, as they often did up and down the neighbourhood. They did their usual screaming about demons, hell, damnation, the blood of Jeezus, dying for sins and the usual freaky evangelical hysteria.

The kid had nightmares for weeks, afterwards.

And no, she wasn't allowed to watch horror films.

So I really have to wonder how much the weekly "hell-and-damnation" preaching has to do with the child's fear level how that plays into the films this child is allowed to watch.

Interesting question...


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
remind
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6289

posted 05 November 2008 02:04 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
So I really have to wonder how much the weekly "hell-and-damnation" preaching has to do with the child's fear level how that plays into the films this child is allowed to watch.

Interesting question...


He has not really been to a pentecostal church, as his mother, has in part, left it formally while he was a small child. However, she is still fixated upon what was operantly conditioned into her by way of demons and such. Thus she has imposed that upon her son. And she sees horror shows, which are based upon true life stories, ya know, as being evidence that such demon possession exists. It re-enforces the operant conditioning that already existed, one could say.

For myself, I saw "The Birds" when it first came out on TV and had an irrational fear of birds well into my adult life. Which is one of the main reasons why I would not let my daughter watch horror flicks when she was old enough to do so. Plus, IMV, there is enough horror in real life to contend with who needs to watch it, as a form of "entertainment", as well. For me it is a trigger that I can do without.


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15681

posted 05 November 2008 03:56 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by remind:

For myself, I saw "The Birds" when it first came out on TV and had an irrational fear of birds well into my adult life. Which is one of the main reasons why I would not let my daughter watch horror flicks when she was old enough to do so. Plus, IMV, there is enough horror in real life to contend with who needs to watch it, as a form of "entertainment", as well. For me it is a trigger that I can do without.


I watched some horror when I was a kid, due to older siblings being attracted but the only nightmares I remember at that age were from the winged monkeys in the "Wizard of Oz".

I like horror, not "gorer" but I see it much as Stephen King has described it, a way to relieve our dark side.

The reason I don't find it's something that children should watch is because they already have enough to contend with and they usually don't have the capacity to differentiate between real and imagined fear, very well. Of course, many do have a passion for "Ghoulies" books so I could be off base there.

I was reading Edgar Allan Poe at 10 and it didn't upset me. Perhaps it has to do with one's visual perception?


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
remind
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6289

posted 05 November 2008 05:23 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by TVParkdale:
I like horror, not "gorer" but I see it much as Stephen King has described it, a way to relieve our dark side.
I do not know if we all have a "dark side", or not, and I do not much like that wording.

quote:
I was reading Edgar Allan Poe at 10 and it didn't upset me. Perhaps it has to do with one's visual perception?

Some people are visual learners and perceiver's while others are audio, and still others are written word. Differing people process things in differing parts of their brain.

For example, recent psychopath and sociopath studies have shown that they do not process emotional triggers at all, either by written word or visual stimulation. While it doesn't explain why people become socio/psychopaths, it does indicate what the processes is that allows them to conduct heinous autrocities.


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
al-Qa'bong
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3807

posted 05 November 2008 07:56 PM      Profile for al-Qa'bong   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I saw "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte" at the drive-in with my parents when I was a little guy, and it scared the willies out of me.

I've seen it a few times since then...and it scares the willies out of me.


From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15681

posted 05 November 2008 08:08 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by remind:

I do not know if we all have a "dark side", or not, and I do not much like that wording..

That is a direct quote of King's.

For further discussion, would you prefer the term "shadow side"?


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15681

posted 05 November 2008 08:11 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by al-Qa'bong:
I saw "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte" at the drive-in with my parents when I was a little guy, and it scared the willies out of me.

I've seen it a few times since then...and it scares the willies out of me.


I remember, as a kid, a friend of mine telling me how scary that film was.

So we watched it and for me....

nothing. Not scared. Just interested.

Now, as a teen--the original Mad Max scared me.


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged

All times are Pacific Time  

Post New Topic  Post A Reply Close Topic    Move Topic    Delete Topic next oldest topic   next newest topic
Hop To:

Contact Us | rabble.ca | Policy Statement

Copyright 2001-2008 rabble.ca