9 ms·

24 was notorious for this, it practically celebrated it. It's so celebrated in film and TV that it even has tropes, like with the classic 'opening the bag of su

by ljm 7y ago

24 was notorious for this, it practically celebrated it. It's so celebrated in film and TV that it even has tropes, like with the classic 'opening the bag of surgical instruments' kind of scene, if not the pure brutality of punching an answer out of someone strapped to a chair. Never mind the pure torture porn films like Saw and Hostel. Torture should be depicted for the pure atrocity that it is, not as an entertaining plot piece to imagine doing nasty things to a Russian/Middle eastern person.

hyper_reality 7y ago
You make a good point, but how would you implement this? Would you place artistic limits on directors? Why do you think that torture scenes are so popular in film and TV - is this an issue with filmmakers trying to satisfy a bloodthirsty audience?
- jschwartzi 7y ago
  Stop watching movies that glorify torture as an acceptable means of gathering information.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    Not really a solution, because the people who need this advice the most are also very likely to be the ones to not follow it, as they like those movies.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    I watch hardly any horror movies, and yet the continue to proliferate. Why? Really, this idea of shifting personal behavior and hoping the market/economy as a whole will follow is advanced for some many problems, and in general it is a dismal failure. Why would you even expect it to work? Theaters might stop booking movies that are unpopular, but there is zero social penalty for going to see a movie; and in any case, most movies are watched at home, as is porn. Where is the evidence for this working? Over what timescale? How is it to be measured, especially when streaming video viewership is far less transparent than even old-fashioned box office and movie rental receipts? It's little more than a statement of religious faith in the market, and doesn't even engage with the possibility that vicious as well as virtuous cycles exist and can be manipulated.
    - antepodius 7y ago
      I'm somewhat surprised at how many censor-happy people I see in this thread. I'd be interested to see a survey of the ages of the people here...
      - anigbrowl 7y ago
        I'm not sure why you are addressing this opinion to me.
        antepodius 7y ago
        Neither am I, in retrospect.
      - ljm 7y ago
        I'm certainly not up for censorship. A lot of it just comes across as American power projection (always the good guy American torturing the bad foreigner doing evil things), which I guess is just a fact of life unless you avoid Hollywood and stick to international/art house cinema. Aside from glorifying war and torture, it's such a low-effort cliche and it fails at evoking disgust when it's shrouded in a plot that absolves the good guys of all wrong doing. You know, the end justifies the means, and a side-effect is that now people think torture is good so long as you think the victim is bad. Imagine how many people in Guantanamo have been subjected to over a decade of this treatment under the utterly delusional belief that they must have some information to offer and cannot, under any circumstance, be innocent, so therefore they deserve it. As a counter-example, Antichrist features some scenes that could be seen as torture if the story was reframed. Same with Nymphomania. While that kind of shock value is par for the course for Lars von Trier, it doesn't necessarily celebrate it. I'm sure plenty wanted to ban or censor that; I just wanted to see something genuinely disturbing.
GhostVII 7y ago
You could say the same thing about most violence in movies though. Tonnes of popular action movies have the main character casually shooting dozens of people, and portray it in a positive light (ex. John Wick). I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing either, it is reasonable to have violence and torture as a plot point in a movie, and portraying that violence accurately would just be upsetting to the audience.
- markdown 7y ago
  Big difference between killing people and torture.
- jdfnbjn 7y ago
  Misrepresenting the reality of violence is indefensible. Maybe it's OK to misrepresent love, sport or politics. But violence is serious. There is a qualitative difference between highly stylized gun fu (like John Wick), in which pain is hardly ever in the picture, and any portrayal of torture.
- ahelwer 7y ago
  This point gets brought up every time someone brings up the prevalence of torture & rape in media. I submit that it just derails discussion and never goes anywhere interesting. There is a difference between regular action movie style violence (shooting, explosions, etc.) and rape/torture. If you want to socrates that distinction go ahead, but it is common sense that these are different things.
  - mc32 7y ago
    Wait so one class of violence people can tell it’s fake and not real but other classes of violence suddenly people take it at face value?
    - o-__-o 7y ago
      Yes, remember mortal kombat? 5fps gore created the ESRB. Up until then it was a-ok to shoot bad guys (Hogan’s alley) or stomp on overgrown turtles (Super Mario)
ijidak 7y ago
Recently, cops have been getting in trouble for shooting suspects as they run "away" from the police. Interestingly, cops shooting at fleeing suspects is very common in TV shows and movies, but generally considered unacceptable in real life. I've sometimes wondered if the cops who grew up watching these scenes over and over again as children, might be inadvertently bringing that same behavior into their real life jobs. Of course the challenge of proving this, is well stated in this quote: "Does TV viewing really contribute to all those reactions? ...At the heart of the debate is the difficulty of proving that one thing causes another...Similarly, it has been difficult to prove that the violence shown on television causes crime and antisocial behavior...A Canadian psychologist wrote: “The scientific evidence simply does not show that watching violence either produces violence in people or desensitizes them to it.” However, the American Psychological Association Committee on Media and Society said: “There is absolutely no doubt that higher levels of viewing violence on television are correlated with increased acceptance of aggressive attitudes and increased aggressive behavior.”" Taken from: https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102006362#h=13 https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102006362#h=13 However, among past social circles of mine, I can definitely say TV helped normalize behaviors that at one time weren't as common. For example, I saw gangster rap, and all of the forms of entertainment that accompanied it's rise in the 90's, dramatically normalize arrogant and aggressive behavior among my peers in suburbia. So to me, it's logical that TV and movies are one part of the cultural fabric that can indoctrinate new behaviors in the real world. Some of them really unfortunate.
- XorNot 7y ago
  You're going to have to give me some examples of cops shooting fleeing suspects being common in TV and movies. I can't think of a single one off the top of my head.
  - gentleman11 7y ago
    Gladwell covered a case study in his book “Blink” that was interesting. As you will guess, he’s exploring what goes into split second decisions like those
  - Barrin92 7y ago
mc32 7y ago
That thinking kind of follows the thinking that people who espouse moderating the content of movies and other media.
- kick 7y ago
  That's ridiculous. People can encourage filmmakers being responsible while not encouraging turning the government on them. I can say Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow have done immense damage to the world without wanting them imprisoned or forced to stop making movies. There's nothing wrong with condemning people who are doing bad things: criticism is a necessary part of the equation that allows free speech to work.
  - dntbnmpls 7y ago
    > People can encourage filmmakers being responsible while not encouraging turning the government on them. Responsible art? Give me a break. Leave art alone. Overly sensitive people have already ruined so much of internet already. I'd hate to see art destroyed as well. If you don't like the art, then don't consume it. Simple as that. > criticism is a necessary part of the equation that allows free speech to work. There is a difference between critiquing an art and trying to shame artists from abandoning their art. Are you going to encourage libraries to be "responsible" and remove huckleberry finn or mein kampf? What I really worry about are the sneaky backhanded method of pushing censorship that I see online now. They are worse than the "won't you think of the children" types.
- watwut 7y ago
  The idea that these plot points are beyond criticism or commentary gets us formulaic plots, one dimensional characters and generally the same story again and again and again. There is no big conspiracy in entertainment to make torture acceptable. It is primary dumb plot point that is easy to plug in to get cheap thrill. Just like dumb one dimensional characters characterized by one personality trait are not result of some kind of psychological conspiracy. Acting like this stuff is inappropriate to comment upon is what allows those to stay. Criticizing and commenting on bad cgi and bad acting raised quality of those too.
GuB-42 7y ago
Showing that torture is an effective way for good guys to obtain something is particularly bad. However, I am not against the use of torture in films like Saw. Saw is a horror movie. Horror movies are a way to experience scary things without putting you in actual danger. And they are not going to achieve that by just showing kittens playing, getting you to be scared/horrified/disgusted/... when you know you are perfectly safe and that the story is fiction is hard enough. So they use an arsenal of techniques, from jump scares to phobias and gruesome deaths. And torture is great for this. We can imagine what it feels like, we get to see the blood and gore, we know it something that happens in the real world,... Well made, torture scenes are very effective at creating tension when it is called for. And I don't think we should not use them just because torture is atrocious in real life. When we go see a horror movie or thriller, we know the game, we don't want it to go easy on us. Deep inside, we know we are safe, that's what allows us to have fun playing with our limits. Is it healthy? I think so, most kids love getting scared at some point, and they don't become psychopaths as a result. And horror stories, even the most tasteless ones definitely don't glorify what they are showing.
- ljm 7y ago
  Films like Saw and The Human Centipede are probably just adrenaline rushes and quick thrills. I'm not keen on them because I tend to empathise too much with characters and, to be honest, I don't want to put myself in the shoes of someone facing their final moments with a reverse bear trap stuck to their face. It's generally why I'm not overly keen on violence in movies because I start to over-think or over-feel it, and those situations are so unrealistic that of course I can't comprehend it. I suppose that in itself is a form of cosmic horror but it's purely self inflicted, it's not what the movie is selling. Saw isn't a Lovecraft film. I wouldn't stop anyone else from watching them, and those movies aren't shit or trashy either (like some commenter has said). But I know my reasons for not enjoying them, and preferring horror that is more subtle, psychological, and rooted in realistic trauma that I've experienced myself. Torture is out of the picture because it's too often depicted as something the torturer can't wait to do, they're just held back by a system and they want to go rogue. You know, the trope of the torturer unfolding a cloth or a leather pouch to joyously reveal a bunch of surgical instruments. Or punching a guy in the face so hard it knocks their chair over; which in real life would probably put them in a coma.
jimbob45 7y ago
I don’t wanna devolve into talking about pop culture but...this really isn’t true. Sure, Bauer tortured a bunch of people over the course of the series but it had a success rate of 50% or less. In fact, the very first depiction of torture in the show didn’t work (the one against Ted Koppel in season one). This meme needs to die.

by ljm 7y ago

hyper_reality 7y ago

You make a good point, but how would you implement this? Would you place artistic limits on directors? Why do you think that torture scenes are so popular in film and TV - is this an issue with filmmakers trying to satisfy a bloodthirsty audience?

jschwartzi 7y ago
Stop watching movies that glorify torture as an acceptable means of gathering information.
- filoleg 7y ago
  Not really a solution, because the people who need this advice the most are also very likely to be the ones to not follow it, as they like those movies.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  I watch hardly any horror movies, and yet the continue to proliferate. Why? Really, this idea of shifting personal behavior and hoping the market/economy as a whole will follow is advanced for some many problems, and in general it is a dismal failure. Why would you even expect it to work? Theaters might stop booking movies that are unpopular, but there is zero social penalty for going to see a movie; and in any case, most movies are watched at home, as is porn. Where is the evidence for this working? Over what timescale? How is it to be measured, especially when streaming video viewership is far less transparent than even old-fashioned box office and movie rental receipts? It's little more than a statement of religious faith in the market, and doesn't even engage with the possibility that vicious as well as virtuous cycles exist and can be manipulated.
  - antepodius 7y ago
    I'm somewhat surprised at how many censor-happy people I see in this thread. I'd be interested to see a survey of the ages of the people here...
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      I'm not sure why you are addressing this opinion to me.
      - antepodius 7y ago
        Neither am I, in retrospect.
    - ljm 7y ago
      I'm certainly not up for censorship. A lot of it just comes across as American power projection (always the good guy American torturing the bad foreigner doing evil things), which I guess is just a fact of life unless you avoid Hollywood and stick to international/art house cinema. Aside from glorifying war and torture, it's such a low-effort cliche and it fails at evoking disgust when it's shrouded in a plot that absolves the good guys of all wrong doing. You know, the end justifies the means, and a side-effect is that now people think torture is good so long as you think the victim is bad. Imagine how many people in Guantanamo have been subjected to over a decade of this treatment under the utterly delusional belief that they must have some information to offer and cannot, under any circumstance, be innocent, so therefore they deserve it. As a counter-example, Antichrist features some scenes that could be seen as torture if the story was reframed. Same with Nymphomania. While that kind of shock value is par for the course for Lars von Trier, it doesn't necessarily celebrate it. I'm sure plenty wanted to ban or censor that; I just wanted to see something genuinely disturbing.

GhostVII 7y ago

You could say the same thing about most violence in movies though. Tonnes of popular action movies have the main character casually shooting dozens of people, and portray it in a positive light (ex. John Wick). I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing either, it is reasonable to have violence and torture as a plot point in a movie, and portraying that violence accurately would just be upsetting to the audience.

markdown 7y ago
Big difference between killing people and torture.
jdfnbjn 7y ago
Misrepresenting the reality of violence is indefensible. Maybe it's OK to misrepresent love, sport or politics. But violence is serious. There is a qualitative difference between highly stylized gun fu (like John Wick), in which pain is hardly ever in the picture, and any portrayal of torture.
ahelwer 7y ago
This point gets brought up every time someone brings up the prevalence of torture & rape in media. I submit that it just derails discussion and never goes anywhere interesting. There is a difference between regular action movie style violence (shooting, explosions, etc.) and rape/torture. If you want to socrates that distinction go ahead, but it is common sense that these are different things.
- mc32 7y ago
  Wait so one class of violence people can tell it’s fake and not real but other classes of violence suddenly people take it at face value?
  - o-__-o 7y ago
    Yes, remember mortal kombat? 5fps gore created the ESRB. Up until then it was a-ok to shoot bad guys (Hogan’s alley) or stomp on overgrown turtles (Super Mario)

ijidak 7y ago

Recently, cops have been getting in trouble for shooting suspects as they run "away" from the police. Interestingly, cops shooting at fleeing suspects is very common in TV shows and movies, but generally considered unacceptable in real life. I've sometimes wondered if the cops who grew up watching these scenes over and over again as children, might be inadvertently bringing that same behavior into their real life jobs. Of course the challenge of proving this, is well stated in this quote: "Does TV viewing really contribute to all those reactions? ...At the heart of the debate is the difficulty of proving that one thing causes another...Similarly, it has been difficult to prove that the violence shown on television causes crime and antisocial behavior...A Canadian psychologist wrote: “The scientific evidence simply does not show that watching violence either produces violence in people or desensitizes them to it.” However, the American Psychological Association Committee on Media and Society said: “There is absolutely no doubt that higher levels of viewing violence on television are correlated with increased acceptance of aggressive attitudes and increased aggressive behavior.”" Taken from: https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102006362#h=13 https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102006362#h=13 However, among past social circles of mine, I can definitely say TV helped normalize behaviors that at one time weren't as common. For example, I saw gangster rap, and all of the forms of entertainment that accompanied it's rise in the 90's, dramatically normalize arrogant and aggressive behavior among my peers in suburbia. So to me, it's logical that TV and movies are one part of the cultural fabric that can indoctrinate new behaviors in the real world. Some of them really unfortunate.

XorNot 7y ago
You're going to have to give me some examples of cops shooting fleeing suspects being common in TV and movies. I can't think of a single one off the top of my head.
- gentleman11 7y ago
  Gladwell covered a case study in his book “Blink” that was interesting. As you will guess, he’s exploring what goes into split second decisions like those
- Barrin92 7y ago

mc32 7y ago

That thinking kind of follows the thinking that people who espouse moderating the content of movies and other media.

kick 7y ago
That's ridiculous. People can encourage filmmakers being responsible while not encouraging turning the government on them. I can say Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow have done immense damage to the world without wanting them imprisoned or forced to stop making movies. There's nothing wrong with condemning people who are doing bad things: criticism is a necessary part of the equation that allows free speech to work.
- dntbnmpls 7y ago
  > People can encourage filmmakers being responsible while not encouraging turning the government on them. Responsible art? Give me a break. Leave art alone. Overly sensitive people have already ruined so much of internet already. I'd hate to see art destroyed as well. If you don't like the art, then don't consume it. Simple as that. > criticism is a necessary part of the equation that allows free speech to work. There is a difference between critiquing an art and trying to shame artists from abandoning their art. Are you going to encourage libraries to be "responsible" and remove huckleberry finn or mein kampf? What I really worry about are the sneaky backhanded method of pushing censorship that I see online now. They are worse than the "won't you think of the children" types.
watwut 7y ago
The idea that these plot points are beyond criticism or commentary gets us formulaic plots, one dimensional characters and generally the same story again and again and again. There is no big conspiracy in entertainment to make torture acceptable. It is primary dumb plot point that is easy to plug in to get cheap thrill. Just like dumb one dimensional characters characterized by one personality trait are not result of some kind of psychological conspiracy. Acting like this stuff is inappropriate to comment upon is what allows those to stay. Criticizing and commenting on bad cgi and bad acting raised quality of those too.

GuB-42 7y ago

Showing that torture is an effective way for good guys to obtain something is particularly bad. However, I am not against the use of torture in films like Saw. Saw is a horror movie. Horror movies are a way to experience scary things without putting you in actual danger. And they are not going to achieve that by just showing kittens playing, getting you to be scared/horrified/disgusted/... when you know you are perfectly safe and that the story is fiction is hard enough. So they use an arsenal of techniques, from jump scares to phobias and gruesome deaths. And torture is great for this. We can imagine what it feels like, we get to see the blood and gore, we know it something that happens in the real world,... Well made, torture scenes are very effective at creating tension when it is called for. And I don't think we should not use them just because torture is atrocious in real life. When we go see a horror movie or thriller, we know the game, we don't want it to go easy on us. Deep inside, we know we are safe, that's what allows us to have fun playing with our limits. Is it healthy? I think so, most kids love getting scared at some point, and they don't become psychopaths as a result. And horror stories, even the most tasteless ones definitely don't glorify what they are showing.

ljm 7y ago
Films like Saw and The Human Centipede are probably just adrenaline rushes and quick thrills. I'm not keen on them because I tend to empathise too much with characters and, to be honest, I don't want to put myself in the shoes of someone facing their final moments with a reverse bear trap stuck to their face. It's generally why I'm not overly keen on violence in movies because I start to over-think or over-feel it, and those situations are so unrealistic that of course I can't comprehend it. I suppose that in itself is a form of cosmic horror but it's purely self inflicted, it's not what the movie is selling. Saw isn't a Lovecraft film. I wouldn't stop anyone else from watching them, and those movies aren't shit or trashy either (like some commenter has said). But I know my reasons for not enjoying them, and preferring horror that is more subtle, psychological, and rooted in realistic trauma that I've experienced myself. Torture is out of the picture because it's too often depicted as something the torturer can't wait to do, they're just held back by a system and they want to go rogue. You know, the trope of the torturer unfolding a cloth or a leather pouch to joyously reveal a bunch of surgical instruments. Or punching a guy in the face so hard it knocks their chair over; which in real life would probably put them in a coma.

jimbob45 7y ago

I don’t wanna devolve into talking about pop culture but...this really isn’t true. Sure, Bauer tortured a bunch of people over the course of the series but it had a success rate of 50% or less. In fact, the very first depiction of torture in the show didn’t work (the one against Ted Koppel in season one). This meme needs to die.