Violence: Worse than pornography?


Vort
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I watched part of Saving Private Ryan on some TV channel last night or the night before. We never saw the show, primarily because of its 'R' rating, but the TV cut had cleaned up some language and, probably, some graphic violence. My wife and older sons were watching it, and I watched on and off for an hour. It was at times riveting and seemed very realistic in its depiction of the savagery of war.

At one point, I told my sons that I would not watch any more. It was far too disturbing to watch men literally blowing each other's heads off. I told them I considered it a pornography of violence. God save me if I ever reach a point where I find such depictions entertaining. Yet I am fully aware than many people enjoy such shows, taking in a steady diet of violence. If I can say anything good about the movie, it was that the depictions of unspeakable violence and utterly ruthless killings was portrayed as vile and shocking; many movies portray such violence as a joyful, fun thing to behold.

I remember coming home from my mission to Italy in the mid-80s. Though I had been exposed to quite a bit of nudity in Italy, I was still quite sensitive to such things and assumed that I would be greatly bothered by overtly sexual imagery and positive portrayals of fornication. And indeed, such things were (and still are) bothersome to me. What surprised me was the realization that portrayals of violence were much more shocking to my soul, even than portrayals of fornication. I honestly believe that if I had to choose between the two, I would choose the porn, even knowing that it would canker my soul. Because the violence would destroy my very humanity.

Of course, that's like saying that cutting off your arms is better than cutting off your head. Don't take this as any kind of endorsement of pornography. On the contrary, the better you understand how much I loathe pornography, the more you will understand the surprising intensity of my statement that it does not seem to offend my spirit as much as the violence I see in some shows.

Anyone else feel this way, or have other thoughts on the matter?

Edited by Vort
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I own the DVD of the movie, and my take on it is quite different, though I understand where you're coming from.

The reason I bought the movie is because it is a fair depiction of the cost of freedom in this world. Think on all the wars the Nephites had to wage in defense of their freedoms. Were they any less horrifying or violent? The truth is that freedom needs to be defended up to and including the use of extreme violence and war.

Now, I don't watch Saving Private Ryan very often because it is a very violent film (I prefer comedies and sci-fi much more). At the same time, the violence in that film serves an important purpose in displaying what was needed to defend the freedoms of the European nations.

War is not pleasant, nor should it be glamorized. However I feel it is a necessary element of this life and we cannot ignore it without risking our freedoms.

Finally, not all violent films serve a good purpose in this way. In fact, I would say that most any other violent film would find me agreeing with you (Vort) completely in all aspects. The Saw series, Final Destination series, etc... Films that use violence and profanity as the core element are a tragic waste of time and talent on the part of all involved in the production. We are capable of far better.

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I've seen both Saving Private Ryan and Schindlers List. While there is much violence in both movies, it is true to life and historical. Violence for violence sake I don't understand. But when a movie is made on actual facts and actual historical events, it's hard to sugar coat those.

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The only difference in our opinions is that I abhor pornography or gratuitous sex in movies too.

Huh? Vort abhors pornography and gratuitous sex in movies as well:

Don't take this as any kind of endorsement of pornography. On the contrary, the better you understand how much I loathe pornography, the more you will understand the surprising intensity of my statement that it does not seem to offend my spirit as much as the violence I see in some shows.

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It strikes me that movies like Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan served a legitimate purpose of describing "how it really was" even through the 1990s, when most WW2 documentaries we had either used carefully selected images or showed everything in sanitary black-and-white.

But the newer documentaries have fewer compunctions about what kind of images they show--witness, for example, World War 2 in HD--which display the gory images that our history textbooks never showed, and in color to boot.

So, what role remains for the fictionalized versions of World War 2 as provided in those particular movies?

It strikes me that we are willing to tolerate those movies because we've lived through fifty years of peace. Back when a critical mass of American males had seen the real thing, firsthand--they'd have to be out of their minds to pay good money to see more of the same (or Hollywood's ever-more "realistic" interpretation thereof) on the big screen.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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At the height of World War II, twelve million people were in uniform. About a million of them didn't come home.

I don't discount those who served in the later conflicts; but I think it's fair to say that nothing that came later (with the possible exception of Vietnam, which itself ended nearly forty years ago and from our standpoint cost 1/20 of that number of men) had anything like the same effect on the national psyche.

If Saving Private Ryan had been produced in 1946, one in every five American males wouldn't have had to go see it. Because they'd have lived the real thing.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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In the early 1990s, I was concerned that my youngest was beginning to enjoy the violence of movies and video games too much. He wanted to be called "killer." Russian film from the Nazi prison camps was just released and being shown on PBS. I made him sit with me for a couple hours watching it. It included bodies of prisoners who were burned by flame throwers just hours before being rescued. Other film showed the bodies being tossed into mass graves.

He started getting physically ill over it, which was what I wanted him to experience. He still remembers that event. While there is a place for Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List, I fear they get lost in the "realistic" violence of other movies. People get hardened and desensitized until they are beyond feeling. They need more and more to affect their senses, just as an addict needs more and more drugs to satiate their habit. Are we approaching the desensitized nature of the Jaredites and Nephites prior to destruction?

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I'm trying to sort out my feelings about this as I type, so excuse me if I end up not making sense.

I think there's gratuitous violence, which I don't want to see. I've stopped watching some of the police shows on TV because I think they are often sexist and there can be a blending of sex and violence that I dislike.

On the other hand, war movies should be violent. People should see what war is about. My husband saw combat in Vietnam. I had little idea of what he went through until I saw some of the Vietnam era war movies. To this day, I can't watch Platoon or even Forest Gump, because it makes me think of what my husband went through. When I saw Forest Gump in the theater, you could hear the concussion of the weapons; it was maddening. I don't need to experience that again. There is a lot about Vietnam that I can't watch because I associate those films with problems my husband had on his return from Nam. On the other hand, I can watch WWII and Korean Conflict movies without feeling personally involved.

And strangely, I have a hard time watching Civil War battle scenes. When you realize that some battles, battles on American soil with American men, resulted it the deaths of thousands, it is almost unbelievable. I think that short of aliens invading, we would never countenance that kind of loss these days. Now that is war - up close, personal, and deadly as all get out. Considering Civil War battle casualties will really make you think about warfare.

Also, I don't want to see a cut up version of anything. I want to see the artist's vision for the work and I want to respect the men and women who fought for our country by seeing what they really went through and looking at the film as envisioned by the director, writer, and actors.

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Guest fadedleaf

I have to agree, and I wonder if gratuitous violence doesn’t also stimulate the same area of the brain as sex (or pornography) does. For me, when I used to start watching violence it would have a hard time turning my head. I guess I spent too much time watching horror movies as a child.

When I was in Japan there too is nudity but most of it is frontal. I’m not going to argue the ethics of the human body as perceived in foreign countries – nor should I – but what I have seen from an average perspective watching cultural changes I will say that violence is the new porn. If one were to watch a violent war movie and a pornographic movie (not suggesting anyone try this) with the sound off then that person might see that many of the camera angels are the same. In Saving Private Ryan watch the close ups, the mouth changes, and the body movements. Then try to watch a sexual movie that hopefully isn’t X rated. The obvious changes are from the passionate to the dispassionate, yet many of the basic shapes are there. (Please accept my humble apologies for those in filmography, for it has been many years since I’ve studied).

But lets push all that to the side for the moment. Yesterday I walked into my local department store and passed the games, because I wanted to buy Lego Star Wars for my two boys. In that isle were boxes in colorful print with severed limbs, and faces caught in horror. Next to that were several titles such as Gears of War 3, Call of Duty, Battlefield 3, and Dead Island. My six year old stood trancelike in front of the glass when it hit me: the gaming industry has finally caught up to the point where they are selling horror/ violence/ pornography fantasy; and the desensitizing of our youth has gotten to the point where it takes vivid imagery of a man being torn apart for the same stimulation. Like pornography, it takes more and more stimulation for the same effect. They have become visual opiates.

Needless to say my spouse groaned at me, which means keep pushing the basket, but the thought has always remained. The fate of pornography and violence are one and the same. If the industry hasn’t already done so (I don’t know if they have) I’m certain that pornographic themed violent horror movies and ultra realistic games will be the next venture.

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People get hardened and desensitized until they are beyond feeling.

That is only partially correct. I work in a profession where I see the worst in humanity, including the aftermath of extreme violence. Sometimes I have to use violence to make an arrest. My wife commented once that we become desensitized to the things we see and sometimes do. I think of it as a blessing. It allows me to compartmentalize things so I can do my job. It does not make me beyond feeling. Little children as victims still bother me every time. But, I can "turn on a switch" that allows me to do what I have to do and stay mentally sane. I love the movies Blackhawk Down and Band of Brothers. Private Ryan is up there too. For me, they show men of courage and conviction that I can relate to in some ways and look up to in many ways. There are other movies that do not have anything redeeming in them. The "slasher" flicks fall into that category. I think the context of movie determines whether or not there is value.

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Huh? Vort abhors pornography and gratuitous sex in movies as well:

I agree Vort abhors it.... I abhor it just as much as violence where Vort said he abhors pornography less than violence.

I honestly believe that if I had to choose between the two, I would choose the porn, even knowing that it would canker my soul. Because the violence would destroy my very humanity.

I apologize for wording my post badly.

Edited by applepansy
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Guest mysticmorini

I don't think we need to place evil on a scale. Evil is evil. That being said I think the violence in Saving Private Ryan is legitimate and is something we SHOULD see at least once in our lives. Let me explain that last statement: If we don't see or know what that type of violence was like we run the risk of thinking "oh WWII, it wasn't that bad"

Similarly, I remember watching a show on the history channel. When the allied forces found/liberated the German concentration camps Gen. Eisenhower made the US troops walk by the mass graves and see the emaciated Jews and take pictures so that it would be impossible for future generations to not believe such a travesty took place.

As Mormons we generally try to protect ourselves from being desensitized from the harshness of the world. I think we go to far if we blind ourselves completely. We need sunglasses but not blinders, and from time to time we need to take the sunglasses off to remember how bright the sun is.

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I agree there needs to be films like Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List. I strongly believe we have a few generations who don't have a clue what fighting for freedom really means.

I just can't watch it.

In a crisis (injury or whatever - and nothing like war) I am usually cool headed, fall back on my training, take care of the problems.... then when everything is calm and clean and healing.... I fall apart.

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This was a subject that I started thinking about a lot as a parent. (I assume all of us parents do, it's just I hadn't before I became one.)

I'm very strict about the content in the DVD collection on my shelf. Yes, Saving Private Ryan is there, as are a few other movies with violence that has much less meaning in it than SPR. (Aliens, for example.) At the same time, you will not find *ANY* nudity in my DVD collection. Not even a single bare breast. I used to have movies that contained some. Conan the Barbarian, Starship Troopers, Braveheart. I got rid of them for moments of nudity, not for sustained graphic violence.

Why?

Because while I agree that being desensitized to violence isn't a good thing, I am also much less worried about it impacting my kids' behavior. My sons play fairly violent video games (Unreal, Call of Duty, etc) but that doesn't instill in them an itch to go out and do violence. Violence isn't a natural human instinct. We're not genetically or hormonally driven to be violent.

On the other hand, our hormones and genes to compel us to reproduce, and it's a natural urge that we, as spiritual people, need to keep under tight control in ourselves. Seeing nudity on screen wears down that control, puts thoughts in our minds that can and often do lead to other things. A momentary view of a topless woman in a movie can easily lead to the desire to see more, and to seek it out, and that's a fast path to pornography.

So for that reason I'm much more careful about nudity than I am about violence. The rational mind handles it better. When you watch a violent movie you know you're seeing fake blood. No matter how gruesome someone's death is, it's simulated. That blood isn't real, and the "dead" person gets back up and has lunch afterward. A bare breast is a bare breast no matter the context and it's quite real. That carries its own spiritual implications for the actress, and the viewer is supposed to be stimulated by that.

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Reading this thread, I'm starting to worry about my own take on violence.... I cannot think of a time, even as a child, where anything graphically violent- be it film, games, books, comics, anything "not real"- ever bothered me. The same goes for horror/scary things. I don't even think I could say I've been "desensitized" because it's not like it originally bothered me and I gradually brought down a wall due to over exposure. It just really has never bothered me. I've even found myself become fascinated and fixated by it while others are either turning away, balking, or jumping in their seats. No matter how "realistically" it is depicted, its like I have this internal switch that knows it is fake and isn't bothered by it.

Now, when it comes to "real" violence, I have a very low tolerance for it. I cannot stand the thought or idea of hurting anyone or anything. When witnessing something truly violent (or even hearing someone retell an actual experience), it bothers me deeply. I had a history teacher who recounted his war experiences to his class when I was in middle school, because he wanted us to know what war is really like and didn't want anyone glorifying violence. Hearing his recounting made me physically ill and I had to ask to leave. I once saw someone stomp on the head of a baby bird, and I again became physically ill. And the list goes on. Every actual experience with something violent has elicited this reaction. For some reason though, I don't have this reaction to "fake" violence.

I also seem to "turn off" this reaction when dealing with injuries. I've helped a lot of injured animals as well as worked with lab animals where we had to euthanize some. Whether the animal ended up healing or dying didn't matter. Nothing about what we did bothered me. The same goes for injuries with people. I think it is because I am dealing with the results of violence or accidents and not actual violence. Even when I myself was killing something, I prefered watching to looking away and it didn't bother me- I think because I knew that this was not an act of violence but mercy. And when I taught a zoology lab, it was very very easy for me to cut apart and meticulously teach others about the anatomy of the various animals we studied.

Now though, realizing how much just doesn't seem to bother me, I'm starting to feel a little sickened with myself. Is there something wrong with me? Every post on this thread, even those who are okay with some violence in movies/games/whatever for one reason or another, I'm seeing people voice something that I lack. For some reason, I only seem to have this adverse reaction to actual witnessed or recounted violence. Nothing else gets any kind of phsyical or mental reaction out of me other than perhaps curiosity.

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"Violence: Worse than pornography?"

Vort! I can't express my surprise that you would voice such a Euro-socialist idea! :D

Yeah, well, you're not the only one. My wife teases me about being a closet tree-hugger.

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Nothing is the matter with you, Judo.

You just have a strong sense of reality and can disconnect the image of violence with the act of violence.

I wouldn't worry too much about the animal thing. A lot of people will talk about how they would never hurt an animal, then go out and eat a bacon double cheeseburger. Farmers, butchers, hunters and the like have been killing animals since mankind first stepped east of Eden. If there were something wrong with you, there was something wrong with all of them and they did all right.

Reading this thread, I'm starting to worry about my own take on violence.... I cannot think of a time, even as a child, where anything graphically violent- be it film, games, books, comics, anything "not real"- ever bothered me. The same goes for horror/scary things. I don't even think I could say I've been "desensitized" because it's not like it originally bothered me and I gradually brought down a wall due to over exposure. It just really has never bothered me. I've even found myself become fascinated and fixated by it while others are either turning away, balking, or jumping in their seats. No matter how "realistically" it is depicted, its like I have this internal switch that knows it is fake and isn't bothered by it.

Now, when it comes to "real" violence, I have a very low tolerance for it. I cannot stand the thought or idea of hurting anyone or anything. When witnessing something truly violent (or even hearing someone retell an actual experience), it bothers me deeply. I had a history teacher who recounted his war experiences to his class when I was in middle school, because he wanted us to know what war is really like and didn't want anyone glorifying violence. Hearing his recounting made me physically ill and I had to ask to leave. I once saw someone stomp on the head of a baby bird, and I again became physically ill. And the list goes on. Every actual experience with something violent has elicited this reaction. For some reason though, I don't have this reaction to "fake" violence.

I also seem to "turn off" this reaction when dealing with injuries. I've helped a lot of injured animals as well as worked with lab animals where we had to euthanize some. Whether the animal ended up healing or dying didn't matter. Nothing about what we did bothered me. The same goes for injuries with people. I think it is because I am dealing with the results of violence or accidents and not actual violence. Even when I myself was killing something, I prefered watching to looking away and it didn't bother me- I think because I knew that this was not an act of violence but mercy. And when I taught a zoology lab, it was very very easy for me to cut apart and meticulously teach others about the anatomy of the various animals we studied.

Now though, realizing how much just doesn't seem to bother me, I'm starting to feel a little sickened with myself. Is there something wrong with me? Every post on this thread, even those who are okay with some violence in movies/games/whatever for one reason or another, I'm seeing people voice something that I lack. For some reason, I only seem to have this adverse reaction to actual witnessed or recounted violence. Nothing else gets any kind of phsyical or mental reaction out of me other than perhaps curiosity.

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Now though, realizing how much just doesn't seem to bother me, I'm starting to feel a little sickened with myself. Is there something wrong with me? Every post on this thread, even those who are okay with some violence in movies/games/whatever for one reason or another, I'm seeing people voice something that I lack. For some reason, I only seem to have this adverse reaction to actual witnessed or recounted violence. Nothing else gets any kind of phsyical or mental reaction out of me other than perhaps curiosity.

Well if there's something wrong with you then there's something wrong with us both.

I suspect there isn't, though.

I'm horrified by severe injury when it's real. Sometimes I watch the shows on Discovery where they show actual injuries in the E.R. and it sickens me, yet in the shows where it's only a re-enactment, I'm fine.

It isn't a matter of being desensitized, it's like FunkyTown said, the mind knows the difference well enough not to overlap.

When I see some gruesome, visceral injury in a movie like, say, Dawn of the Dead, all I can think is "Wow, how did the Special Effects crew pull that off?" But what's interesting is when I watch something like Saving Private Ryan and there's a similarly hideous injury, it bothers me even knowing that it's only simulated for the movie, because I keep thinking "This sort of thing actually happened." So it isn't the sight of the gore on screen that's bad, it's the realization that something that hideous was a common sight on those battlefields...

...and it makes me want to find a vet and hug him.

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Guest mysticmorini

...and it makes me want to find a vet and hug him.

Please don't though... some of us have PTSD and unsolicited physical contact can cause extreme reactions. ;)

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Please don't though... some of us have PTSD and unsolicited physical contact can cause extreme reactions. ;)

Duly noted. :P

Actually I once had a chance to shake hands with a WWII vet... I was at an air show and was inside an actual B-17 from the war and it turned out the elderly gentleman behind me had been a B-17 ball turret gunner. That was an awesome moment.

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I thank every vet I see. They deserve the acknowledgement. I spoke one night with a WWII vet. He was a B-17 pilot. His two brothers were landing on Normandy below him on D-Day. One was infantry the other one was a medic. The infantry brother was shot on the beach and ended up in a casualty collection point where his medic brother treated his wounds. All three survived D-Day. It was a pretty cool story to hear him talk about.

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