Torture Porn

Torture Porn, you say?? WTF! I know. It doesn't conjure up a very nice image. So let me explain.

I won't take credit for coming up with that phrase, although it wouldn't have been hard to when you really think about what it means. I read it in another news article about a year or so ago, that was discussing all of these hardcore torture films that were flooding into theatres with such frequency it was like they were being churned out in some rank, demented film factory run by inbred rednecks with chainsaws down in southern Alabama. That's the only explanation I can come up with to justify the content of these movies, really.

The phrase, which I have seen flying around since then, basically refers to the pornographic nature of the torture film. When people hear the word "porn", they automatically think of sexual porn, which is the most well-known usage of the word, but actually, that's not quite what pornography means. Please refer to the lovely example below that was so kindly provided to me by dictionary.com:

Pornography: "obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, esp. those having little or no artistic merit."

Exactly. Precisely. Could not be more on the ball. Films about torture, violence and gratuitous representation of human pain and suffering that have little or no artistic merit, and in some cases, even involve sexualized torture, like rape-torture scenes. I give you, torture porn!

Here's a little list of films that would fall under the category of hardcore torture porn:

Saw I, II and III
Hostel I and II

Captivity

I don't get these movies. I mean, the name "torture porn" so aptly describes them, because that's all it is. Extensive and drawn out graphic violence that involves captive and helpless victims, and adds nothing to the plot, even if there is a feeble initial attempt at one. It's very similar to sexual porn, actually - all action, no talk, straight up raunch. Because who wants any kind of interesting story or meaningful dialogue with their hardcore rape and torture?? Or with their blowjobs?? Not me, dammit!!

But as a film nerd, I find this newly emerging mainstream genre even more interesting. When you look at the history of film, this new onslaught of over the top and really mentally disturbing violence is the first of it's time. Now, I know hardcore horror flick fans will disagree and say that "we've seen all this same gore before", and they may be right, but it has never been a mainstream movie fixture like it is now - it's mostly been a part of more underground horror movies that were largely appreciated by underground horror flick fans. Even if some of the more raunchy horror flicks from years back were movies that crossed into the mainstream, they simply did not arrive there with the same kind of frequency and intensity we're seeing now. I have a good friend who is majorly into horror flicks from every decade and culture, and even he has a hard time stomaching some of the new torture porn films coming out now.

The point is, it all seems like a bunch of hype, a bunch of hoopla if you will, glorifying violence and death and torture for the masses of scrawny teenage boys that will buy into it. But in truth, it's an ugly reality about the world we live in. It reflects a larger reality about our society that has become a big part of how we live every day, whether nor not we actually directly engage in violence ourselves. We speak violence on some level, we see violence nearly every day, on some level, and so much of our media and entertainment is violence-based it's nearly impossible to escape (UFC anyone? And don't give me that shit about "mixed martial arts, blah blah", fuck off, it's a bunch of doofy guys beating each other in the head in a fucking CAGE, for christ's sake, until one of them drops out of consciousness.)

I think it's ridiculous to argue that the films we watch, (which are themselves a smaller part of a larger sphere of the minute-by-minute entertainment we crave and ultimately demand every day), have no relevance to the world we live in and what we are asking for from the entertainment gods, what we are begging for. Because the marketing reps know, if we're not really looking for it, it won't make them any money. So they're giving us what we're looking for, while simulataneously marketing to us even further the idea that what they're selling is something we really need to get in on. I mean, they wouldn't have made 2 sequels for the movie "Saw" if the first one didn't rake in a ton of money - same goes for "Hostel". Long story short, we want this violence (or a lot of people seem to) and many of us (not counting myself) are very comfortable with, if not downright excited about, indulging in graphic torture scenes and disturbing gratuitous violence as a form of "entertainment".

Basically what I'm saying is, historically, socially, we have crossed a major threshold, and it deserves a bit of attention, I think. I find it morbidly interesting, to be quite honest. We are no longer floating in that interstitial space between horror flicks that are kinda gross and scary and horror flicks that actually make you feel nauseated and violated. We have moved beyond that. It is now such an accepted part of our entertainment world that seriously violent films that feature graphic and disturbing rape and torture scenes are the order of the day. And I just find that, well, disturbing.

I think we're reaching stimulus overload - we're frying out our nerve synapses, our emotional synapases, to the point where the "entertainment" we seek out every day has to be even sexier, even more violent, even more absurd, even more raunchy and fluffy and dramatic, than it was just a year ago. Otherwise, we can't feel it, we can't experience it anymore - it just doesn't have that same kick to it. We are burned out.

And finally, just to make my point even more violently clear, we've got the case of Vince Weiguang Li, the 40 year old man who slashed up a fellow passenger on a Greyhoud bus in Manitoba, completely without warning, and did horrific and unspeakable things to this innocent young guy, while 36 people looked on. People heard about that and gasped in horror and shock, with the stories becoming even more gruesome day after day as further details were brought to light. And people watch that same shit for entertainment! They watch even WORSE shit than that, actually. It just makes me mad that some people will insist, "Well this is real life, and this is just 'entertainment' "? Really? Oh. That's all?? Oh, ok. Well that makes everything alright, then. Thanks for that.

So the next time you're watching a seriously hardcore violent film, think about that poor guy Tim Mclean, and maybe just come up for air long enough to acknowledge that this kind of shit really does happen and should not be exploited and re-enacted for some kind of sick entertainment, even if just out of respect for the millions of people that have been and will be brutally raped, tortured and killed in the years that have passed and the years still to come. And that fucked up show "Dexter, America's Favourite Serial Killer"?? Yeah. Wow. We've reached an all-time low here, folks. I don't care how good the plot is. What's next, "Jeffrey Dahmer, America's Favourite Child Killer"??? No, you say? Too close to home, you say?

I'm just sayin'. Think about it.

Finally, for the record and all, I refuse to watch rape scenes in films because I know women that have been raped and I have had to experience the fear of that possibility in my own life a few times. It's not something that I find very entertaining to watch, in fact it nauseates me, especially when it involves some "super sexy", beat up and bloody woman writhing in pain, and I highly doubt that it ever truly serves any kind of positive, meaningful purpose for those watching it.

Hoopla diagnosis: You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll mostly wish you were dead and not living in this extremely fucked up world. Cocktail, anyone?