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From: ariels@orca.UUCP (Ariel Shattan)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Violence in movies
Message-ID: <1756@orca.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Sep-85 02:12:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: orca.1756
Posted: Mon Sep 23 02:12:21 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 26-Sep-85 06:18:54 EDT
References: <140@nvuxg.UUCP> <1902@reed.UUCP> <1512@hammer.UUCP> <1921@reed.UUCP>
Organization: sixes and sevens
Lines: 31

Lady Godiva writes about violence and how stabbing is worse than
shooting and in general how she feels about viewing violence, then
asks:

> Anyone else feel this way? (About knives vs guns vs
> whatever.) Where do you draw the line, so to speak, on violence?
> 

I think that graphic violence is generally unnecessary to most plot
lines, but there are instances (a very few), that while it makes me
physically ill, I don't condem the movie.  For example, there were many
scenes in "The Killing Fields" that made my stomach hurt horribly, but
I still class the film as "powerful" instead of "needlessly graphic."
I feel the same way about Holocaust documentaries.  I will, however,
only watch this type of movie when I feel strong enough to handle
them.

But when the violence has no lesson attached to it, but is only there
for the "entertainment" value ("Friday the 13th part whatever" and
other teen gore flicks), or worse yet for "artistic" value ("The Long
Riders"), I find that my intellectual response to such movies is
negative, even if the violence is not as physically or emotionally
affecting.

I *do* enjoy movies where the gore is so badly done so as to be
unrealistic, such as in Monty Python movies.  But most of these go
into the "bad movie" genre, and are enjoyable for other reasons,
too.

Ariel Shattan
..!tektronix!orca!ariels


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