Hey Scrib,

I don't think that many movies glorify torture. I understand there is a genre called gore-porn that would seem to tap into fantasies that, without any investigating, seem unhealthy to me. The only film I can think that has had a theatrical release that comes close to that genre is Chaos. Even that miserable tripe though, did not glorify torture. It was just a ridiculous film that was unbelievably gory and perverse.

Generally, the point of gore in film, whether caused by torture or zombies or auto accidents, is to viscerally unsettle the viewer. Audiences tend to like it because it is an uncommon sensation that can be experieced in total safety. In Wolf Creek, it works, because we care about the people getting destroyed and what the killer does to them is quite gross. The quesy feeling in the stomach comes precisely because the torture has the effect one would expect, to horrify. In Hostel I would expect the effect would have been the same if the movie was worth a damn. It's not so one has only moments of "yuck!" and "ouch!" in between long spells of boredom. If anyone at all sees the movie and comes out thinking that torture is glorified I would suspect that they felt the same going in. In a nation as large as ours it would be no suprise, though still very unlikely, to find some disturbed person who decided to act out something awful from one of the films. That would be because that person is disturbed and saw the film with a warped mindset, not because the film encouraged them, or even softened them to the idea.

I would caution against assuming that if something is presented in a film, or any story, that it is automatically embraced positively. What's love got to do with it? for example, has instances of domestic violence where Ike beats Tina. The film certainly does not glorify domestic violence just as Land of the Dead does not glorify evisceration by zombies. There is a huge difference. Horror movies with torture are horror movies because it is disgusting, not because torture is embraced.

I don't think that media have the kind of effect you bring up on youth. I would think the opposite actually. Playing violent video games or seeing a film with dismemberments o'plenty will not make someone into a monster before they join the military. Joining the military however, can in some circumstances (especially some combat) twist one enough to do something terrible. In Wolf Creek for example the killer says the following line, "I'm going to do something now they used to do in Vietnam. It's called making a head on a stick." It seems fairly clear to me that the line is meant to comment on the dehumanizing effect the Vietnam war (and by extension, Australia's current participation in the Iraq war) had on Mick. Most combat vets don't come back that twisted of course, but some certainly do. One of my drill sgts. in Fort Leonard Wood had pictures of himself next to confirmed kills in his office. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer did not make him like that, the first Gulf War did. I would offer the following when considering the effects of media on teens who might be signing up for the big blue gang or the military: A fairly small amount of skepticism can undo years and years of commercial programming. Kids are exposed to advertisements from a very early age and are continually saturated with ads for products that try to make as good a consumer as possible out of them. Yet many of these kids still become critical thinkers (to one extent or another and sometimes from their own initiative) after two decades of consumerizing propaganda. I don't see how much of an effect on behavior a film of 1.5 hours is going to have if thousands of hours of commercials over two decades can only offer say, a 75% (guessing) success rate.

That said, it doesn't take much critical thinking at all to realize that torture is a bad thing. Being grossed out or frightened is the for all real purposes uniform, and correct, response.

reading Todorov, JJ