Must we subject ourselves to trauma?
There are horrible things that are part of reality. I think it is reasonable that adults should have some awareness of the realities of the world.
Does this have to come in the form of witnessing viscerally disturbing events such as beheading videos. Can someone be aware of these things in print, and not in graphic visual detail?
If one works in emergency response, law enforcement or medicine there is a necessary desensitization that regular exposure to these horrible events in full sensory detail would provide allowing one to do their job effectively. I sympathize with people in these professions for the life-saving society-stabilizing jobs they do, and the psychic torture it puts them through.
Personally, scenes of human suffering disturb me and I skip through those in cinema, as I don't find the trauma necessary. I wish I could unsee certain scenes in Human Centipede for example. And I avoid watching beheading videos because in my view it is enough to know this travesty goes on without witnessing the horror.
Is the argument that it is necessary to experience in the same for fiction, as opposed to reality? In one sense it is fake, in another sense it may mirror an important reality.
What got me thinking about this was watching the horrific short film Skin.
On the one hand it makes important points about racism, on the other hand it is traumatic in a way, I would argue is salacious. There is a scene when, presumably motivated by racism judging by the language used prior to the actions, several men nearly beat another man to near death in a parking lot. This while the victim's wife and child watch from their car screaming and pleading with the attackers to stop.
This is a revenge movie, and one of the aforementioned assailants gets theirs in horrific fashion.
These parts I mostly skimmed and skipped through in revulsion, so the details may be a bit off. This is what I gathered from the other scenes I saw.
One of the assailants, from earlier in the narrative, is kidnapped in a van. In a garage the man is branded with Swaztikis to mark his racist crime like the Scarlet Letter. I don't know if he is painted or burned to make his skin appear much darker.... but his appearance is fundamentally altered. The man makes his way home and breaks into his own house but his spouse doesn't recognize him because of his new appearance. In fear for her life and that of her children, his spouse shoots the man to death, after which she finally realizes the man is actually her husband.
Do I need to have that inside my brain? I'm unconvinced. Though maybe I'm just motivated by trying to avoidance of pain.
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ReplyDeleteI don’t watch horrible videos of real violent events. You don’t need to see it to know it’s awful. It says something about you as a person if you watch things like that. Also, in movies, I think you can see the horror in ways other than showing all the actual violence. Like in the movie you discuss, just seeing the family’s reaction is all you need to know it’s horrific, you don’t need to see the actual beating. As a writer I sometimes will have some violence, but I try to allude to it rather than describe all the gory details. I must say sometimes there is a bit of blood. But I think writing is very different from watching it on a screen.
ReplyDeleteWell said. I was moreso trying to start discussion on it, rather than having a settled opinion. Thanks for your perspective :)
ReplyDeleteNah you dont have to. Its probably better for your mental being. But people do have that morbid curiousity that naturally compels them to watch it anyways. Like me ive watched a few but moreso when i was younger. The site rotten.com back in the 2000s provided enough shock value to me. Now that im older im more averted to it. Thats why i has the dumb now from my brain being numbed and you continue to fluorish in your intellectual prowess. But like you said it helps to desensitize your brain if your job requires it. I cant imagine a surgeon being squeamish every time they cut someone up! Certainly they shouldnt enjoy cutting someone up too as that is a whole other level of depravity. It might give you thicker skin in day to day life too. The gory stuff i can handle in movies because i know its just ketchup and prosthetic limbs but not so much in real life. ^.^
ReplyDeleteYou don't "has the dumb" you're a smart guy, just shy sometimes.
DeleteThanks man haha youre helping me reframe my brain!
DeleteI have seen my fair share of traumatic videos like you said with the beheadings. Other ones that were traumatically horrifying ive seen include the russian guy that was spun to death by a lathe or a chinese worker who got caught in a paper roller and was spun to death with no one around to save him or a guy who got his hand blown up by a firework. Those are singed into my brain. And the description is horrifying enough. But hearing of tragic events/situations can probably be just as horrifying to some (9/11 jumpers, hong kong apartment fire burning people alive). Perhaps i was sick is why i watched those stuff.
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