Torture Culture?...Maybe a good thing.
Alright, so, you love American Horror Story.
You follow the Walking Dead religiously.
You've even checked out that show Breaking Bad that everyone's talking about.
Something amidst all the drama and circuitous writing makes you think there's an underlying theme linking all these popular shows and movies: Torture.
Hear me out, I'm going somewhere with this.
WE (and here I mean the vast majority of Americans whom grew to love serialized, parallel lives of other Americans) LOVE (and here I mean see ourselves in every second of struggle) TORTURE (and here I mean seeing a seemingly powerless hero overcome odds that are insurmountable.)
We love it possibly more than cat pictures on the internet.
If I may quote Armand Goldman from the Birdcage: "But let me tell you why-"
And I'll give you four sound examples...
Exhibit #1- American Horror Story
This one's obvious, but I'll still stand by it. Great writing, amazing cinematography, but we're, as the audience, waiting for these characters to die. Nine times out of ten they do, and we expect it, but it's how they do that matters.
Could we have been so enthralled with Murder House if not for the Rubber Man?
Didn't BloodyFace captivate us in Asylum?
Is the Axeman our new scary, sexy slasher in Coven, or have we moved beyond the fear of a singular entity causing all this terror, and now it's a group; a coven. A powerful family rules over us, and we are enthralled as they set our fate.
Exhibit #2 - Breaking Bad
C'mon. Tell me from the first minute of this show you didn't want to see how Walter White meets his demise. It's the entire premise. That's why you want to watch it: this character is doomed, and you're forced to white-knuckle it until the bitter end.
Exhibit #2a - the Sopranos
A similar, yet tamer experience is present in the Sopranos. Tony Soprano was a pussy, (and I use this word here because [as far as we know] he got out alive.) Surely we are meant to respect Tony from the get-go, but our care for him slowly declines over time. Does he gain our respect? (Chirstopher and Adrianna do: despite overwhelmingly evil and destructive forces they still maintain a modicum of dignity upon their demise. [Both are ridiculed at their deaths, which, to me, speaks to the strengths of their characters for their killers to belittle them so.])
I say no. I believe Tony is inconsolable. Much like Walter White, he is a marked man. How will his fuse burn out, and how big will the explosion be? That's the point.
-So...Back to Exhibit #2 again,-
Jesse gets to live. Does he deserve it?
Yes, because he's been walking through the fire. He's rewarded with another chance, and we want to see him get there, but Walter never gets that chance. He's flawed, he's a marked man, but we want to see what kind of mayhem he causes before his brief candle burns out.
Exhibit #3 - The Walking Dead
We're supposed to believe this is Rick's story, but it's not. This show is about how Michonne, Daryll, and Carl survive. Each keep being tested, and each keeps cementing their place as the foundation of what little of humanity is left fights for: constancy, power, and hope.
Without hope, there is no fight for survival. Without strength, there is no chance of hope.
Hope kindles the fire in an otherwise weak person, it bolsters them when odds are seemingly against them.
Speaking of hope, that brings me to...
Exhibit #4 - the Hunger Games
Again, a no-brainer, but a perfect example of our hunger for torture.
Katniss is a character we can all identify with: under the thumb of an oppressive government, trying her hardest to provide for her family, and yet still put in the midst of inexplicably horrible circumstances.
She fights to survive, and we are right by her side every second.
We want to be her, we want to see her triumph, and yet, we still want to see her struggle; because without the games she'd just be another Anne Frank.
She proves to us that we really are no better than the residents of the Capitol, because we want to watch everything bloody thing that happens just as much as they do. We know children will die, we know they're often forced against each other in hand-to-hand combat, and yet we'll still tune in for the charnel-house entertainment.
I'm not even trying to decry this phenomenon. I love all these shows and movies, and would be sorely disappointed if any of them didn't deliver the bloody, shocking, and twisted plot turns they seem to be chock full of.
I'm simply attempting to call to light the unsettling subtleties of this resurgence of Arena-like entertainment. We may know a hero when we see one, but until he rips his opponent's throat out with his teeth, we might not be cheering for him with all our might.
Maybe football needs a bit of a re-tooling...
_JC11152013
You follow the Walking Dead religiously.
You've even checked out that show Breaking Bad that everyone's talking about.
Something amidst all the drama and circuitous writing makes you think there's an underlying theme linking all these popular shows and movies: Torture.
Hear me out, I'm going somewhere with this.
WE (and here I mean the vast majority of Americans whom grew to love serialized, parallel lives of other Americans) LOVE (and here I mean see ourselves in every second of struggle) TORTURE (and here I mean seeing a seemingly powerless hero overcome odds that are insurmountable.)
We love it possibly more than cat pictures on the internet.
If I may quote Armand Goldman from the Birdcage: "But let me tell you why-"
And I'll give you four sound examples...
Exhibit #1- American Horror Story
This one's obvious, but I'll still stand by it. Great writing, amazing cinematography, but we're, as the audience, waiting for these characters to die. Nine times out of ten they do, and we expect it, but it's how they do that matters.
Could we have been so enthralled with Murder House if not for the Rubber Man?
Didn't BloodyFace captivate us in Asylum?
Is the Axeman our new scary, sexy slasher in Coven, or have we moved beyond the fear of a singular entity causing all this terror, and now it's a group; a coven. A powerful family rules over us, and we are enthralled as they set our fate.
Exhibit #2 - Breaking Bad
C'mon. Tell me from the first minute of this show you didn't want to see how Walter White meets his demise. It's the entire premise. That's why you want to watch it: this character is doomed, and you're forced to white-knuckle it until the bitter end.
Exhibit #2a - the Sopranos
A similar, yet tamer experience is present in the Sopranos. Tony Soprano was a pussy, (and I use this word here because [as far as we know] he got out alive.) Surely we are meant to respect Tony from the get-go, but our care for him slowly declines over time. Does he gain our respect? (Chirstopher and Adrianna do: despite overwhelmingly evil and destructive forces they still maintain a modicum of dignity upon their demise. [Both are ridiculed at their deaths, which, to me, speaks to the strengths of their characters for their killers to belittle them so.])
I say no. I believe Tony is inconsolable. Much like Walter White, he is a marked man. How will his fuse burn out, and how big will the explosion be? That's the point.
-So...Back to Exhibit #2 again,-
Jesse gets to live. Does he deserve it?
Yes, because he's been walking through the fire. He's rewarded with another chance, and we want to see him get there, but Walter never gets that chance. He's flawed, he's a marked man, but we want to see what kind of mayhem he causes before his brief candle burns out.
Exhibit #3 - The Walking Dead
We're supposed to believe this is Rick's story, but it's not. This show is about how Michonne, Daryll, and Carl survive. Each keep being tested, and each keeps cementing their place as the foundation of what little of humanity is left fights for: constancy, power, and hope.
Without hope, there is no fight for survival. Without strength, there is no chance of hope.
Hope kindles the fire in an otherwise weak person, it bolsters them when odds are seemingly against them.
Speaking of hope, that brings me to...
Exhibit #4 - the Hunger Games
Again, a no-brainer, but a perfect example of our hunger for torture.
Katniss is a character we can all identify with: under the thumb of an oppressive government, trying her hardest to provide for her family, and yet still put in the midst of inexplicably horrible circumstances.
She fights to survive, and we are right by her side every second.
We want to be her, we want to see her triumph, and yet, we still want to see her struggle; because without the games she'd just be another Anne Frank.
She proves to us that we really are no better than the residents of the Capitol, because we want to watch everything bloody thing that happens just as much as they do. We know children will die, we know they're often forced against each other in hand-to-hand combat, and yet we'll still tune in for the charnel-house entertainment.
I'm not even trying to decry this phenomenon. I love all these shows and movies, and would be sorely disappointed if any of them didn't deliver the bloody, shocking, and twisted plot turns they seem to be chock full of.
I'm simply attempting to call to light the unsettling subtleties of this resurgence of Arena-like entertainment. We may know a hero when we see one, but until he rips his opponent's throat out with his teeth, we might not be cheering for him with all our might.
Maybe football needs a bit of a re-tooling...
_JC11152013
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