My friend and I, during one desolate Milton Keynes evening, were discussing violence in movies and literature; whether it is always warranted, and whether it sometimes borders on snuff. When does violence stop being a metaphor for social dysfunction and tip into ‘splatter porn’?
First, let us be frank; violence is not a new thing in the world of or literature, and few authors are able to keep totally away from it during their career. Even the Bible used a few burnt animal carcases to beef up its plot.
And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
From cave paintings to modern-day slasher films, violence has existed in most art forms. During the Victorian era, a level of uber-conservatism led to a long silence of violence in literature and in which fairly tame pieces of prose, such as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, were abhorred by the nation while at the same time being lapped up eagerly. After the two World Wars, when the human race saw the violence and destruction it was capable of, there was a break out of censorship and the borders of what was acceptable began to be probed.
According to the Office for Intellectual Freedom, at least 42 of the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century have been the target of ban attempts. In 1969, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. published Slaughterhouse-Five, a book which was subsequently subjected to a range of censorship attempts. It contained extreme violence and graphic sex, all designed to display the human feelings of impotence in response to radical destruction. In 1973, a book seller in Orem, Utah, was arrested for selling the novel “A Clockwork Orange”. In 1974, five residents of Strongsville, Ohio, sued the board of education to remove the novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest”, saying it "glorifies criminal activity, has a tendency to corrupt juveniles and contains descriptions of bestiality, bizarre violence, and torture, dismemberment, death, and human elimination."
All of the above examples of censorship do not relate to whether certain depictions of violence are over-the-top and should be classed as ‘splatter porn’, but it highlights the first problem in this quest to find an answer…that being definition. At what point do we say some views are prudish and others valid?
About 18 months ago, I began a story about a boy whose passion for violence was so all consuming that it almost became a competition. When I write, I almost write in character; method writing if you will (I can hear you laughing you know). While I am writing the horrible and terrible things that this character does (and they are terrible and horrible), I don’t realise until I read it back how nauseating they are. However, they came from my head, therefore they, without wanting to brand myself as some king of sadistic killer pervert, exist in my head and likely exist in everyone’s. Not on the surface, or even near the surface, but exist they must, otherwise it wouldn’t exist at all (tree falling in the forest and all that). To face that utterly appalling potential of the human race, to see it, know it, understand it; will surely suppress it? To pretend it doesn’t exist is surely dangerous (remember Geoffrey Dahmer? Guy couldn’t admit he was gay and ended up hacking little bits off guys he killed and eating them). My friends stance is common – when the guy on the screen is cutting the eyes out of the victim, what is it that the audience are getting out of it other than some sort of sadistic gratification? Is my friend perhaps trying to deny what the human race is capable of?
No, I believe what my friend was getting at during that windy Milton Keynes evening, was the portrayal of violence simply for violence sake; when the violence itself becomes the entertainment. He could let a book like American Psycho go by, but not a film like Hostel. Therefore, censorship here is not the issue, violence (even extreme violence) is okay; providing there is a reason for it. This is what defines ‘splatter porn’ from ‘violence’.
I should point out that he has not seen the film Hostel, and I am sure that, as a scientist, he would be the first to hold up his hands and say that having not observed the example in-situ, he is practising bad science. Now, I have seen Hostel, and I don’t necessarily disagree with his point. Hostel certainly is a good example of a recent extreme de gore. So what could bring about the difference, for him, in a book such as American Psycho and a film such as Hostel? They are both extremely violent; both did well at the box office/bookshop and both were subject of a range of censorship debates.
1 – Writing
So, I have been writing a novel about this character that has a terrible and awful approach to friendship/relationship management and he does some disgusting and terrible things. There is a point to the violence though, but what if the reader doesn’t get it? What if my poor writing ability which should be quite plain to you by now, infiltrates this fledgling work and make the reader think that the whole point of it is to make them feel a bit sick? What if people think the book is just ‘splatter porn’?
In the case of American Psycho, despite it being in my opinion Bret Easton Ellis’s worst book, no doubt easily gets the point of the violence across. The hedonism and consumerism of the eighties and its effect of dehumanization upon the main character is evident on every page. At one point, where the main character is dragging the axe mutilated body of a co-worker out of his apartment building in “a Canalino goose-down sleeping bag” he is stopped by a friend who asks him “what the general rules of wearing a white dinner jacket are”. Good writing = acceptable violence.
So is Hostel a case of bad writing? The Director, Eli Roth, says the point of the overly-violent film is to poke fun at the insular fear of Americans. He takes a couple of normal American kids, plonks them in a foreign country which is the epitome of stereotypical post-soviet depression, and knocks them off in the most gruesome ways possible. But who are the ones doing the knocking off? Rich Americans, not the natives. Okay, so the metaphor is a little obvious, but to be fair to the movie, it got some really good reviews.
So, let’s pretend that Hostel and American Psycho are on the same playing field here. It isn’t the writing which brands Hostel as ‘splatter porn’ – although I do think it plays a major role in certain cases.
2 – Marketing
The marketing campaign for Hostel included a number of carefully placed news reports of people being sick and fainting in the aisles. After that, the censor-lovers took over the marketing for them and used their large shouty podium to tell the world of the movie. This is why it had an excellent opening weekend of $20Million.
American Psycho on the other hand was marketed differently, but none the less, there were similar aspects to it. There were a number of censorship attempts which brought the book to people’s attention. It was certainly the first book of Bret Easton Ellis’s that I’d ever heard of and people I’ve met have said the same thing (no doubt something to do with the success of the film). But anyway, on the whole, book marketing is much less in your face. Perhaps if their had been graphic posters on the London tube system of some of Pat Bateman’s disgusting deeds my friend would have refused to watch it like he has with Hostel. This brings us to our third point.
3 – The Audience
A lot of people went to see Hostel not because they were desperate to absorb its message, but because it was a violent movie. I am a horror movie fan, love them. I have never really found physical horror (violence and killing etc.) particularly scary. It’s disturbing and nauseating, but not scary. Some people do find it scary though. Perhaps these people, who go to see Hostel, don’t go because they want to be sick, they go because they want to be scared (like bungee jumping, roller coasters, etc). Peer pressure probably plays a role as well in some cases.
My friend has never been a fan of any horror movies, ultra violent or not. And that’s cool; he also thinks Christian Bale is a good actor – go figure. But to him I would like to point out an important fact which may quieten him a little the next time he wants to mouth off about how useless these films are.
Films such as Hostel, and others of the same ilk, are very important pieces of work. There are unfortunately a bunch of idiots in the world, idiots who will always exist, will breed and continue to populate our planet forever. It is the purpose of these idiots, their god given purpose, to attempt to control, ban, and censor everything that doesn’t conform to a strict sense of moral values that some ancient and original member wrote on the back of a Doyle many years ago. While you may not like the values of films like Hostel, it keeps this group of idiots occupied while slightly less violent but just as open to censorship pieces of work, can slip easily under the net and be enjoyed for the true pieces of art which they are. Don’t think of Hostel as ‘Splatter Porn’, think of it as a ‘Splatter Pawn’.
First, let us be frank; violence is not a new thing in the world of or literature, and few authors are able to keep totally away from it during their career. Even the Bible used a few burnt animal carcases to beef up its plot.
And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
From cave paintings to modern-day slasher films, violence has existed in most art forms. During the Victorian era, a level of uber-conservatism led to a long silence of violence in literature and in which fairly tame pieces of prose, such as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, were abhorred by the nation while at the same time being lapped up eagerly. After the two World Wars, when the human race saw the violence and destruction it was capable of, there was a break out of censorship and the borders of what was acceptable began to be probed.
According to the Office for Intellectual Freedom, at least 42 of the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century have been the target of ban attempts. In 1969, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. published Slaughterhouse-Five, a book which was subsequently subjected to a range of censorship attempts. It contained extreme violence and graphic sex, all designed to display the human feelings of impotence in response to radical destruction. In 1973, a book seller in Orem, Utah, was arrested for selling the novel “A Clockwork Orange”. In 1974, five residents of Strongsville, Ohio, sued the board of education to remove the novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest”, saying it "glorifies criminal activity, has a tendency to corrupt juveniles and contains descriptions of bestiality, bizarre violence, and torture, dismemberment, death, and human elimination."
All of the above examples of censorship do not relate to whether certain depictions of violence are over-the-top and should be classed as ‘splatter porn’, but it highlights the first problem in this quest to find an answer…that being definition. At what point do we say some views are prudish and others valid?
About 18 months ago, I began a story about a boy whose passion for violence was so all consuming that it almost became a competition. When I write, I almost write in character; method writing if you will (I can hear you laughing you know). While I am writing the horrible and terrible things that this character does (and they are terrible and horrible), I don’t realise until I read it back how nauseating they are. However, they came from my head, therefore they, without wanting to brand myself as some king of sadistic killer pervert, exist in my head and likely exist in everyone’s. Not on the surface, or even near the surface, but exist they must, otherwise it wouldn’t exist at all (tree falling in the forest and all that). To face that utterly appalling potential of the human race, to see it, know it, understand it; will surely suppress it? To pretend it doesn’t exist is surely dangerous (remember Geoffrey Dahmer? Guy couldn’t admit he was gay and ended up hacking little bits off guys he killed and eating them). My friends stance is common – when the guy on the screen is cutting the eyes out of the victim, what is it that the audience are getting out of it other than some sort of sadistic gratification? Is my friend perhaps trying to deny what the human race is capable of?
No, I believe what my friend was getting at during that windy Milton Keynes evening, was the portrayal of violence simply for violence sake; when the violence itself becomes the entertainment. He could let a book like American Psycho go by, but not a film like Hostel. Therefore, censorship here is not the issue, violence (even extreme violence) is okay; providing there is a reason for it. This is what defines ‘splatter porn’ from ‘violence’.
I should point out that he has not seen the film Hostel, and I am sure that, as a scientist, he would be the first to hold up his hands and say that having not observed the example in-situ, he is practising bad science. Now, I have seen Hostel, and I don’t necessarily disagree with his point. Hostel certainly is a good example of a recent extreme de gore. So what could bring about the difference, for him, in a book such as American Psycho and a film such as Hostel? They are both extremely violent; both did well at the box office/bookshop and both were subject of a range of censorship debates.
1 – Writing
So, I have been writing a novel about this character that has a terrible and awful approach to friendship/relationship management and he does some disgusting and terrible things. There is a point to the violence though, but what if the reader doesn’t get it? What if my poor writing ability which should be quite plain to you by now, infiltrates this fledgling work and make the reader think that the whole point of it is to make them feel a bit sick? What if people think the book is just ‘splatter porn’?
In the case of American Psycho, despite it being in my opinion Bret Easton Ellis’s worst book, no doubt easily gets the point of the violence across. The hedonism and consumerism of the eighties and its effect of dehumanization upon the main character is evident on every page. At one point, where the main character is dragging the axe mutilated body of a co-worker out of his apartment building in “a Canalino goose-down sleeping bag” he is stopped by a friend who asks him “what the general rules of wearing a white dinner jacket are”. Good writing = acceptable violence.
So is Hostel a case of bad writing? The Director, Eli Roth, says the point of the overly-violent film is to poke fun at the insular fear of Americans. He takes a couple of normal American kids, plonks them in a foreign country which is the epitome of stereotypical post-soviet depression, and knocks them off in the most gruesome ways possible. But who are the ones doing the knocking off? Rich Americans, not the natives. Okay, so the metaphor is a little obvious, but to be fair to the movie, it got some really good reviews.
So, let’s pretend that Hostel and American Psycho are on the same playing field here. It isn’t the writing which brands Hostel as ‘splatter porn’ – although I do think it plays a major role in certain cases.
2 – Marketing
The marketing campaign for Hostel included a number of carefully placed news reports of people being sick and fainting in the aisles. After that, the censor-lovers took over the marketing for them and used their large shouty podium to tell the world of the movie. This is why it had an excellent opening weekend of $20Million.
American Psycho on the other hand was marketed differently, but none the less, there were similar aspects to it. There were a number of censorship attempts which brought the book to people’s attention. It was certainly the first book of Bret Easton Ellis’s that I’d ever heard of and people I’ve met have said the same thing (no doubt something to do with the success of the film). But anyway, on the whole, book marketing is much less in your face. Perhaps if their had been graphic posters on the London tube system of some of Pat Bateman’s disgusting deeds my friend would have refused to watch it like he has with Hostel. This brings us to our third point.
3 – The Audience
A lot of people went to see Hostel not because they were desperate to absorb its message, but because it was a violent movie. I am a horror movie fan, love them. I have never really found physical horror (violence and killing etc.) particularly scary. It’s disturbing and nauseating, but not scary. Some people do find it scary though. Perhaps these people, who go to see Hostel, don’t go because they want to be sick, they go because they want to be scared (like bungee jumping, roller coasters, etc). Peer pressure probably plays a role as well in some cases.
My friend has never been a fan of any horror movies, ultra violent or not. And that’s cool; he also thinks Christian Bale is a good actor – go figure. But to him I would like to point out an important fact which may quieten him a little the next time he wants to mouth off about how useless these films are.
Films such as Hostel, and others of the same ilk, are very important pieces of work. There are unfortunately a bunch of idiots in the world, idiots who will always exist, will breed and continue to populate our planet forever. It is the purpose of these idiots, their god given purpose, to attempt to control, ban, and censor everything that doesn’t conform to a strict sense of moral values that some ancient and original member wrote on the back of a Doyle many years ago. While you may not like the values of films like Hostel, it keeps this group of idiots occupied while slightly less violent but just as open to censorship pieces of work, can slip easily under the net and be enjoyed for the true pieces of art which they are. Don’t think of Hostel as ‘Splatter Porn’, think of it as a ‘Splatter Pawn’.
