Disney=Death

So I guess after reading about some of the horrible stuff in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, I decided to take a little look at some Disney movies to see how much violence is actually in them. First off, I do not remember most of those non-slapstick moments from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I cannot believe my parents actually sat next to me and let the movie continue after those things happened. What were they thinking?

My parents questionable parenting skills aside, I think there is a trend of violence in most Disney movies that seems to be overlooked or unrealized. I know that when I was a kid, I didnt think of death the same way I do now. Besides learning of my own mortality, I didnt comprehend the magnitude of death. This might be an example of object permanence or a lack there of but once a character no longer showed up on the screen, I guess I just forgot about them.

Lets look at the first movie that comes to mind. The Lion King. Not sure if I really need to put a spoiler alert but *Spoiler Alert* OK, so everyone knows Mufasa, Simba's dad, dies. He falls probably three stories and then proceeds to get trampled by a hoard of wildebeest. This is a pretty gruesome way to die when you say it like that. Yet when Simba finds his dad, hes just lying there, as if asleep. I guess what Im trying to say is that Disney movies take adult concepts and dumb them down for kids. They take death and turn it into something that is no longer feared. Death doesnt look so bad when all it does it make you "go to sleep". Of course getting trampled is much bloodier and gruesome, but I guess this is why I should leave the movie making to the pros.

Now that I think about it, a LOT of Disney movies deal with death. It is a very natural thing but should we expose our kids to it so early in life? Who knows? My parents sure didnt mind showing me all those Disney movies, plus some PG-13 movies that I should not have watched. *Spoiler Alert*

Lets see, the mom dies in Finding Nemo, Bambi is a given, Gaston dies in Beauty and the Beast, I could go on and on. Some deaths are used to inspire the protagonist while others are used as a catharsis for the story and I understand that death is a very useful tool in storytelling but is it appropriate for the children? I dont really care and dont really have a stance on this issue, just some food for thought.

Pimpin’

As we touch base on “rap”, I feel it’s probably appropriate to dedicate my post on the subject. On Weds, we briefly discussed that there are perhaps no famous “non- African American” rappers around. Somehow, my thoughts gravitated towards Natalie Portman’s SNL skit a few years back. Portman is not a rapper, but nonetheless, she is famous after all. (I’m sure most people have seen it due to the popularity of the show, but the short is hilarious in its own right. I’m embedding it here just for kicks). In the digital short, she portrays herself as an angry gangsta rapper – reminiscent of mainstream artistes like 50 cent or Eminem - which presents a rather refreshing image from this particular Harvard grad. For me personally, visualizing Portman rapping, swearing AND violently smashing objects were unthinkable before this video. Who would've thought Queen Amidala of the Galactic Republic could do such a thing?

But if you think about it - if this wasn’t endorsed by SNL, people just might take this seriously.

On a completely different note, Natalie’s Rapping is really not bad at all.

The Wrestler

Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler showcases the sheer physical brutality of wrestling despite the fact that it is staged. In one particularly gruesome scene (one that I wasn't able to find on Youtube sorry), Randy "The Ram" takes turns using a real stapler gun with a fellow wrestler on each other. The dives they take and the chairs and other objects they use to hit each other clearly do very real damage to the amateur wrestlers portrayed in this movie. Mickey Rourke, the actor who plays "The Ram", before filming had very little respect for professional wrestling because of his background as a boxer but quickly after training for the movie he stated that wrestling is just as or maybe even more dangerous than professional boxing. Many of the old retired wrestlers today are banged up physically with many problems and lasting damage from their careers.

The movie also delves deeply into the culture of wrestling. Wrestlers, despite their public animosity towards each other through playing roles like babyface (the good guy) or the heel (the bad guy), have for the most part a great deal of camaraderie with each other and are good friends with each other in private. They plan the bouts together, they commend each other's performances afterwards, and they even share steroids together. Beneath the violence on display in their matches is an obvious respect and caring for each other.

Comic vs. Dramatic Violence in The Hunchback of Notre Dame

In children's movies, violence is obviously portrayed very differently than it is in most works intended for adults. Since the main concerns are simple slapstick laughs, and because in works for children it is important to limit serious harm, violence in children's movies is generally very cartoonish and silly, with no serious lasting effects. This is what I would call comic violence, and it is used pretty extensively for easy laughs.

However, occasionally children's movies will use violence for a more dramatic effect. Lots of movies for children feature villains, but since more serious violence is a risk for the younger audience, even villains only rarely threaten serious violence. A few Disney classics do feature serious acts of violence, and these scenes have demonstrated an amazing staying power in our generation's memory: the deaths of Mufasa and Scar in the Lion King, for instance, or Gaston fighting the Beast in Beauty and the Beast. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, although not quite as successful as either of those, is notable for its extensive use of very serious acts of violence with repercussions that last throughout the film.

Here are some examples of non-slapstick violence in Hunchback:

-A fleeing woman is murdered by being thrown onto stone steps

-A prisoner is whipped and screams in pain

-Judge Frollo threatens to drown a baby

-Frollo kills an ant nest, when introducing his plan of genocide

-Frollo tells a bound Esmerelda to either submit to his lust, or be burned at the stake, and he sets her stage on fire when she refuses

-A house is locked with an innocent family inside, and then it is set on fire

-The entire city of Notre Dame is set on fire by Frollo's orders

-Frollo drops off the belltower and into a pit of hellish molten metal with a visible splash

Although there is almost no blood, and only one character is actually killed, this is an extraordinary amount of violence for a children's movie. What's most interesting about Hunchback's dramatic violence is that it is side by side with the comic slapstick violence that is considered perfectly appropriate for a children's movie. In some scenes, armed guards are punchlines (literally), and in others they are serious and deadly threats.

In order to clearly differentiate between the different styles of violence, the movie relies on a few key clues that help to covey the message of the violence. In dramatic scenes, the tension is carried with dramatic religious intonations or with ominous orchestral cues that help the viewer to sense the emotion and weight of the violence. In comedic violence sequences, the music is much more jaunty. Additionally, the physics of the world is bent into comedic form when the violence is non-serious. For the slapstick scenes, people go flying across the screen when hit, or are capable of amazing acrobatic tricks. This contrasts sharply with the more serious scenes, where the characters seem to lose these tricks and instead are punished by arrows or spears and must struggle to survive. The sound effects vary too: for comedy, there are pinball sounds or other goofy noises when people are struck. In the dramatic scenes, these joke sounds are gone.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the violence committed by the villain, Judge Frollo, is never comedic, whereas the heroes frequently commit acts of violence that would kill or incapacitate guards which are mitigated by the comedic nature of the attacks. Even in otherwise dramatic scenes, the heroes always seem to land hits that produce goofy visuals or silly noises to make the violence more acceptable. It's only attacks on Frollo himself, the single developed villain, that are dramatic.

This, in some ways, runs contrary to the examples of violence in movies we've discussed before. In, for example, Kill Bill or Star Wars, the uniformity and non-development of the guards makes it easy to see unmitigated violence committed against them. It's only against well-developed (or even somewhat differentiated) characters, like the Yakuza boy whose mask falls off, that the concept of mercy or a fair fight need apply. In adult films, the undifferentiated mooks are the most abused because their uniformity makes them sub-human and unworthy of consideration. In this children's film, the undifferentiated mass of guards is still a target of violence, but it is always played for comedy, never as a serious source of pain. It's only the differentiated villain that can be fairly targeted by unmitigated violence.

Bulletstorm: Worst Game in the World?

Over this past console generation, video games have been following a big budget trend. Millions of dollars are dumped into developing pretty graphics and a focused style while gameplay is becoming more scripted and cinematic. "Bulletstrom", released Feb, 22 by Epic Games and People Can Fly is a stylized gore feast for the eyes.

What separates "Bulletstorm" from the multitude of other linear action games is the creativity of the extreme violence the user is encouraged to partake in. The developers have implemented a "skillshot" system that rewards the player points based on the creativity of his shot placement and kills. If you shoot someone in the butt, the words "Fire in the Hole"cascade and you get extra points, if you kill multiple enemies in a single explosion, you are awarded with "Gangbang". You are basically awarded for playing with your prey. It almost feels as they want me to play the game as I would have played a shooter such as "Goldeneye" as a kid with my friends after getting out of class; immaturely. Frankly, it's an absolute blast.

"Bulletstorm" never once takes itself seriously and has been applauded for it's humorous, satirical story line and racy dialog. Not all critics have been happy though. The always "fair and balanced" Fox news went on to label "Bulletstorm" as "The Worst Game in the World". According to a resident expert, the tying of violent acts to sexual innuendo in the skillshot system influences children to rape people. Thats right, even in complete absence of any data or scientific studies the bold claim that video games increase chances of rape is made. On contrary, many scientific studies show little to no correlation between real life violence and violence in the virtual world.

Epic Games made no comment when Fox attempted to question them, but released a statement on their own blog shooting down Fox's claim. They also released sales data of "Bulletstorm", ironically revealing a major spike in sales after the controversy. I guess that according to Fox, we are all sadistic rapists in training.

Cannibal Cuisine

Our society likes to make celebrities of criminals, especially of murderers.  The more vile and morbid is the crime, the more salacious is the discourse about it.  Acts of cannibalism become especially notorious.  In contemporary cases of infamous cannibals such as Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer, the media played no small part in generating their notoriety.  Rarely, however, does the public hear an account from the murderer themselves (Even O.J. Simpson's novel If I Did It was canceled).

Issei Sagawa, this time sampling a more socially acceptable dish. Source

In 1981, Japanese student Issei Sagawa was in Paris studying French Literature.  On June 11, he invited his classmate Renée Hartevelt to his apartment under the pretense of dinner and literary conversation.  While she was seated at the table, he shot her through the back of the neck with a rifle, killing her instantly.  He later testified that he fainted after shooting her, and awoke feeling regret but was committed to his plan of eating her.  He began with her buttocks, sampling the flesh both raw and cooked.  He then moved on to her legs and hips, pausing to copulate with the corpse.  For two days, he feasted on the dead body.  He attempted to dump the mutilated body in a suitcase in a lake near his apartment, but was seen in the act and later arrested by French police.

Dinnertime at the Sagawa household.  Source

The case was, from his arrest on, sensationalized in both the French and Japanese media.  In 1985, the popular French Magazine Paris Match obtained and published photos of the aftermath of the murder.  A journalist was arrested and a quarter of a million copies of the magazine were seized as a result. 

A few of the tamer photos which were published in Paris Match.  Source

Sagawa's family offered unwavering support for their son and his wealthy father provided a top lawyer for his defense.  After being held for two years without a trial, Sagawa was found legally insane and unfit to stand trial. He was ordered to be held indefinitely in a secure mental institution.  During this time, he was visited by Japanese author Inuhiko Yomota, who returned to Japan with Sagawa's account of the murder in his novel In the Fog, which made bestseller lists in Japan.  Probably because of the publicity of the morbid affair, French authorities decided to extradite Sagawa to Japan.  In Japan, he was checked into a hospital where he was found sane but sexually perverted.  However, the Japanese authorities found it legally impossible to hold him, as the French court did not sent the proper paperwork.  On August 12, 1986, Sagawa checked himself out of the hospital as a free man.

Don't make me hungry. You wouldn't like me when I'm hungry. Source

Instead of being ostracized for his crimes, Sagawa has become a celebrity in Japan.  He is hardly shy about his crime, taking every opportunity possible to talk about it.  His novel In the Fog became a best seller.  He is often invited as a guest speaker and commentator.  In an odd twist of fate, he has served as a food critic for the Japanese magazine Spa.  He appeared in the 1992 exploitation film Uwakizuma: Chijokuzeme (Unfaithful Wife: Shameful Torture) as a sadosexual voyeur.  He has written novels about other infamous Japanese murderers, directed soft-core pornography, made paintings about violent and sexual fantasies, and has inspired numerous films and songs about his life.

 Sagawa with an original painting (left) and a vial of his own semen (right), both of which are for sale. Source

There is no shortage of accounts of the murder from Issei himself:

At first I bit into her butt with the intention of munching right through, but it’s impossible! Human skin is so thick. I ended up with a sore jaw, although I managed to leave some teeth marks. I ended up swallowing the clitoris and some pubes without chewing on it because she had her period then and the smell was just horrendous. But it was the first moment that I actually felt a sort of sexual pleasure in eating her, as if my inner body was on fire. Also, you know how beef or whale meat has a sort of beastly smell to it? Human meat is odorless. I actually believe that human meat is the tastiest of all meats. It doesn’t have any of that gamey animal smell. When I ate some more a couple of days later, just before I got arrested, the meat had become sweeter and it tasted great. The meat on the soles of her feet smelled bad, though, and didn’t taste very nice. The neck was the best. The meat tastes more delicate as you move up the body, especially above the torso. Her tongue was delicious as well. I took it out of her mouth and chewed on it raw. Neither the neck nor the tongue has much meat on it, though, so if you really want to feast, you should eat the thighs. Source

He has proclaimed that he has not renounced his cannibalistic fantasies, even calling for more young, beautiful women to submit themselves to be consumed by him:

The desire to eat people becomes so intense around June, when women start wearing less and showing more skin. Just today, I saw a girl with a really nice derrière on my way to the train station. When I see things like that, I think about wanting to eat someone again before I die. So yes, I do still harbor these desires, and I specifically want to eat a Japanese woman this time. I think either sukiyaki or shabu shabu [lightly boiled thin slices] is the best way to go in order to really savor the natural flavor of the meat. Can you please call for people who would willingly be eaten by me in your magazine? There’s one condition, though: They have to be young, beautiful women. Source

 Sagawa with a ten-piece artwork puzzle depicting the murder of Renée Hartevelt; each piece, numbered and signed, is for sale. Source

With other cases of cannibalism, the Japanese seem to be just as horrified of the act as most other societies.  In 2008, Tsutomu Miyazaki, "The Otaku Murderer", was executed without protest for killing four young girls, eating parts of their flesh, and sexually molesting their corpses.  However, Sagawa experienced a completely different treatment for his crimes.  Did his willingness to discuss his crimes somehow make them more socially acceptable?  Or, did the vast coverage of the event, in the French and Japanese media as well as Sagawa's own publicization of the event dehumanize the horrors that went down that night in his Parisian apartment?  Whatever caused this seeming acceptance of Sagawa's crimes, one cannot argue that it is not a morbidly fascinating case to read about.

Violence at the Jersey Shore

I love MTV's Jersey Shore, and I am not embarrassed to admit it. If you don't watch the show, you are simply missing out on an hour of awesomeness every Thursday night. Seriously, this show has everything you can ask for: sex, violence, alcohol-induced rages, steroid-induced rages, girls in bikinis. Literally, think of something that you enjoy and I guarantee you will find it in the Jersey Shore. Anyways, as I watched Sammie and Ronnie have yet again another HUGE fight last Thursday, I decided I was going to incorporate this violence into our blog somehow. Coincidentally enough, when I searched "Ronnie and Sammie Jersey Shore Fight," I found this video: a compilation of these two psychopaths fighting with Eminem's "Love the Way You Lie" playing in the background. The video is actually edited quite well, and if Megan Fox wasn't in the real music video, I would actually prefer this one. Back to Ronnie and Sammie though. Sammie Sweetheart, the self-proclaimed "sweetest bitch you'll ever meet" is constantly fighting with her on-again off-again boyfriend Ronnie (who makes Ronnie Coleman look like Michael Cera). MTV is not stupid, they know the more these two fight the more money the show will make. Seriously though, if you haven't seen an actual episode with Ronnie and Sammie fighting you need to go watch one. Crazy stuff happens, Sammie cries hysterically while Ronnie just absolutely rips her apart: he calls her every unflattering name under the sun, he throws her personal possessions (including her bed) out a window, and he even goes through her closet and rips her clothes into pieces. This show is arguably one of the most violent shows on Prime time television, no lie. MTV will continue to feed their prized "guidos" and "guidettes" alcohol and money in an attempt to continue riding the Jersey Shore wave all the way to the bank. If Sammie and Ron were no longer on the show, I don't think I'd watch it anymore. The violence they bring is a nice touch to the program, and I hope it continues.