Last week’s lecture was about extreme violence and how the audience reacts to seeing such media. We started by watching a clip from "Happiness"(1998) in which a man is seen strolling through a park and quite peacefully gunning people down in the most calm and relaxed way imaginable. The music playing over the top is also gentle and calm. This is clear binary opposition and the use of this creates a reaction in the audience which was evident in the lecture, as the majority of people broke out into laughter, as what they were witnessing was so absurd. We also watched a scene from “Natural Born Killers” (1994) a favourite of mine which features the adventures of Mickey and Mallory a couple travelling down route 666 whilst on a killing spree just for kicks. It is a typical road movie like "Thelma and Louise"(1991) or "Easy Rider"(1969), but contains a lot of killing and is also a love story. The violence is portrayed in an almost glamorous way and there is also a first person shot which is in reference to the game ‘Doom’ which makes the audience experience the violence from the attackers perspective, making it less disturbing. This lecture made me think back to a seminar where we were asked to analyse a scene from “A Clockwork Orange” (1971) where there is a display of violence which is carried out in a most extraordinary way. The scene is filmed in slow motion with Rossini’s overture to La Gazza Ladra playing, which makes the fight look almost like a ballet as the characters can be seen leaping ever so gracefully around in time to the music. This is another way of downplaying the violence, as when it is associated with something as high brow as ballet it doesn’t appear to be so shocking or brutal. The lecture also dealt with violence in video games, in particular the “headshot” and how this and other forms of video game violence has desensitised the audience to the material. This desensitisation is thought by some people to be a bad thing as it makes people less disturbed by the idea of killing and therefore in a way devalues human life. This of course is not true as it is just a form of entertainment and just means that humans are curious beings that like to explore darker aspects of the world. This is a form of catharsis, the cleansing of emotions after experience, in particular fear and is very therapeutic to some people. The point is just because someone likes to play first person shooters or watch violent films, it doesn’t mean they will one day buy a gun and start killing people looking to score headshots.
