Violence in the Media
So I reviewed Raiders of the Lost Ark a little while back and was struck by how violence in movies has shifted over the years.
A lot is said about how recent film certification standards have relaxed regarding graphic or gruesome images of violence; where once a bad guy's shooting death would have involved a small spot of blood on his shirt, a bit of a grunt, and the bad guy falling over, now you get to see his head totally asplode in a kick-ass fountain of bone shards and brain. And the film still gets rated 15, or even 12A.
But modern films are very hot on the moral context of the violence. A villain can be violent, as long as he is subsequently seen to be punished for his violence; and a hero can be violent, as long as he is motivated by righteous vengeance or is protecting someone else.
This has led to the "needlessly cruel execution" trope. The hero's buddy, brother, partner or close family member is taken captive by the villain, who struts around in front of said hapless victim, inflicts some strictly unnecessary pain, and then kills him in a sadistic way. This a) strongly establishes the villain's badness and b) strongly establishes the hero's just motivation for later killing the villain, which he will of course do quickly and painlessly, preferably in self-defense after he decides to be the bigger man and spare his enemy and his enemy unexpecedly pulls a gun from his pocket. Everybody wins.
If you want to get away with violence against your enemies without first establishing that they deserve it, you should make sure your enemies aren't human. Ideally, they could be actual robots, monsters or aliens or the like, or at least entirely unidentifiable as human. Watch the Star Wars movies and you'll see what I mean; I know that stormtroopers are human and you know that stormtroopers are human, but in those blank white suits, does anyone care when Han Solo and Luke Skywalker are shooting/chopping them down by the dozen? Of course not.
So, back to Raiders. This was the eighties; an earlier, more innocent time, when there was less screen gore, but when script-writers didn't have to agonise about justifying the hero's gun-slinging, sword-swinging antics. So I'm watching Indy kicking around, jumping from trucks and swinging on his whip and stuff, and a bunch of Nazi soldiers turn up and he just shoots them! Just straight out, whips out a gun and shoots them! Dead! Bam! Like, they don't strut around a bit first and kick an old woman to the floor or anything. They're just chasing him. Hell, maybe they're chasing him to give him flowers and a soap assortment! You don't know they deserve to die, Indy! How do you know? Seriously?
It kinda shook me. When I was twelve, I couldn't give a rat's arse. That was what heroes did then. But not anymoe; I've got used to elaborate scenes establishing the hero's bona fides (or, specifically, the villain's mala fides), and I wasn't ready for casual slaughter, even if they are Nazis.
Weird. Future shock.
A lot is said about how recent film certification standards have relaxed regarding graphic or gruesome images of violence; where once a bad guy's shooting death would have involved a small spot of blood on his shirt, a bit of a grunt, and the bad guy falling over, now you get to see his head totally asplode in a kick-ass fountain of bone shards and brain. And the film still gets rated 15, or even 12A.
But modern films are very hot on the moral context of the violence. A villain can be violent, as long as he is subsequently seen to be punished for his violence; and a hero can be violent, as long as he is motivated by righteous vengeance or is protecting someone else.
This has led to the "needlessly cruel execution" trope. The hero's buddy, brother, partner or close family member is taken captive by the villain, who struts around in front of said hapless victim, inflicts some strictly unnecessary pain, and then kills him in a sadistic way. This a) strongly establishes the villain's badness and b) strongly establishes the hero's just motivation for later killing the villain, which he will of course do quickly and painlessly, preferably in self-defense after he decides to be the bigger man and spare his enemy and his enemy unexpecedly pulls a gun from his pocket. Everybody wins.
If you want to get away with violence against your enemies without first establishing that they deserve it, you should make sure your enemies aren't human. Ideally, they could be actual robots, monsters or aliens or the like, or at least entirely unidentifiable as human. Watch the Star Wars movies and you'll see what I mean; I know that stormtroopers are human and you know that stormtroopers are human, but in those blank white suits, does anyone care when Han Solo and Luke Skywalker are shooting/chopping them down by the dozen? Of course not.
So, back to Raiders. This was the eighties; an earlier, more innocent time, when there was less screen gore, but when script-writers didn't have to agonise about justifying the hero's gun-slinging, sword-swinging antics. So I'm watching Indy kicking around, jumping from trucks and swinging on his whip and stuff, and a bunch of Nazi soldiers turn up and he just shoots them! Just straight out, whips out a gun and shoots them! Dead! Bam! Like, they don't strut around a bit first and kick an old woman to the floor or anything. They're just chasing him. Hell, maybe they're chasing him to give him flowers and a soap assortment! You don't know they deserve to die, Indy! How do you know? Seriously?
It kinda shook me. When I was twelve, I couldn't give a rat's arse. That was what heroes did then. But not anymoe; I've got used to elaborate scenes establishing the hero's bona fides (or, specifically, the villain's mala fides), and I wasn't ready for casual slaughter, even if they are Nazis.
Weird. Future shock.