Violence and (Geek) Entertainment

[Evaniel]

Never forget.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't know when Mr. King made those comments, but if it is recent, there's an interesting point here: Mr. King just opened up the universe of his book The Stand to other writers in an anthology, The End of the World As We Know It. Now, The Stand, and the anthology, are all about the impacts of death and destruction, as the world in it is decimated by a superflu. So, I'll grant that King knows something about the topic.

But, I think King is a little off the mark here, in two ways:
1) Not everyone has to talk about his pet topic all the time.
2) The MCU does address many of the consequences of violence... just not the consequences King would, nor in the way he would do so.

Like, Tony Stark is a poster child for PTSD, and everything he builds is informed by it, as are his interactions with Peter Parker. And major events in the MCU hinge on Stark's reaction to how his father died. The recent season of Daredevil is largely about Matt Murdock's response to death. And Peter Parker, as a character, is all about responsibility, including how to do, and not do, violence... And we could go on, if we really wanted to.



This gets difficult to discuss, because none (?) of us are child development experts, and because we haven't really defined "children" in the context of this discussion.

Teens and adults have rather more emotional and societal context and rational and emotional tools, than children do - showing kids the consequences of violence (or some other topics, like sex) without knowing the parents are engaged to help them work through those consequences is not likely to be useful to the child.

I just watched Thunderbolts last week, and that movie's understanding of trauma is pretty solid, coming from someone with whom I viewed the film who has real experience with it.

 

[Swanosaurus]

The Dark Knight did this too, with Chicago clearly standing in for Gotham. The car chase scene is probably the biggest set piece of the movie, but you’ve got a police escort trying to go down Lower Wacker and then top level through downtown, and again, it’s virtually empty of people and cars (except some parked ones specifically blown up by design). It’s not that the focus shouldn’t be on the action - it’s that the emptiness of the space feels wrong. Even if it’s “not really Chicago”, I can’t help but feel like it’s off.

When it comes to violence and consequences, I must say I have a special beef with car chases. Because most of us won't wield automatic weapons, grenades or katanas, but what most of us will probably do quite frequently in their lives is drive a car. And I actually think that movies projecting the image that extreme speeding is cool and without violent consequences, when, in reality, it's among the number one causes of extremely violent deaths, is extremely dangerous.
In the car chases seen in the movies, the protagonists are usually doing things that are extremely dangerous to themselves and anyone who happens to be around, but are depicted as cool and in control. And that's exactly how most speeders probably think of themselves: They're cool and in control. Until they aren't, and someone dies. And often, it's not - or not only - them.

 

[Ryujin]

When it comes to violence and consequences, I must say I have a special beef with car chases. Because most of us won't wield automatic weapons, grenades or katanas, but what most of us will probably do quite frequently in their lives is drive a car. And I actually think that movies projecting the image that extreme speeding is cool and without violent consequences, when, in reality, it's among the number one causes of extremely violent deaths, is extremely dangerous.
In the car chases seen in the movies, the protagonists are usually doing things that are extremely dangerous to themselves and anyone who happens to be around, but are depicted as cool and in control. And that's exactly how most speeders probably think of themselves: They're cool and in control. Until they aren't, and someone dies. And often, it's not - or not only - them.

Even worse when you consider that the majority of car chases, in movies, are mostly filmed at something south of 40 MPH. I remember one motorcycle chase that I saw in a movie, that had to be at maybe 25 MPH. It culminated with a bike launching maybe 50 feet off a cliffside section of PCH, in California.

Lean angles are a dead giveaway, for bike speeds. The stunt riders in this video were both Canadian professional motorcycle racers. I crewed for the female rider, for a couple of years, and did her website.

 

[jian]

When it comes to violence and consequences, I must say I have a special beef with car chases. Because most of us won't wield automatic weapons, grenades or katanas, but what most of us will probably do quite frequently in their lives is drive a car. And I actually think that movies projecting the image that extreme speeding is cool and without violent consequences, when, in reality, it's among the number one causes of extremely violent deaths, is extremely dangerous.
In the car chases seen in the movies, the protagonists are usually doing things that are extremely dangerous to themselves and anyone who happens to be around, but are depicted as cool and in control. And that's exactly how most speeders probably think of themselves: They're cool and in control. Until they aren't, and someone dies. And often, it's not - or not only - them.

Yup, definitely agree. What I've seen of the Fast and Furious films seems mostly to be extremely irresponsible and destructive action scenes - consequences are very much not on the table. Yes, it's a power fantasy, but it's one that we probably shouldn't encourage as a society.

It is quite funny that most car chase scenes are actually performed at relatively low speed - of course that makes sense (thinking of The Fall Guy here and how sensibly careful everyone is about safety, even in a cinematic representation of stunt work).

 

[Valetudo]

Hawkeye definitely was show some ptsd symptoms in that series.

 

[payn]

View attachment 416352

Never forget.

Hasbro ruined my childhood.

 

[jian]

Hasbro ruined my childhood.

Where were you when Optimus Prime died?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yup, definitely agree. What I've seen of the Fast and Furious films seems mostly to be extremely irresponsible and destructive action scenes - consequences are very much not on the table. Yes, it's a power fantasy, but it's one that we probably shouldn't encourage as a society.

It is quite funny that most car chase scenes are actually performed at relatively low speed - of course that makes sense (thinking of The Fall Guy here and how sensibly careful everyone is about safety, even in a cinematic representation of stunt work).

Thing with genre films: SF, fantasy, supers, they have an inherent air of unreality. - so you are unlikely to confuse anything in them for reality. The early F&F films, on the other hand, were less obviously unreal, and we have had problems with people trying to imitate them.

 

[TiQuinn]

I don't know when Mr. King made those comments, but if it is recent, there's an interesting point here: Mr. King just opened up the universe of his book The Stand to other writers in an anthology, The End of the World As We Know It. Now, The Stand, and the anthology, are all about the impacts of death and destruction, as the world in it is decimated by a superflu. So, I'll grant that King knows something about the topic.

But, I think King is a little off the mark here, in two ways:
1) Not everyone has to talk about his pet topic all the time.
2) The MCU does address many of the consequences of violence... just not the consequences King would, nor in the way he would do so.

Like, Tony Stark is a poster child for PTSD, and everything he builds is informed by it, as are his interactions with Peter Parker. And major events in the MCU hinge on Stark's reaction to how his father died. The recent season of Daredevil is largely about Matt Murdock's response to death. And Peter Parker, as a character, is all about responsibility, including how to do, and not do, violence... And we could go on, if we really wanted to.



This gets difficult to discuss, because none (?) of us are child development experts, and because we haven't really defined "children" in the context of this discussion.

Teens and adults have rather more emotional and societal context and rational and emotional tools, than children do - showing kids the consequences of violence (or some other topics, like sex) without knowing the parents are engaged to help them work through those consequences is not likely to be useful to the child.

To be glib, I grew up in the 80s, which I still think takes the crown for the most desensitized violence put onscreen whether it’s the jingoistic Rambo movies, or the “as long as the bad guy get his in the end” genre of cop/vigilante/military movies like Lethal Weapon, Death Wish, Dirty Harry, Commando, etc.

When someone stands in the middle of an open space, and fires an automatic weapon and all the bad guys fall down but the good guy doesn’t get a scratch, I kind of feel that we’ve already peaked as far as the gratuitous violence goes. So from that standpoint, I’m a bit wary of concerns that the violence in movies today is somehow too much. We’ve gone from military violence, to cop violence, to sci fi violence to super hero violence - a steady stream of 50 years or more of this. Anecdotally, I can’t say that somehow it’s gotten “worse”. I don’t know what studies or outcomes there have been. I feel this is a subject that just comes up from time to time when someone feels like they’ve been rubbed the wrong way by usually a particular movie or trend, but there seems to be little evidence of actual impact.

All I can say is…I’m totally normal despite a steady stream of Stallone and Schwarzenegger movies blowing stuff up.

Totally. Normal.