Do you seek out
terrible news videos?
I know this sounds weird as someone who’s actually written a book called Scary Movies, who buys every Blu-ray Scream Factory puts out and who traditionally names the latest Quentin Tarentino movie as his favourite film of that year (since Pulp Fictio on, with the only exception of Grindhouse), but I’m not a big fan of violence.
I can say this because I don’t consider film violence to be real violence, since I know it’s pretend and am aware of all the artifice required for it to appear as authentic as possible. I can watch the goriest “torture porn” (a term I hate) and go to sleep a minute later and sleep without a care. But show me a video of something terrible happening to a real person and it can mess me up for days.
Because now I can appreciate the reality of what I am seeing and am overcome with the thought of what it must felt like and overwhelmed by the true terror of the situation. This is why when I hear about the existence of videos like the one released online of the vicious execution of journalist James Foley, I keep my distance. If I wanted to I could probably find it in a couple of seconds, but I have literally zero desire to do so.
And sometimes I feel like this makes me the exception. Because frequently I hear people talking about videos they’ve seen involving acts of violence against people and animals and it becomes clear that they weren’t strapped into a chair Ludovico style and forced to watch it against their will, but they instead sought it out and seem to take a strange kind of pride in having endured it.
I just don’t get it. I remember when video surfaced of Nega Agha-Soltan dying from a gunshot wound during the 2009 Iranian election protests. The sight of a screen-cap taken from it was enough to affect me for days–I have no idea how I would have handled watching it.
Some, I’m sure, would say that such videos NEED to be seen, since they inspire action, but for me the knowledge that they exist is more than enough. To actually watch them strikes me as the worst kind of voyeurism–a horrible intimacy I do not deserve.
Do you watch these videos? If so, why? Do you get something out of them or is it simply a strange compulsion you can’t entirely explain or control?
I avoid violent film both real and fantasy. I don’t want certain things in my head. (Infact, I found the picture that went with this article disturbing). A long time ago i saw the movie The Grudge only because it had Sarah Michelle Gellar in it and I like her. I still have images in my head from that movie. It was horrible. And for some people, that’s nothing. The bar of what is violent or gross has really become lowered. “I can say this because I don’t consider film violence to be real violence, since I know it’s pretend… Read more »
Only once. The first reporter this happened to, in the early stages of the post-9/11 US involvement in Afghanistan, I watched that. I don’t remember my reasoning for doing so, and I’m ashamed to say I don’t even remember the guy’s name.
If you watch a man die, you should remember his name.
Anyway, it was awful. Never again. I think I might if it was a loved one, but it feels deeply immoral to watch someone’s suffering and/or death for entertainment value. And I feel the same way about those kinds of videos with animals, too.
The other day, a good friend, who knows me well, shared a video on Google Hangouts. Thank GOD I read the caption accompanying the video which said: WATCH MOTHER BEAT 8-MONTH-OLD IN THAILAND. PLEASE LINK TO SPREAD AWARENESS. Awareness of domestic and child violence? Awareness of what it actually looks like to brutally beat a child? Of course, I did NOT watch the video, and in fact, I was incredibly angry with my friend. I told her, in no uncertain terms, that she was never to send me a link to a violent or graphic video without getting my permission.… Read more »