Morality & Violence in Modern Movies

[Devils' Advocate]

Here is yet another (of a long, long list) of quirks of modern day society that leaves me bewildered and bothered.

There is a movie called Kingsman, The Secret Service. It is an ultra violent comedic spy thriller, far as I can tell. Supposedly the violence is cartoony; too over the top to be taken seriously. Or so I understand as I have not seen the film (nor do I have any desire to).

Still. Here is how one person commented on the film:
The church scene is beyond a shadow of a doubt one of the most gleefully and horrifically violent things I've seen in cinema and just awesome. I was cheering when BLANK was shooting women,cutting them with axes, punching them, impaling them with wooden church pews and of course, his vicious and wonderful killing of the pastor.

That comment fairly horrifies me in its delight in brutality. I try to put this in perspective and don't know how. In my college days, a *cough*cough* while back, Monty Python was the Big Thing. Monty Python and the Holy Grail had absurdly comic book fake violence and gore. Such as when King Arthur fights the Black Knight and chops off one limb after another. But that was filmed for laughs. The joke was that as the Black Knight lost each succeeding limb he became more belligerent and wanting to fight on.

People back then thought it was disgusting. To us it was just goofy and to this day I can quote large chunks of the movie line by line.

Today's example isn't played for laughs. The hero(?) is killing these people 'for real' in the movie. Today's movie audiences think it is just as funny though.

Am I just being an old fogie about modern film? Is it apples compared to apples with what I watched and laughed at in college?

Thoughts?

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

Humour is all about the context, and some of it is culture. Sometimes you are too old or too young. I can laugh at both Monthy Python and todays ultra violence.

 

[wil]

the kingsmen is like python meets kill bill meets james bond...

The murder mayhem is definitely gruesome and definitely comic and your analogy to the black knight scene is surprisingly accurate...

I'd say the fireworks finale is similar to the killer rabbit...

Gruesome? that is enter the void... or go back to that directors original movie.... which contains one of the most violent scenes of the screen...

Or let us go to Psycho....no blood, but all the gore you can imagine....

then we have the roaring 80's where the censors were down on sex but ok with violence so the summer thriller killer chainsaw/13th/freddy movies were spawned...

kingsman was an enjoyable tongue in cheek rolic...

 

[iBrian]

Still. Here is how one person commented on the film

...

Thoughts?

Judge for yourself, before allowing a sense of outrage?

Anything can be demonised, but only you know what's acceptale to your sensibilities.

Btw, I believe the same people behind this film are the ones behind the film Kick Ass. Did you see that? Were you offended by it?

 

[Devils' Advocate]

Yes Kick Ass offended me, too. No I have not seen either movie. These days there is more than enough partial content available for one to get a good feel for what a movie, or just about anything, will be about. Add to that the movies of this genre that I have taken the time to see, which is where I learned my opinion, and it's not mandatory any longer to sit through every sicko film just so I can walk away and say I hated it. Which I knew before I put myself through it.

A question to the group. If we have wrenched up the brutality to where "shooting women,cutting them with axes, punching them, impaling them with wooden church pews and of course, his vicious and wonderful killing of the pastor." is now funny - where does it stop?

How soon before burning a dog alive is hilarious? How soon before drowning a baby? Or ripping a baby out of a mother's womb has people roaring with laughter and cheering? At what point have we crossed the line? Or is there no line. Is it where we can eventually find any act of sick brutality hilarious?

And what does that say about us?

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

And what does that say about us?

I say that there is no such line and to me it says I understand the difference between reality and fiction. Drowning babies are as fun as chopping of a knights arms, it's not funny at all. But anything in the right situation can be funny, like spilling tea on yourself when checking your watch. Humour is not a list of events but a state of mind.

 

[Nick the Pilot]

DA, snuff movies have been out for decades. Just ignore them.

The more time you spend thinking about them, the more you bring yourself down. It's time for you to get out of this vicious cycle.

 

[wil]

Hot Tub Time Machine....

What is a little shotgun to the penis among friends?

 

[Thomas]

And what does that say about us?

Indeed. I'm with you.

You can watch a video of a man being burned to death in a cage on Fox News (or you could, might have come down by now).

 

[izniss]

I find it disturbing that people "like?" to watch such things and don't understand how it is they do.

I don't. I don't think it is funny or entertaining in any way whatever.

If that makes me an old Pollyanna then so be it.

We have no problem understanding that if we eat tainted food it will make us sick but object to the notion that filling our minds with images of violence and insanity will have any ill effect on us at all. To me that is pretty crazy and the current condition of our society accurately reflects that conclusion in my opinion.

 

[wil]

Ever read the bible? Doesn't it show how long we've been portraying sex, violence, incest, murder, genocide in the media?

whether it was print, paintings, sculpting, stage or movies....the most base parts of man have always been explored in media and have filled the seats to watch...

This isn't just today....it is....er....normal....in human history

 

[Thomas]

Ever read the bible? Doesn't it show how long we've been portraying sex, violence, incest, murder, genocide in the media?

Nowhere is if offered for entertainment though, is it?

This isn't just today....it is....er....normal....in human history

Yep. Same now as we were then ... we've just got better at the special effects.

 

[wil]

Nowhere is if offered for entertainment though, is it?
those stories around the campfire...parables, moral metaphors... entertainment with a message...if it wasn't entertaining (david goliath, samson, etc it wouldn't have been continued to be told.

Yep. Same now as we were then ... we've just got better at the special effects.

lol...I don't know...Ezekiel and the sea parting.... hollywood hasn't done either justice yet...

 

[Thomas]

those stories around the campfire ... entertainment with a message

LOL, that's your take. I don't know of any scholarship that would endorse your 'campfire' thesis.

 

[wil]

No? You don't believe there was an oral tradition that kept the stories alive (in the case of Christians for decades, Jews for hundreds of years)?

 

[Devils' Advocate]

Tea, I agree humor is a state of mind. I've never been a huge fan of comedy anyway. It is difficult for me to accept that 'anything' can be funny in the right situation. I cannot watch sadistic violence and perceive it as funny.

Nick, not to worry. It's not as if I obsess over these things. I find it good therapy to get it off my chest in a forum like this and then let it go.

Iz, I understand where you are coming from. It has been debated for many decades now whether there is a correlation between constantly watching violence affecting personal behavior. Even with all the research that has been done the jury is still out. When people do like Tea said, i.e. having a clear understanding between what's fiction and reality, there does not seem to me that there is any significant harm. I'm not convinced that a lot of people lack the clear distinction between the two however.

Wil I'm not sure what your comment about what is in the Bible has to do with the discussion. Nothing (that I am aware of) that is stated as human frailty was meant to be taken for comic effect.

 

[wil]

I didn't say it was intended to be comical... but entertaining enough to keep an audience.

 

[Thomas]

No? You don't believe there was an oral tradition that kept the stories alive (in the case of Christians for decades, Jews for hundreds of years)?

Of course I believe in an oral tradition, just not as you assume it to be.

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

Tea, I agree humor is a state of mind. I've never been a huge fan of comedy anyway. It is difficult for me to accept that 'anything' can be funny in the right situation. I cannot watch sadistic violence and perceive it as funny.

There are also many things I don't find funny, and I can understand that other emotions overwrite when it comes to violence. Violence CAN be funny. The three Stooges anyone? Looking for an objective line where it's not funny is the wrong way to go about, I think.

 

[Devils' Advocate]

What would you suggest is the right way?