"Torture Porn"

I really enjoyed reading both of these articles. It is definitely true that people are infatuated with viewing these “torture porn” films. I think this is because like Murray says, we want to feel intensity and fear. We want to be scared and it gives us a feeling of ecstasy and a sensual experience. This is true, watching a scary movie you have such intense fears and your entire body is involved in the process. We have discussed the “dark side of human nature” and I think wanting to view these types of movies goes along with that idea. Although no one likes to admit it, there is a dark side that humans posses and I think that watching these movies is a release. We (most of us) don’t go out and kill people, but we get a weird “pleasure” when we watch a scary movie. I think it goes back to our animalistic qualities, but we are expected to be civilized. As we have seen in our discussions many times what happens in this world is anything but humane. These movies are a way to live out our animalistic instincts that are unacceptable in everyday activity. Movies are a way of escape.

I also found it interesting in this article when Murray discusses how the world views the U.S. as not educated on world events and us thinking that money makes us invincible. She discusses the Hostel movies in showing this perception of Americans. She uses this theme to show how horror movies might at time seem cheesy, but actually include themes that are relevant to the world. Also the question arises, does it take more to shock people our age because we were subjected to the 9/11 tragedy at a young age? Are we numb to viewing these horror movies? I don’t think that this is necessarily the answer, but I do think that violence real and fake being portrayed everywhere in the media has something to do with this. We see violence as an everyday occurrence and it takes more to shock us. My parents always talk about how when they were kids there was far less crime than nowadays. I think people our age are used to hearing, seeing and living with violence so it takes a lot to scare us.

I really found the Rehling article interesting about male heterosexuals in horror films. I think the irony in this article is that the position of power is traditionally a white male. In this article Rehling argues that these characters have lost their identities and are trying to be individuals. I find it interesting that in real life there have not been many women or minority murderers. I would think that white males, traditionally being the most powerful when minorities and women were once viewed inferior, would be the most comfortable in their position. On the other hand, the author discusses how minorities and women have always had specific identities and groups to which they belonged to. Being male and white is seen as very vague and empty. At the end of the article she refers to the white heterosexual male as ordinary, but also extra-ordinary. I think this is very true. We think of being white, male, and heterosexual as ordinary, but the lack of self identity and group identity seems extra-ordinary.

I also liked how Rehling compared the killers to the detectives that are trying to find them. These parallels were very interesting and even made the detective question, how can I be like him? In one of the movies the killer even says to the detective, “We are a lot alike.” There is an obsessive pursuit, for the detective “to get” the killer and for the killer to continue their mission and get away with it. This obsessive need for each other mirrors the issue of finding an identity.