Although people may have valid reason to protest the entertainment industry's legal right to produce violence, may it also be a valid statement to say that violence is only another part of our being that we deny exists? Andrew Klavan, an author that has written several popular pieces, argues that violence is nothing more than a natural part of human nature. Within his essay, In Praise of Gore, he refers to it as the Catharsis of Terror. The outward release of one's pent up desire for violence, brutality, and gore. According to Klavan, going to a movie and watching a man wearing a hockey mask slaughter hormone driven teenagers is actually healthy for us. Not only does he believe it is healthy, he believes that it's enjoyed.
"Not that people are essentially violent, but that they are violent among other things and the violence has to be repressed." (Pg494) Klavan makes this statement in his explanation of why we enjoy it.
A Nightmare on Elm Street
A Nightmare on Elm Street Book icon
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010 film)He feels that it is only a dream of Utopian minds that if you repress something long enough, it will just disappear. If we ignore it and shrug it off as though it isn't there, it is going to find other means of getting seen. Perhaps this is the explanation for villains becoming icons for their movies, such as Hannibal Lector, or Freddy from Nightmare on Elm Street. These are always the first things that come to mind when speaking of one of their movies.
There is another view of the positive and negative effects of violence in the media. "Virtually all independent scholars agree that there is evidence that television can cause aggressive behavior." - Scheer Pg 486 It is Robert Scheer's opinion that violence in our books and in our television shows can do no...