SEX & VIOLENCE IN THE MEDIA
I was inspired over Thanksgiving Break for my next blog post, so as to not forget what I wanted to write about, at first I posted some pictures and a title as a work in progress. While watching this movie that came on HBO, I honestly could not believe my eyes. The transformation of the movie of this movie was baffling. Since then, I have gotten a lot of feedback about people intrigued to see where exactly this blog was going. I hope not to disappoint.
If any of you have seen or heard of the 2009 remake of Friday the 13th, you will know that depending on the time you tune in to the movie, it could be conveyed as a horror film or pornography. In some scenes, there are two people engaging in extremely graphic intercourse, and in another is a masked man impaling a knife into a girl’s head through a lake dock. How on earth do these two images combine cohesively into one film? First of all , they don’t. The reason why they are put together is because that sex sells, violence sells, and so together the movie is intended to be a big success.
As shown in the picture sequence, the movie starts off light with teenage shenanigans, and then slowly evolves into an extremely violent and graphic movie. Even as the violence continues, the characters remain highly sexualized as if that is normal behavior while acts of this nature occur. The combined images of violence and sexual imagery are not a coincidence but rather strategically place to arouse viewers. Movie directors will place an extremely sexual scene followed by an extremely violent scene on purpose. This is because during the sexual scenes, viewers are fully attentive and aroused, so when the violent scene comes they are still allured in to watch. The problem with these methods is that because viewers get pleasure from watching the sexual scenes followed by the violent ones, they may confuse where the arousal is originating from. The mixed signals continue to be a problem because viewers want more arousal that they often feel can come from violence. This is completely the fault of the media because of how they present the violent images. They attract in followers to graphic imagery by providing other imagery that is alluring and hard to resist.
A particular example is when a teenage girl is water skiing topless around the lake, and then all of a sudden Jason, the masked killer, shoots an arrow into the boat drivers head, and then the boat proceeds to hit the water skiing girl. Jason follows the girl to her hiding place under the dock, where he stabs her straight into her skull, pulling her up through the dock and exposing her breasts (combining imagery).
This also relates to censorship because of how violence is broadcasted. Film makers feel that incorporating humor and sexualized images “make it okay” to show other extreme violence alongside. In the “Social Role of Advertising” by T.H. Qualter, he said “bland is safer than controversy and is more conductive to maximum sales.” I would completely disagree with this point because although I do not feel that this type of movie is appropriate, it certainly still sells. I also think that considering the teenage demographic they are trying to target, this age group isn’t looking for what is “safe” or “bland”.
If all along we have discussed that “medium is the message” (supported by James Reston’s article in the NYT), what exactly is the message here? That violence is supposed to arouse you? This a problem with our generation’s advertising and censorship tactics. People are more concerned with sales than the influences on our generation
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