As with any general statement, the answer is “it depends.”
I Love, Love, Love well-crafted storytelling. If violence is an integral and important part of the story, yep, I appreciate it. To use your examples, I found the combat scenes in “Lord of the Rings” to be exciting. I also have a thing for stage combat in general – I’m not certified (costs way more money than I have, unfortunately, which is the only reason I’m not), but I am trained in staged violence. (It’s funny because I just got notice in the mail that a local actors’ school will be holding SAFD certification training this fall, which I REEEAALLLLY want to take, it but costs around $650. Sigh.)
Even in “Boys Don’t Cry”, I “liked” it for certain values of “like.” It was utterly painful to watch, and I’ll probably never watch the film again for that reason. That was also the point, and I appreciate that you really can’t tell that story without that visceral punch to the gut. Creating that painful emotional response is important to that story’s theme.
On the other hand, I hated “Pulp Fiction.” The violence was gratuitous and didn’t add anything of importance to a story that was largely incoherent in any case. It was a very poorly crafted story, and the violence didn’t help it at all. Honestly, I just hate everything that Tarantino does – I’ve given him multiple chances, but the dude makes a bad story. Hell, I even thought I might be wrong about him when I watched “Four Rooms,” as I quite enjoyed the first three rooms of the story. Then we got to the last one. Boring, pointless, and I was practically screaming “Just cut his fingers off already!” at the screen. Then the credits rolled, and I learned that other people had directed the first three vignettes. Tarantino had directed only the last one – the one that sucked.
I also really enjoy fighting video games like Street Fighter and Tekken. I haven’t played in ages, but it gives me a mad, heady rush that I’m quite fond of. I think it allows me a safe expression for my aggressive and sadistic tendencies, since I can’t (and wouldn’t consider) expressing them in other ways.
Depends on the context. I don’t do slasher flicks or “torture porn” where it’s all about pain for its own sake. I like Pan’s Labyrinth, American History X, Pulp Fiction, the first two Terminator movies, and the LotR trilogy. I will never watch Saw.
I don’t like real-life violence, of the kind you might see in the evening news. I also don’t like watching fictional depictions of sexualized violence (aka “let’s gang-rape and kill this bitch”) or torture, as in the “Saw” and “Hostel” movies. If the violence is way over-the-top, as in Quentin Tarantino movies, it doesn’t bother me as much as if it was more realistic. I still don’t want to watch “Battle Royale,” though.
Animated violence doesn’t bother me as much as live-action violence, because I know it’s not real. I still hate to see animated children get hurt or killed. So why do I watch shonen anime in which the teenage hero (or heroine) gets their ass repeatedly handed to them in particularly violent ways? I guess it’s because I know the protagonist will eventually heal and get their revenge, so they’ll be OK.
There is one manga I’m reading, one of my favorites, in which a flashback implies that the main villain raped a female character when she was much younger (think age 11 or so). That threw me off because I wasn’t expecting it at all.
I ran out of time trying to edit, so I’ll add this: the villain may or may not have physically assaulted and/raped the girl, based on how she is drawn - the boy who latter becomes her lover finds her lying in the woods, semiconscious. This scene bothered me because so far in the whole long run of this manga, no character has been sexually assaulted, though plenty of humans and non-human creatures have been run through with swords.
Generally I’m pretty neutral on violence, but battle scenes bore the shit out of me. Lots of nameless people swinging swords and running about–dull as shit. Otherwise, I’m fine with it.
I like fun violence (James Bond) and don’t mind the occasional good-guy-gets-revenge violence.
Basically I am there to let the movie take me where it will, though. If I suspect it’s ultraviolent, I generally won’t see it (such as: The Passion of the Christ). But I loved Clockwork Orange, so obviously MMV.
Yes and know, and I can’t seem to specify when and which, except by example.
-I hate war movies, though the occasional one is alright.
-I wish I could wipe every torture scene off the face of the film industry, and that includes half the ‘horror’ movies out there.
-I can’t seem to watch the church-burning scene in The Patriot.
-But I love Kung Fu Hustle, any martial arts movies, real-life wrestling and most MMA. Boxing just bores me, however; somehow I don’t consider that violent, just stupid.
Generically, me too. It gets bad when I read books with combat scenes more than a paragraph long, as I tend to just skip over it and see who’s still alive afterwards.
I’m talking about Reality. It is way scarier then any fictional movie. I mean real human violence. Not the reality tv in media that is slowly telling us violence is an everyday thing and to get used to it.
In the US we are not allowed to say the name of the Muslim’s God on mainstream media. You can make fun of Jesus, Catholics and Jews, Evangelists but don’t say the M word! It’s censored. We are frowned upon for mentioning the type of laws our enemy’s live by. It begins with an S. We downplay any Muslim violence like 911, Honor killings, Fort Hood, Elena Kagan at Harvard, and refuse to answer any questions or even say the correct term for it. If we can’t say the word it can’t be true? No US government official can say it. It’s CENSORED. Why is that? Who owns us ?
We are building a Mosque next to the site of 911. Huh? Can I spit shine your shoes Imam? Am I showing too much skin? I guess I deserve to be jailed for 2 years and have my leg broken nearly off for the lack of head scarf. It’s true but we are not allowed to look at it. Watch “An Inconvenient Truth” on Utube and see where women are heading if we keep it up. That is real media violence that doesn’t make it on tv. Lets not be ignorant. I’m not very excited as a woman to give up my freedom to go back to the middle ages and being treated like a piece of cattle. Yet we turn a blind eye to real violence. Muslim men say women only have half of the brain of men and deserve to be beaten and killed. As a woman this is the real violence that scares me. We will be only half of a man.
If you don’t think internet censorship is coming next let me break it to you… it is. It is in process as we speak. We are going to lose one freedom after another as we sit and discuss the price of gas while they whittle away the Constitution in Washington.
Have a great day ladies! I plan on it. I’m going to wear something skimpy while I still can, get into my own car, while I can still own one as a women and actually drive it to church and then work. I can still work and still go to the church of my choice! Then I can go unaccompanied to the store and buy something for myself without my husbands permission with my very own money. I don’t have a husband and that is also a luxury, I would have been married off at 13 to my 70 year old cousin Phil. But hey, if I buck it they will hang me or throw acid in my face so I better just follow the rules. I’m going to stop now I’m scaring myself. :eek
So if I’m following you, you consider extending freedom of religion to Muslims as “embracing our enemies”, and by offering Muslims the same freedom of religion that you seem to value so highly, you foresee the US slowly becoming a radical Islamic state.
Are there any other religions that don’t make your personal list?
I can at least bring this back around to same-sex marriage. That sounds a lot like the people on the Prop 8 side who are foaming at the mouth over the sanctity of marriage that they feel is so threatened by a looming radical Homosexual state.
Well, since I"m sitting here at 4:50 am, by myself, watching Kill Bill vol. 2, I’d have to say that yes, I do enjoy violence.
I don’t generally enjoy action movies because I find them boring. I don’t generally enjoy war movies. I love horror movies.
I like violent games but not first person shooters because I find those incredibly dull. I like WoW and Starcraft and I’m not very patiently waiting for Diablo 3 to come out.
I like violent books too but generally only from the horror genre.
Funny, I’m just the opposite. Horror movies bore me to tears (just get the silly suspense over with already and let’s see some action!) whereas I revel in gratuitous, pointless bloodshed. Maybe I’m just desensitized, but the worst that could happen is… she’d die? Get tortured? That’s it? For me, horror = overly melodramatic buildup to completely mundane payoff, whereas action = payoff, payoff, payoff.
Interestingly, the scariest media I’ve enjoyed usually included zero violence, just mystery and ambience. Perhaps that’s better described as “thriller”? As soon as horror gets violent, it seems to lose its classiness and becomes just another cheesy bad would-be slasher flick.
ETA: And what do you consider Kill Bill? Action, horror, or something else?
I find horror/slasher films a bit boring, as I don’t find gore for gore’s sake very interesting.
I really love EXPLOSIONS and GUNFIGHTS and FACE-PUNCHING and CAR CHASES WITH PEOPLE HANGING OUT THE BACK SHOOTING AT PEOPLE IN OTHER CARS.
Inglourious Basterds quickly became my favorite film to watch when I’m feeling down or grumpy after I bought it on DVD. I strongly prefer either stylized violence like that (which has the effect of making it seem “bloodless”, IMO) or Indiana Jones-style action with lots of violence but no gore.
What are you *talking *about?
