For what it’s worth, I feel compelled to point out that the cited article is from New York Magazine, not the New York Times Magazine. Probably doesn’t bear on the mainstream-ness of the genre, but the tone of the two publications is different.
and
and
Point of order:
New York Magazine is NOT the New York Times Magazine.
Two completely different organs.
Carry on.
ETA: Beaten to the punch by hopesperson.
Sorry about confusing the two magazines. I don’t know why I thought it was the times.
I would say that the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street movies represent the beginnings of torture porn. A classic horror movie is a story about a person (or people) trying to survive a scary ordeal. Take *Jaws,*for example. You knew that Chief Brody would eventually manage to kill the shark and restore normalcy to the town. What would be the point of telling the story of some doofus who tries to kill a shark, but ultimately gets eaten by it?
The “slasher films” of the 1980’s began a transition into what we now know as torture porn. You watched one of those movies because you wanted to see how many people Jason or Freddie or Michael Meyers could kill, and what sorts of creative ways he could dispatch them in. You knew that he’d be killed at the end, but Hollywood being what it is, they could always bring him back.
Modern torture porn takes this mindset to it’s ultimate endpoint. You’re not supposed to care about the victims. If their characters are developed at all, it’s often to make them unlikeable, so the audience doesn’t get attached to them. The bad guy, on the other hand, is totally badass. You’re supposed to like him. It’s not a given that he’ll die or get caught in the end; in fact, more often than not he gets away scott-free. That’s so he can kill again in the sequel, of course.
That description seems bang-on when applied to the various Hannibal Lecter films.
With a few changes of detail, Moby Dick?
If somebody placed a hidden camera in a torture chamber in some country where torture is done for real and in earnest, would the result count as “torture porn”? And would anyone get off on it?
Robert Silverburg’s “The Pain Peddlers” seems more prophetic every year…
I agree with this. I’d say the big shift into TP is the focus on pain and anguish in stuff like Saw and Hostel (I’d include the recent Hills Have Eyes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes here as well, or at least say that they have torture porn-y elements to them).
Most of the deaths in the slasher genre are fast and surprising; the interest there comes from seeing how creatively the Slasher can kill his victims or how high of a body count he can rack up. How his victims feel is beside the point; what matters is that they’re dead. We might be interested in the fear felt by a given character, but the actual confrontations with the Slasher are quick affairs.
Whereas in torture porn, it seems to me that the pain and anguish of the victims is the main attraction. Whether or not someone actually dies isn’t necessarily that important, and creativity only matters insofar as it adds to pain and suffering.
I think the answer to your second question is an obvious “yes.”
Regarding the first question, wouldn’t that basically just be a snuff film, assuming the person dies at the end?
I don’t agree that the cited movies (at least the Saw movies - haven’t seen Hostel) are torture porn.
While I am not a huge horror fan, I have to admit a certain dreadful fascination with the Saw movies. However, I’m not thinking about the injuries or what have you - it’s more the dread of being held captive by someone who is truly evil and lacking humanity. I guess it’s the dread of pain and horrible death, ratcheted up with seeming inevitability or the stress of trying to escape through playing Jigsaw’s horrible ‘games’.
Though I have only seen one or two of the movies, I find the concept chilling and interesting. It’s not the killer we associate ourselves with - we identify with the victims. It’s not intended to titillate, it’s intended to horrify; the designed reaction to Saw is not “wow, look at the guts fly, sweet!” but “oh crap, that would be so scary and terrible if it happened to me!” All they are is more graphic versions of slasher movies - terrifying us by portraying nearly inevitable death and pain.
I’ll put it this way - who are you intended to empathize with, the victim, or the killer?
It’s a term thought up by people who would like to be able to say those movies can not be played in theatres. (censors)
By adding the suffix -porn to it deamonize a few films. The film makers turned around and welcomed the newly coined term, probably because there is no such thing as bad publicity and they are not that offended by ‘porn’.
There are probably less than 20 movies this term applies to and I hardly would call that enough to name a new genere. (sp)
People seem to forget that Horror is a mixture of Fear (Terror) and disgust. So there is already a term for these films.
Maybe that’s true, but the suffix “porn” is sometimes used in other areas to simply emphasize the prevalence of a particular type of aesthetic sensibility.
For example, i know quite a few people who refer to those house-buying and home-renovation shows as “housing porn” or “property porn.” It’s nothing to do with censorship, or even demonization, just a commentary on the manner of presentation and the visual emphasis of the production.
I have no trouble referring to some movies as “torture porn,” even while having absolutely no desire to censor them.
You should hear Bill-O talking to Dennis Miller about the “Saw” movies.
That’s pretty much the normal reaction to torture porn, though.
I think people are getting thrown off by the word “porn.” It doesn’t mean that people are necessarily having sexual responses to these things (although it doesn’t preclude that, either), it’s just a way of describing the way in which these things appeal to base or primitive desires.
Thinking how horrible it would be if these things happened to you is sort of the point. The “Awesome, blood!” thing is more a reaction to splatter movies.
True. I’ve seen articles about the BBC series Planet Earth that refer to the series as nature porn or wildlife porn.
I agree with Zebra that the term “torture porn” was created by would-be censors bent on censoring or at least marginalizing such films out of existence, or as close to it as they can. I don’t think the term has had the desired effect for the reasons cited by mhendo – that (blank) porn has become a widely used way of describing a certain way of presenting things. (My example would be “food porn” for most cooking shows.) That coupled with the lack of directly sexual imagery in “Saw” and “Hostel” and the other films like them kept them from being successfully marginalized as actual porn – so far. It could still happen.
I also like fluiddruid’s point about the changed POV of characters in “torture porn” flicks. Although I haven’t seen the films, it seems logical that in a film which concentrates on the pain and torment inflicted, the audience would tend to identify with the victim because that’s who the focus is on.
I’d also add that in most actual porn aimed at guys, the focus is on how they are making the woman feel: “she was ready to explode with passion, her body could barely contain the orgasmic juices that were going everywhere,” etc. etc. I haven’t drawn any conclusion, just an observation.
Actually, I was thinking mainly of the Saw movies. That said, I’m not so sure about the first Saw. Much of the horror in that movie was psychological. The sequels, however, are definitely torture porn. They’re just one sadistic deathtrap after another. The fact that the victims usually get killed means there isn’t really any suspense. You expect them to die.
I do agree with you about Hannibal Lecter, however. Especially the second book, Hannibal. I haven’t seen the movie version, which I understand changes the ending totally. That’s probably a good thing, because at the end of the book:
[spoiler]Hannibal kidnaps Clarice Starling and brainwashes her into becoming his love slave. He then kidnaps Clarice’s boss at the FBI, cuts off the top of the guy’s skull, and Hannibal and Clarice eat his brains like an ice cream sundae. Her boss is still alive and conscious while this is happening.
Hannibal and Clarice then flee the country and live happily ever after.
No, I’m not joking. The book really ends like that.[/spoiler]