Sex in film provides the illusion of infinite reserves of untapped desire; violence in film provides a sense of power, revenge and justice. In the cinema of sex, a mere gaze is sufficient to unlock desire and passion; in the cinema of violence, mere determination is sufficient to ward off assaults and deliver decisive blows to wrongdoers. In real life, we are rarely able to express sexual desire or combat an antagonist so openly and directly. Expression of sexual passion and rage become the ultimate taboo; one can feel powerful emotions and even acknowledge their destructive power, but only if one forswears hope of exposing them to sunlight. That might not be a bad thing. After a savage video game or group sex video or sci fi thriller, a return into the actual world of traffic signals, tampon commercials and dirty dishes will no longer seem so awful. It may even come as a relief.

Why do I opt for the cult of sex over violence? Both are equally unreal in my life. The erotic world offers a fantasy I can reside in for as long as I want; the world of violence tries to drive me out of fantasy as quickly and often as possible. The hedonism of violence repudiates the storytelling process itself, and it is that contradiction that prevents me from finding artistic value in a director’s effort to imagine gore or dismemberment or death. Let me repeat: the hedonisms of violence and sex are both artificial and distorted renditions of reality. But only the hedonism of sex validates the storytelling process itself.

Great essay. Always a fan.

I agree with what you’re saying, for the most part. But in the spirit of providing some food for thought:

You say: “I would love to see media producers and programmers have a little more self-policing, in the form of creating useful content that educates, promotes love of your fellow human and contains far less “kill everyone, blow stuff up, get thin, get laid, get rich” B.S.”

Me, too—and I’d suggest that such content already exists in the form of programs broadcast on PBS and NPR, and in the form of certain non-NPR-affiliated community radio stations, like the excellent KMUD in California. (Listen to their stream sometime on the Web to learn what radio CAN be.)

I go to Vienna twice a year and one of the things I do while there is watch European TV. While most of their TV is commercial, they still have a lot more public networks than we do, like ARTE which is a joint German-French network.

My Viennese girlfriend is old enough to remember when there was ONE television network in Austria. They were a public channel and broadcast in black and white long after we’d gone to color in the US. She tells me the content on that network was very “highbrow” by today’s standards, focusing on matters of art and literature and lengthy panel discussions among learned people. But TV was so new, so novel, that she’d eagerly await these shows, even as a little kid, and so grew up to enjoy having her intelligence fed, instead of being entertained all the motherfucking time. (They also had children’s programming. Needless to say, there were no giant purple dinosaurs prancing around.)

Such government subsidized/viewer or listener supported outlets are, in my opinion, real jewels floating in an ocean of shit. If and when they ever go, that’ll be the final nail in the coffin.

I don’t know how to get people as excited about LEARNING THINGS and GETTING SMARTER as they are about BEING ENTERTAINED/ANESTHETIZED, but if it doesn’t start happening soon, we are well and truly FUCKED.

Maybe your new book will get the ball rolling. I’ll be buying it, as I have the others.

Cheers—
Nunzio X