Anyone else bored by the over-the-top violence in media?

I'm referring specifically to TV shows/movies and video games.

I dunno. Between movies like Saw and Tarentino flicks like Kill Bill, video games like Gears of War, anime like Bleach, which isn't even ultraviolent by Japanese standards but shows people utterly drenched in blood... I'm just completely desensitized by violence. I haven't seen someone get killed and consciously thought "damn... what a painful and disturbing way to die", in like 5 years. The media continues to market extreme violence as a high point in whatever they're selling, video games (New limb dismembering head popping action!), movies (I want 20 Nazi scalps!), and TV shows (His weakness is his brain, without his head he's vulnerable!), and I just yawn and flip the channel. Honestly, I'm not intrigued in even the slightest manner. All of the curiosity and taboo that is apart of graphic violence has disappeared.

Does anyone else feel this way? I know people who will go to watch a movie without eve knowing what it's about aside from the fact that its supposed to be incredibly violent, and they try to get me to come and I'm just like "Dude it's blood so what I've seen so much in my life time that it might as well be ****ing grape juice".

Depends. I hate when the violence is unrealistically over-the-top, or if it's so much that it detracts from the actual story. Nothing wrong with a lot of violence, but it's nice to have an intricate story and well developed characters.

No. It's fun, to say the least.
In this era, Violence is a way of life. Everyone loves violence, one way or another.

I don't think I'll ever get tired of it.

i'm more tired of the predictable storylines. the violence is basically the only redeeming quality to me.

but i do see what you're getting at. it's less fun now that it's so commonly accepted. it's like when you're a kid and you first discover curse words, and enjoy saying them more than any other word. as soon as you become old enough to say them without consequence, they immediately lose their value.

Originally posted by Final Blaxican
I'm referring specifically to TV shows/movies and video games.

I dunno. Between movies like Saw and Tarentino flicks like Kill Bill, video games like Gears of War, anime like Bleach, which isn't even ultraviolent by Japanese standards but shows people utterly drenched in blood... I'm just completely desensitized by violence. I haven't seen someone get killed and consciously thought "damn... what a painful and disturbing way to die", in like 5 years. The media continues to market extreme violence as a high point in whatever they're selling, video games (New limb dismembering head popping action!), movies (I want 20 Nazi scalps!), and TV shows (His weakness is his brain, without his head he's vulnerable!), and I just yawn and flip the channel. Honestly, I'm not intrigued in even the slightest manner. All of the curiosity and taboo that is apart of graphic violence has disappeared.

Does anyone else feel this way? I know people who will go to watch a movie without eve knowing what it's about aside from the fact that its supposed to be incredibly violent, and they try to get me to come and I'm just like "Dude it's blood so what I've seen so much in my life time that it might as well be ****ing grape juice".

I would not say that you're desensitized by violence. There is a part of you, even if you don't consciously acknowledged it, that knows what you're seeing is not real.

You can be quite sure that if someone shot at an angle in the head right next to you, and that person's eye fluid from the posterior chamber splattered on you, their bone fragments punching through your skin like shrapnel, their blood curdling screams that start to sound more and more like gurgles as they start to choke on the blood spilling into their nasal cavities and throat, and all sorts of tiny chunks of skin and blood that ended up on your and the immediate environment around the victim, I'm sure you would be traumatized by the experience on some level.

You think that you're almost completely desensitized, but you really aren't. You may be desensitized on some level, but I can almost assure you that you're not close to being completely desensitized.

Take the above scenario. What if you experienced the same thing, but it was a loved one? What if your mother was the one shot in the head? What if you had to watch your girlfriend slowly die because she was disemboweled (meaning her abdomen was sliced open, and her intestines pulled out.)?

We are not becoming more violent as a species as time goes by. We don't have public executions. You know, the kind where people really were disemboweled in front of everyone. You know, being drawn and quartered? You know, being tortured in all sorts of gross ways. Or watching two prisoners fight to death in a Colosseum. Now, our gladiators and NFL football players and UFC fighters.

It's true that violent video games have been empirically proven to increase aggressiveness...but I'm dubious of real world application on this aggression.

Originally posted by dadudemon
It's true that violent video games have been empirically proven to increase aggressiveness...but I'm dubious of real world application on this aggression.

Last I checked those studies said that aggressive people are more likely to play violent games in the first place and that the only measurable increase in aggression lasted for about half an hour.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Last I checked those studies said that aggressive people are more likely to play violent games in the first place and that the only measurable increase in aggression lasted for about half an hour.

Cool

HOORAY!

Take that stupid uptight religious fanatics. 😄

Edit - You read my whole post? cry I feel all warm and fuzzy, now. Sometimes, I think I'm just rambling.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Cool

HOORAY!

Take that stupid uptight religious fanatics. 😄

👆

Originally posted by dadudemon
Edit - You read my whole post? cry I feel all warm and fuzzy, now. Sometimes, I think I'm just rambling.

I did. It makes sense to me. Despite complaints that our culture is becoming obsessed with violence it would be unthinkable for us to return to the level of violence that existed in the past. At the very least we aren't actually killing anyone for entertainment anymore.

The only problem is that in movies, TV and video games it's possible to make people die in much more horrific detail than would have ever been possible in the past. So one might argue that we're supplanting quantity with quality.

Originally posted by dadudemon
I would not say that you're desensitized by violence. There is a part of you, even if you don't consciously acknowledged it, that knows what you're seeing is not real.

You can be quite sure that if someone shot at an angle in the head right next to you, and that person's eye fluid from the posterior chamber splattered on you, their bone fragments punching through your skin like shrapnel, their blood curdling screams that start to sound more and more like gurgles as they start to choke on the blood spilling into their nasal cavities and throat, and all sorts of tiny chunks of skin and blood that ended up on your and the immediate environment around the victim, I'm sure you would be traumatized by the experience on some level.

You think that you're almost completely desensitized, but you really aren't. You may be desensitized on some level, but I can almost assure you that you're not close to being completely desensitized.

Take the above scenario. What if you experienced the same thing, but it was a loved one? What if your mother was the one shot in the head? What if you had to watch your girlfriend slowly die because she was disemboweled (meaning her abdomen was sliced open, and her intestines pulled out.)?

We are not becoming more violent as a species as time goes by. We don't have public executions. You know, the kind where people really were disemboweled in front of everyone. You know, being drawn and quartered? You know, being tortured in all sorts of gross ways. Or watching two prisoners fight to death in a Colosseum. Now, our gladiators and NFL football players and UFC fighters.

It's true that violent video games have been empirically proven to increase aggressiveness...but I'm dubious of real world application on this aggression.

I'm not quite what sure what that has to do with my post... as I said I was only referring to video games and TV shows specifically. I never said I'm desensitized to real world violence...

Originally posted by Final Blaxican
I'm referring specifically to TV shows/movies and video games.

I dunno. Between movies like Saw and Tarentino flicks like Kill Bill, video games like Gears of War, anime like Bleach, which isn't even ultraviolent by Japanese standards but shows people utterly drenched in blood... I'm just completely desensitized by violence. I haven't seen someone get killed and consciously thought "damn... what a painful and disturbing way to die", in like 5 years. The media continues to market extreme violence as a high point in whatever they're selling, video games (New limb dismembering head popping action!), movies (I want 20 Nazi scalps!), and TV shows (His weakness is his brain, without his head he's vulnerable!), and I just yawn and flip the channel. Honestly, I'm not intrigued in even the slightest manner. All of the curiosity and taboo that is apart of graphic violence has disappeared.

Does anyone else feel this way? I know people who will go to watch a movie without eve knowing what it's about aside from the fact that its supposed to be incredibly violent, and they try to get me to come and I'm just like "Dude it's blood so what I've seen so much in my life time that it might as well be ****ing grape juice".

Not to sound like a dick but if you feel that you are desensitized to violence in entertainment that is no ones fault but yours. Stop indulging in the ultra mature material for a while and then go back to it again, later, and it will be fresh.

The ultra graphic has ALWAYS been there. It is nothing new and in some ways it was more shocking and uncensored than it is today. The only difference between today and say...,20-30 years ago is that entertainment mediums have grown and expanded drastically. There is more of everything today, not just gore and extreme violence.

Personally, i was desensitized from violence in entertainment before i hit puberty but that is only because i have always been drawn towards violence. I definitely understand what you mean. Every once in a while i will watch or read something that reminds me of how shocked and disturbed i should be but it doesn't surprise me that i'm not. I simply over indulge. Also, most films, books and video games that host ultra graphic content present it in a tongue and cheek manner.

I was desensitized to violence and death through my university years because studying forensics led me to look into the details into things such as the piper alpha oil platform disaster, the Dunblane school massacre (of which i've seen crime scene photos) and the Lockerbie bombing. So because of that it's very rare that i am shocked by fictional violence and death in the media. The last few examples i can think of would be the following.

The bottle scene from Pan's labyrinth.

The fire extinguisher scene from Irreversible.

Some paragraphs from the book "American Psycho"

you studied forensics? That's aces, i never knew that. What do you do?

Originally posted by jinXed by JaNx
Not to sound like a dick but if you feel that you are desensitized to violence in entertainment that is no ones fault but yours.

I never said otherwise. 😐

I don't think it's really a bad thing, just interesting considering that
I can look at this stuff and not even bat an eye-lash yet my father who's a hardcore SCI-FI fan is disturbed by the "violence" in HALO 3, of all games.

Stop indulging in the ultra mature material for a while and then go back to it again, later, and it will be fresh. The ultra graphic has ALWAYS been there. It is nothing new and in some ways it was more shocking and uncensored than it is today. The only difference between today and say...,20-30 years ago is that entertainment mediums have grown and expanded drastically. There is more of everything today, not just gore and extreme violence.

I' disagree personally. I watched Psycho the other day for the first time and I was surprised by how implied the violence was, more than anything, especially compared to today. When the first girl is killed in the shower the camera shows only the killer making stabbing motions (You don't actually see the knife most of the time or the hand, just the arm and the body), and when he's done the camera shows only the victim's face as she sinks to the ground, then the camera leaves her face and her body altogether and shows the trail of blood from her wounds seep down the drain. Then it zooms on her lifeless eyes.

From those showings, you don't actually see any of the gore minus the blood trail, yet you know that she's dead, and you know that's been stabbed multiple times.

If that movie were made today, there's a good chance that when the shower curtain is ripped open you'd see the girl's entire exposed chest, you'd see the knife being stabbed into her body multiple times, then it would show her naked and crumpled form on the ground with the blood trailing, and you can clearly see all of the stab wounds.

So while in the 60's there was certainly a lot of implied violence, there is no movie that old that has graphic violence compared to today. Not even one, that I'm aware of.

Thus, I'd disagree about you saying that it's always been there, when in fact 30 years ago movie makers weren't allowed to show the inside of bathrooms in movies because it was considered "dirty", and in every movie married couples slept in separate beds... cause showing a married couple in the same bed on screen was taboo. Compared with modern cinema and the 70's and 80's (Robocop)? Nah man.

Personally, i was desensitized from violence in entertainment before i hit puberty but that is only because i have always been drawn towards violence. I definitely understand what you mean. Every once in a while i will watch or read something that reminds me of how shocked and disturbed i should be but it doesn't surprise me that i'm not. I simply over indulge. Also, most films, books and video games that host ultra graphic content present it in a tongue and cheek manner. [/B]

True. I guess I'm a bit similar to you, in that it's never really bothered me a whole lot and I was raised on it. The first movie I remember clearly was Starship Troopers and Independence Day.

Originally posted by jinXed by JaNx
you studied forensics? That's aces, i never knew that. What do you do?

Yeah i got an honours in forensics a while back then a masters in analytical chemistry and a phd forensics too. At the moment i'm working as an analytical chemist in organic chemistry. Pretty boring stuff but the recession is hitting the science industry hard. There's a new multi million pound forensics lab opening in my home town next year so i might stick around and just get temporary contracts until then.

I'm also thinking about getting another masters in teaching so i have that to fall back on.

Forensic wise this is the only of note that i've helped work on

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7771696.stm

I've also helped research the use of optical coherence tomography (a kind of MRI scanning) for use in fingerprint technology.

I've specialised in fingerprinting and questioned documents (forgeries etc)

I've done a whole load of different stuff the last few years though. I've worked in an animal testing lab, I've analysed drinking water. I've done the donkey work in a genetics testing lab. Anything analytical chemistry or low level forensics i've done it apart from crime scene work which i don't really have an interest in anyway.

Originally posted by Final Blaxican
I'm not quite what sure what that has to do with my post... as I said I was only referring to video games and TV shows specifically. I never said I'm desensitized to real world violence...

That's usually...no...that's what is always meant when someone talks about being desensitized by violence.

You don't think it's a little strange making a thread about being desensitized by violence, and then later saying that you didn't mean that you were being desensitized by actual violence. 😐

Violence can still be very powerful when used properly.

Originally posted by dadudemon
That's usually...no...that's what is always meant when someone talks about being desensitized by violence.

No it's not.

You don't think it's a little strange making a thread about being desensitized by violence, and then later saying that you didn't mean that you were being desensitized by actual violence. 😐 [/B]

No, because they have different meanings. ermm

I can watch someone get chainsawed in half in Gears of War and watch someone get shot in a movie without flinching, but I gagged when I saw all the blood covering my friends leg and face when I drove with him to the hospital. I had to turn away when I watched a dude get his elbow snapped in an old UFC replay, but again I've seen it a dozen times and seen everyone of Steven Segal's movies and I hardly care then.

There is an extrmeley large difference, psychologically, betwen violence in fiction, and seeing it right in front of your face and knowing that it's really happening and someone is really suffering

Originally posted by Final Blaxican
I'm referring specifically to TV shows/movies and video games.

I dunno. Between movies like Saw and Tarentino flicks like Kill Bill, video games like Gears of War, anime like Bleach, which isn't even ultraviolent by Japanese standards but shows people utterly drenched in blood... I'm just completely desensitized by violence. I haven't seen someone get killed and consciously thought "damn... what a painful and disturbing way to die", in like 5 years. The media continues to market extreme violence as a high point in whatever they're selling, video games (New limb dismembering head popping action!), movies (I want 20 Nazi scalps!), and TV shows (His weakness is his brain, without his head he's vulnerable!), and I just yawn and flip the channel. Honestly, I'm not intrigued in even the slightest manner. All of the curiosity and taboo that is apart of graphic violence has disappeared.

Does anyone else feel this way? I know people who will go to watch a movie without eve knowing what it's about aside from the fact that its supposed to be incredibly violent, and they try to get me to come and I'm just like "Dude it's blood so what I've seen so much in my life time that it might as well be ****ing grape juice".

I have never ha a problem with tv/movie or video game violence..

To me when I watch movies like Saw or Hostel, I enjoy it because I know what I am looking at is not real and therefore much more enjoyable.. I feel the same when I watch Kill Bill.. The same when I play video games

I dont let this stuff get to me, if I want to watch it than I will if not than oh well....its not going to make or break me.

As for the games and movies? its up to the parents to control what the kids do and not do. Its the parents fault for letting stuff get to far and not the game/movie makers. They have every right to make their product how they want to. The stores however should follow the rules that they cant sell mature rated stuff to kids and let the parents by them. But its all about making money.

Bottom line is if you dont like it than dont watch it or play it.