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it's natural to be repulsed by it (if you're not, probably you're numbed to it, or you weren't paying attention)
now why would you want to watch something that repulses you? you can't ENJOY something that repulses you, it's a contradiction in terms
that's the interesting question
- people who watch whole films of that sort of stuff... probably have some psychological problem, where they are numbed to most of the gore and they need something more hardcore, to remind themselves that they are still alive or whatever
- films that contain one shocking/repulsive scene in an otherwise normal (enjoyable) film. i find that in these cases you can treat the repulsion as Variable X in an equation, and find a simple message or intention for it being there. Like in Reservoir Dogs, the ear cutting scene points out a couple of things: 1. you were enjoying the scene up until the first graphic slash, even though it was obvious that things were about to turn very nasty 2. once one threshold of gore is reached, a new one appears (you see the slashings, but not the actual ear cutting, and the burning never happens). Or in King Lear, the scene where Gloucester (also tied to a chair) has his eyes plucked/gouged out on stage by the other characters - i think the point is that the repulsion here is probably only going to affect a theatre audience, not a reading audience, thus they will walk away with different interpretations even though they witnessed the same play (Shakespear def. knew people would read his plays as well as watch them).
- however i think this shock value is a considerbale disruption to the fabric of the piece (even people who admire Res Dogs, some of them think the ear cutting went too far). It's like printing a book that plays some music on turning to p103, it's not the normal course of the artform
- having said that... it's hard to say what things are absolutely and universally shocking... maybe it's just a continual process of desensitization, that makes most of us not much different from the psychotics who watch snuff films. The aesthetic similarity in those scenes from Res Dogs and King Lear (written 400 years apart) would suggest otherwise though --------------------
Why do you choose to mimic these wack MCs?
Why do you choose to listen to R&B?
"There are obviously many things which we do not understand, and may never be able to." Leela
*puts emceeing in a box*
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