One Soda. Two Roommates. And a lot of Knives ...

As many of you already know I am interested in the production and consumption of mediated violence as a form of entertainment.  What some of you may not know is that I make no-to-low budget horror films. And I made this short--which played at the 2008 Madison Horror Film Festival--as part of an independent study I took during my master's work at Marquette University.  So step right up, step right up! It's time to sit back, relax, and have a laugh or two.  It's time for a little bit of the old ultra-violence.  It's time for some shameless self-promotion!  It's Bugs Bunny meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as two roommates engage in a life or death struggle over the last bottle of soda in the refrigerator. Actors Shannon Daubner and yours truly used actual knives throughout to add realism to this bloody caricature of how a minor disagreement quickly escalates into all out war! Please consider this a conversation starter.  

Japanese Culture from a Bemused Western Perspective

This video, from the upcoming Japanese PS3 game Yakuza 4, showcases in-game footage of a cheeky (or perverse) game of table tennis between the protagonist and one of the hostesses he has the option of dating.  Its innovative game mechanics—which involve the counter-intuitive act of literally taking your eyes off the ball to succeed—are perhaps overshadowed by its more troublesome connotations (namely, the objectification of women and male domination). According to Keza MacDonald’s review of the game on the Eurogamer Web Site, the game’s sexism is not confined to this segment.  “Essentially you pick a girl, and adjust every conceivable aspect of her appearance so that you can sell her company at the hostess club for a higher price.” Without condemning this game outright (especially since I have not played it yet), I think it is essential to understand what aspects of Japanese culture are reflected within a cultural artifact such as this one.  In the riveting book Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, author Jake Adelstein explains, “Host and hostess clubs are probably the most misunderstood aspects of Japan’s adult entertainment industry.  They’re not about sex, they’re about the illusion of intimacy and the titillating possibility of sex” (p. 158). Does the sentiment echoed in this statement apply to the video in question? Or maybe even explain it?

   

Can Video Game Trailers Ever Be Art?

          The camera pans out to reveal the lifeless face of a little girl staring back at us.  In the background, slightly out of focus, we see a man on fire, flailing his limbs in what is likely a combination of the human body’s natural response to being set ablaze and his fruitless attempts to extinguish the flames.  Behind him, we see a man swinging a baseball bat at unidentified assailants.  Thus begins the official trailer for Deep Silver’s upcoming zombie survival game Dead Island.  As Giles Lamb’s haunting score progresses, we realize that the action is occurring along two timelines: the reverse-chronological action of the little girl’s final moments and the linear progression of events leading to the pivotal moment where the two intersect.  When juxtaposed alongside the strictly chronological version of the trailer we see the importance of both editing and music in creating atmosphere and emotional resonance.  The exact same footage of events is cut together in different ways to produce two different sets of emotional responses from viewers.  In the reverse trailer, the mournful violin sets the stage for unavoidable tragedy in the face of insurmountable odds, and it ends with the father and daughter pulling away from one another.  In the linear trailer, the music suggests something altogether different.  When we reach the crucial moment where the father reaches for his daughter in slow motion and lifts her in his arms the music seems, if not hopeful, at least comforting.  When the father grabs hold of his daughter at 0:59 the music accentuates the emotion across his face, which seems to be saying: It’s going to be all right. Daddy’s here now.  I’ve got you.” 

Freeze Frames and Frozen Minds

          Hariman and Lucaites (2007) define journalistic icons as those “photographic images appearing in print, electronic, or digital media that are widely recognized and remembered, are understood to be representations of historically significant events, activate strong emotional identification or response, and are reproduced across a range of media, genres, or topics” (p. 27).  World War II, Vietnam, the Gulf War and America’s (ongoing) conflict with Iraq each produced a multitude of iconic images that continue to resonate within the country’s collective consciousness.  There’s “The Kiss” by Alfred Eisenstaedt; Joe Rosenthal’s February 23, 1945 photo of the American flag being raised at Iwo Jima; Eddie Adams’ image of South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Laon executing Viet Cong Ngyen Van Lem during the Tet Offensive in 1968; Nick Ut’s 1972 photo of nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim running naked after her village was struck by napalm; David C. Turnley’s 1991 photo of Sergeant Ken Kozakiewicz crying over a body bag containing his friend Andy Alaniz – killed by friendly fire; Koji Harada’s carefully framed photo of the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein; the premature revelry behind the “Mission Accomplished” photo-op; the searing images from Abu Ghraib – “the hooded-man” Satar Jabar, Lynndie England dragging a naked prisoner by a leash, and Charles Graner giving a thumbs-up over the corpse of a previously tortured man packed in ice. Missing from this list, however, are any iconic pictures of our ongoing war with Afghanistan. 
          What does that mean? Any war is, of course, too complex to be reduced to one photo, but it certainly seems significant that photo journalists have been unable to capture an image that catches the attention of American audiences.  Could this mean that audiences are so apathetic that their response to the steady stream of war news coverage and commentary has been numbed?  Is it, as Dahlia Lithwick suggests, “that if you see enough ‘iconic’ photos of a man in a hood with electrodes, they lose their ability to turn your stomach?”

Work Cited:

Hariman, Robert and John Lucaites (2007). No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy. University of Chicago Press.

Designed to disturb: Prevention through agitation

          The use of shocking imagery in advertising is tricky business; though both demand attention, they can threaten to overshadow or obscure the intended message. There is a fine line between disturbing and visceral imagery designed to translate an immediate emotional response into a behavioral change or call to action and grotesque imagery that oversteps its boundaries and leaves the viewer paralyzed with disgust. This type of imagery — often used in public interest campaigns focusing on the dangers of cigarette smoking, alcohol and substance abuse, human rights, and the ethical treatment of animals — is certainly provocative. But what does the use of such imagery do to the credibility of the advertiser? And when all is said and done, is the use of such imagery even effective? Take a look at the advertisements pictured below. Does the imagery compel you to reflect on the issues at hand or recoil in horror?  

Do you see what I see?

A picture is worth a thousand words, which means a picture divorced from text that places it in its proper context can be exaggerated in the collective consciousness or understanding of an online community.  Said another way, if one simply has a picture and does not have text in the form of words to explain the picture, then the events depicted in that picture could either exaggerate what happened or undermine what occurred to those who view it.  In addition, because it is understood that individuals bring their own emotional baggage and cultural background to viewing an image, there is always the possibility that what is being presented will be misinterpreted with or without its proper context.  This gets complicated even further when one considers how the arrangement of images can alter their meaning.  For example, the Kuleshov effect is an editing technique pioneered by Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov that demonstrates how an “expressionless” face, when cut together with alternating shots of random objects, can be said to signify different emotions.  Look at the photo below.  Without text situating it within a proper context, how will you know what to make of it?

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes it is a chainsaw.

     Suppose we accept as a given that the rise of torture porn in the United States coincides, strangely enough, with the re-emergence of the puritanical view that graphic portrayals of realistic and consensual sex have little to no place in mainstream films.  Torture porn films then, like their puritanical brethren the slashers, are like community-level campaigns to desensitize particularly male audiences to highly sexualized violence against the body.  Applying a psychoanalytic eye to these advertising campaigns upholds Dyer’s (2002) assertion that we look at the world through ideas of male sexuality and reveals that such films tend to focus on visual symbols substituting male sexuality and the ruination of the human and/or female body.  For Dyer, male sexuality informs our construction of narratives, and he raises an interesting point: “What is significant is how sexuality is symbolized, how these [narrative] devices evoke a sense of what sexuality is like, how they contribute to a particular definitionof sexuality” (90).