re: Violence on screen....What says the MTVB???

Hell, the title edit got me to click and I started the other thread.

To answer the question, I just saw a video (from the UK, granted) on the Muslim terrorist killing of a British military supporter/soldier in broad fricking daylight. The video included the killer stating to a person filming him (with whom the killer apparently had no affiliation) why he killed the soldier.

The killer held a meat cleaver and had blood dripping from his hands. In the background of the video, the body of the slain soldier lay in the street a few feet away from where he was run over by the killer and his associate in their car.

The guy had no remorse. It was fricking sick. They blurred out the body and bloody hands, but you could tell what it was. You could still see the red on the killer's hands through the blurring.

All that to say this: even the news is not editing most of this stuff out anymore. We are becoming desensitized to violence. For christ's sake, people just stood around and WATCHED. In the video, women just walk by the killer, meat cleaver in hand, as if it's a fricking Sunday morning stroll. Are you kidding??

I don't think it's a matter of wanting to portray negative images on screen. I think directors have turned toward "hyper-realism" as a means to not only shock (and, perhaps, convey a message about how truly shocking such disturbing violence is/can be), but also to placate the apparent bloodthirst of American audiences. In so doing, I think shows and directors are attempting to one up each other with graphic violence and, frankly, I have never liked it.

That's why Eli Roth is one of my most reviled directors. frick him and frick Hostel.