BOOK+MOVIEHYBRIDSIntegrating print withsound & motionpictures |
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The New York Times, Sunday, December 5, 2004
Manohla Dargis
"Conventional wisdom has had it that Hollywood killed art or at least put a stranglehold on it when the studios instituted self-censorship as a hedge against government interference. The glories of the old studio system tell a different story, as do the past few decades, when relaxed censorship has mainly led to increased graphic violence and a parallel descent into sexual puerility."
"In American film,... violence invariably trumps sex..."
THE SETTING:
A Public Auditorium in a Convention Hall Where a Conference on Sex and Violence in the Media is Underway.
STAGE SCENERY:
The Following Text Is the Backdrop for the Stage:
MONKEY-SEE-MONKEY-DO-MONKEY-KILL-KILL-THE-MONKEY-CHAIN-GANG. 2005 CONFERENCE ON THE RELATIONSHIP OF SEQUENTIAL ART TO SEQUENTIAL EVENTS. 2005 Annual presentation of papers on "sex and violence in the media". With a panel discussion on the social consequences of "sex & violence" in the media:
Panelist A:
"It's only a movie."
Panelist B:
"Harmless entertainment can kill you."
THE PLAYERS:
Moderator
Keynote Speaker
Guest Speaker (Dr. Painpang)
Famous Movie Monsters & Their 52* Beautiful Assistants
| * 52 is a reference to a deck of cards, not the actual number of players required. Only one assistant is actually needed. One player can also play both the part of the Famous Movie Monster and (quickly switch to) the part of the Beautiful Assistant. |
THE MUSIC:
Original Scores by the "It's a Lonely World" Players:
House of Painpang
House of Cards
My House, My Rules
Goodbye Cruel World
Big Bang
No One Cares
No One Rules
NEW YORK TIMES:
[Moderator's voice from off-stage opens the conference by reading the above two quotes from Manohla Dargis' New York Times article]
SLIDE SHOW:
[Throughout the conference speakers' presentations in the auditorium, graphic images of sex & violence from the mass media, including the gorey 'money shot' and monster shots from various horror films, plus real and Photoshoped pictures of celebrities in nude scenes and sex scenes, are projected on the stage —supposedly to illustrate the various points made by the speakers. Above the slide show's screen is a sign: "CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING."]
THE CONTEXT, THE SETUP, THE SLIDE SHOW:
[Moderator sets up the slides]
"Thank you for your attention. Much of the most controversial sounds and images of sex and violence are often presented on television by couching sensational material in various types of so-called news formats that give TV producers effective cover for drumming up viewership and rating numbers with material that would otherwise be too provocative to present in other programing formats... for now. And this PowerPoint slide show presentation in the nonfiction setting of this conference on sex & violence in the media is not that much different. We are happy you showed up. And we are always happy to have an even bigger turnout. But our conference organizers and participants are noticeably less money-hungry in their aims than television and movie producers... or perhaps just less naked about their greed.
"But why slides and not a video projection presentation for all the speakers? If sound & motion were added —sudden loud sounds and sudden fast violent motions— none of the speakers would get a word in edgewise. The spoken word just cannot compete for your attention in such an enviornment. And the written word is even more hopeless here. So I hope you find the slides interesting, but not too interesting."
[Suddenly a short clip of the Zapruder film —the 8mm home movie footage of President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963 made by an assassination witness, Abraham Zapruder— plays on the screen.]
"In March of 1975, during the late-night TV show Goodnight America (hosted by Geraldo Rivera) still-dedicated assassination researchers Robert Groden and Dick Gregory presented the first-ever, mass audience, public TV showing of the Zapruder film in motion. The public's response and outrage to that first public showing of the home movie that captured President John F. Kenedy's assassination led immediately, and directly, to the forming of the Hart-Schweiker investigation, contributed to the Church Committee Investigation on Intelligence Activities by the United States, and led to the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation. The entire film lasts 26.6 seconds, with the presidential limousine assassination sequence lasting 19.3 seconds.
"Some persons claim that only altered versions of the Zapruder film have ever been published. They point to, allegedly, impossible movements by persons in the background and limousine, and irregular limousine signal-light flashing as evidence of film cuts. There are 59 witnesses affidavits that claim the limousine came to a near or complete stop during the shooting, but, the film does not show this, and shows the limousine slowing from 13 miles-per-hour to slightly less than 9 m.p.h. at frame 313 when President Kennedy's head first explodes. Some of these claims are almost occult, finding 'golden ratios' in the film frames slicing. Others are convinced that the Secret Service copies made the evening of November 22 that are also stored in the United States National Archives are unaltered.
"Three copies of the film were made on the evening of the assassination, November 22, 1963, for investigative authorities. Within days Life Magazine purchased the original film and all rights to the film for an initial payment of $25,000, which Abraham Zapruder donated to Dallas Policeman J.D. Tippit's widow and children. Thereafter five annual $25,000 payments were made to Mr. Zapruder by Life. After acquiring the film, Life made large photo prints of individual frames. Private copies of the film were made for Life executives. A few frames of the film were printed over the years, but mostly the film was kept locked away from public scrutiny and was never publicly shown in motion by Life. But after the March 1975 televised showing of the Zapruder film by Geraldo Rivera on Goodnight America and the explosive public response, Life sold the film back to the Zapruder family for $1. The Zapruder family soon asked the U.S. government to store the film safely and help protect it from the sands of time. The U.S. government has stored the film in the National Archives.
• 1997: The (Zapruder) Family makes copies of the film available to the public on video and DVD under partnership with Chicago media company, MPI Media Group. Titled "Image of an Assassination: A New Look at the Zapruder Film," this collection includes enhanced film in various sequences, including one with the sprocket hole images made from the digitized frames.
• April 2, 1997: The Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) holds a public hearing at the original National Archives, Washington, D.C. with selected speakers and experts giving opinions on the monetary value of the Zapruder film. The ARRB makes the Zapruder film an "assassination document" under the JFK Act.
• 1998: the original film is purchased by the United States government under the doctrine of eminent domain, and Zapruder's heirs sue to increase the amount paid for the film to $16 million.
• August, 1999: U.S. government agrees to pay $16 million for Zapruder film to family. This compensation does not include the copyrights to the film. The (Zapruder) Family still retains all showing rights to the film. See Amazon.com for current prices.
"Frames of the film have been published in several magazines and utilized in several movies. The Zapruder film footage has been deemed 'culturally significant' by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for permanent preservation in the National Film Registry."
[Zapruder film ends.]
KEYNOTE ADDRESS:
[Keynote Speaker at the podium]
"Everything you've always wanted to know (but were too afraid to ask) about 'sex & violence' in the media —that ancient corporate whore and moneymaking darling of short attention spans everywhere. Now that I've got your attention...
"'Corporate whore' ... punched-up wordplay ... sexy violent words directed against sex and violence ... words that have impact ... words that connect ... words that stimulate ... intellectually or otherwise ... powerful words ... are all words charged with great tension and energy. Nervous energy. Sexual energy. Violent energy. Terrifying energy. All exist locked-up, tightly coiled, as tension. All in love with life. All in love with dying. All temple ... prison ... doorway. Sexual energy... violent energy... painful energy... tension... is everywhere... where life is. And in a violent universe, violent energy appears even where life does not. Sexual energy, too, is pulsing everywhere in this physical universe for some. 'Sex & violence' in the media is everywhere because sex and violence is everywhere. Sex and violence is everywhere that sexual and violent energy is. Sexual and violent energy is everywhere that energy is... or everywhere that living energy is... everywhere animal energy and human energy are. Energy is everywhere that meaning is. Meaning springs from energy. Energy springs from meaning. Meaning communicates energy. Energy communicates meaning. Only the blandest language lacks all sexual energy, all violent energy, all force. It seems implausible that language can exist at all without this energy, even if no explicit sexual or violent meaning is apparent. Thus it seems equally implausible to expect this energy —this sexual energy, this violent energy— to exist in language without communicating sex and violence on some level; on some conscious, subconscious or unconscious level; even when no explicit sexual or violent meaning is apparent.
"But this conference today deals with sex & violence in the media, which is obviously all about explicit sexual and violent content. And many of the papers presented here today treat sex & violence in the media as a matter of energy at its core —energy that effects and shapes all forms of communication, all languages. So the problem of sex & violence in the media unavoidably becomes a question of what kind of energy is this and, most importantly, whether this energy is good or bad for us. Is this energy dangerous... harmful... painful?
"Or is it just what the doctor ordered: an Aristotlean catharsis, a Reichian energy cure, an emotional workout to make you stonger, perhaps something to trigger a 'relaxation response,' good for the circulation and just an invigorating cycle of tension and release as healthy as plain old good sex?"
[Keynote Speaker takes a drink of water]
"The reality is that sex & violence in the media sells... just about anything and everything. Why? Because they are primal attention-grabbers. And getting your attention is the first prerequisite for selling anything. Getting your attention is the 'foot in the door' for salesmen everywhere. And everyone is out there peddling something —something reflecting their sense of importance. After all, your sense of importance is all that anyone really has to sell, get or give.
"It is no accident that the two surest moneymakers in the film industry are horror movies and porn. The fact is that both genres are far more likely to succeed financially than any other type of film, especially at the lowest of production budgets. This is a testament to the natural primal appeal and so-called entertainment value of sex and violence in the media as forms of relativey 'safe sex' and 'safe violence' when compared to the real thing. The fact that most horror movies and porn are largely forgetable immediately after viewing, screaming or sex is an argument for their being relatively harmless forms of temporary stimulation during an evening of mindless entertainment. The real problems, the real dangers, lie back in the real world, and arguably not in the enjoyable world of escapism. Of course, 'sex & violence in the media' is anything but safe as far as many of its opponents are concerned, while other detractors merely find it distasteful or boring. This convention does not have much to say about personal taste, but plenty to say about whether sex & violence in the media is harmful."
[Moderator]
"Is sex & violence in the media dangerous?"
"The problem of sex & violence in the media is often characterized as corrupting, traumatizing, perhaps even permanently, harming the tender young minds of impressionable children exposed to these media influences. Even adult viewers are said to be negatively effected by these influences. Here, powerful sounds and images of sex & violence are believed to cause emotional violence and mental disturbances that lead to mental, emotional and spiritual chaos. So, is society being dangerously impacted merely by representations of sex & violence in the media? Can sex & violence in the media actually harm children and damage their development... on any level? And is it having any similar impact on adults?"
[Moderator]
"What are shock value and sensationalism's primary roles in the media industry's drive towards greater visibility, viewership and profitability?"
"The proliferation and escalation of media sex & violence is often pointed out to be directly related to the corporate race to realize increasing profits from material with increasing shock value and sensationalism. The assumption here being that material with increasing shock value and increasingly stimulating sensations naturally attracts more attention, which increases viewer numbers and therefore profitability. The greater likelihood of profitability being achieved by even the most uninventive horror movies and adult videos, when compared to other types of movies, being one obvious ratification of this belief. The other clear ratification of media sex & violence's obvious profitability, of course, being the huge video game industry —with storylines as weak or as unnecessary as adult videos... and beyond-gratuitous-sex soon to catch up with beyond-gratuitous-violence the moment they realize there is a huge market of legal-aged consumers out there for the stuff that is even more profitable than chasing after underaged gamers. Game boy is fast becoming one more jaded movie geek as the demand for new thrills presses on."
"Representations of Sex & Violence in the Media and Copycat Crimes"
Presented by Dr. Painpang
[ Paper No. 17 ]
[Guest Speaker Dr. Painpang]
Why is "sex & violence" in the media a problem? Only because it is believed these media representations of sex and violence have a corrupting, traumatizing and damaging impact on viewers, nonviewers and society as a whole. And the main evidence for this belief is that some people appear to imitate the sex and violence they see in the media. Furthermore, some of these alleged imitators act out (what they see and hear and read in the media) in ways that transcend make-believe, becoming real-life acts of trangression. In the most extreme cases, it is claimed that some people who supposedly mirror what they experience in the media actually commit copycat crimes and become copycat criminals solely because of the media.
• Copycat : a slavish imitator.
And it is because this desire to imitate media 'sex & violence' can appear to turn into actual acts of sex and violence (and not some harmless form of role-playing or creative expression) that purveyors of media sex & violence get into trouble with those determined to ban it. Sex & violence in the media is blamed for instigating and causing real acts of sex and violence. And real acts of sex and violence are the real targets of the ban. Dangerous sex and dangerous violence, instigated in the real world, being their true mark, not just their representations in the media.
It all comes down to what troubles us about real sex and real violence. It comes down to everything that appears lethal, dangerous and alarming to us about real sex and real violence. So this problem with sex & violence in the media is actually as old as man's first attempt to communicate his troubling awareness of sex and violence themselves. It is as old as his first communicated recognition that sexual beings existed. It is as old as his first communicated recognition that violent beings existed. It is as old as his first communicated recognition that he existed in a violent and dangerous universe. And it is older than the first oral traditions performed by ancient storytellers of man's fall from innocence (or ignorance) and expulsion from paradise.
This tirelessly discussed problem of sex & violence in the media is as old as human communication itself. It can be traced to man's first attempts to communicate the existence of these powerful phenomena in his life... and the desire of those who received these communictions to see and do the real thing for themselves. It can be traced to the first man who desired to see real sex and real violence first hand for himself, perhaps to confirm or deny what he learned second hand from others. But the actual argument about sex & violence in the media only takes full shape when this desire to see real sex and real violence is transformed and translated into yet further satisfaction by acting out and doing the sex and violence seen. Thus it can be traced to man's first desire to do the real violence or sex he sees.
The argument about sex and violence in the media begins... with the first man who responded to news of sex with real sex... and the first man who responded to news of violence with real violence. News of sex may stimulate real sex as easily as pornography often appears to, but the effects of news of violence on people seems harder to pin down.
The first man who responded to news of violence with violence —whether in the spirit of emotional identification manifested by some form of idolization, imitation, possession (i.e., possessing and being possessed)... or in the spirit of alienation and emotional distance manifested by some form of self-defense or in the spirit of revenge— was enough to spark the long debate about this problem. And this debate about man's troubling response to troubling news surely took place long before any form of fictional storytelling entered into it. Therefore, one might just as well ask the news reporter and television news anchor if they believe they are harming the public they supposedly serve by exposing the public to so much bad news. Even if they are only reporting the news (of violence in the world), do these reporters believe that showing violence glorifys violence simply by showering so much attention on it? After all, some people are attracted to attention of any sort and to those at the center of any sort of attention —even if, or especially if, the object of attention inspires great fear. For them, any sort of attention is a ratification of something or someone's importance and becomes a desirable form of power. So, does simply showing violence glorify violence? And do these reporters believe that the glorification of violence in the media inspires actual acts of violence?
In short, does simply witnessing actual violent events in the world cause people to do real violence? Obviously not for most people, you say? But some people do appear to, and not just mentally unbalanced people. More importantly, people in high political positions of power and whole nations can appear to be moved by great acts of violence to commit acts of great violence. Why else do nations go to war over the perceived wrongs and injustices of forms of violence committed by others? Why else do nations go to war over violent atrocities?
[Guest Speaker Dr. Painpang continues]
Sensationalism is anything but senseless. If it was, it would have perished long ago. If sex and violence were senseless, they would have perished as forms of human behavior long before they made it to the silver screen.
Senselessness is a wholly speculative condition endlessly speculated about by conscious living beings. Yet it remains fundamentally unknown and unknowable to conscious living beings. Thinking or wondering about the supposed absence of all sense in order to know it and understand what it means makes no sense. That is to say, speculation about senselessness makes no real sense, only self-contradicting sense. Trying to grasp the absense of all sense is futile if not senseless. Wait until you die. You can always hope to grasp it then. Or hope to discover there was nothing there to grasp. In any case, real sex and violence in the world and 'sex & violence' in the media are anything but truly senseless.
• Sense : (noun) 1. semantic content: meaning 2. the faculty of perceiving by means of sense organs; also: a bodily function or mechanism (as sight, hearing, or smell) basically involving a stimulus and a sense organ 3. sensation, awareness 4. intelligence, judgement 5. opinion {example: "the sense of the meeting"}
• Sense : (verb) 1. to be or become aware of {"sense danger"}; also: to perceive by the senses 2. to detect (as radiation) automatically
• Sense organ : 1. a bodily structure (as an eye or ear) that receives stimuli (as heat or light) which excite nerve cells to send information to the brain
• Sensation : 1. awareness (as of noise or heat) or a mental process (as seeing or hearing) due to stimulation of a sense organ; also: an indefinite bodily feeling 2. a condition of excitement; also: the thing that causes this condition of excitement.
• Sensational : 1. of or relating to sensation or the senses 2. arousing an intense and usually superficial interest or emotional reaction.
• Sensationalism : 1. the use or effect of sensational subject matter or treatment.
"Sex & violence" is so pervasive in the media on some level because sex and violence naturally attract our attention, even when they offend, anger or repulse us. And the media industry is unmistakeably in the business of buying and selling our attention. The media industry must generate and capture attention in order to have something to sell (to both its sponsors and its audiences) and stay afloat. Thus it is impossible to expect the media industry to voluntarily abstain from using the two most fundamentally primal attention-getting devices in its money-making arsenal: sex and violence. Only the threat of legal and economic punishment and actual punitive action has any effect on curbing the media industry's appetite for making a profit by selling "sex & violence."
But the media industry is not really selling sex and violence to us. (And I do not simply mean that they are only selling media sounds and images of sex and violence, and not an actual ringside seat at an actual fight or live sex show.) The media industry is actually selling the power of "sex & violence" to attract our attention. And it is still us —the public— who is buying... in some way... on some level... what they are selling. And what are they selling again? They are selling our very own power of attention back to us. They are selling us the power generated in our own consciousness and in our own bodies by the images and messages of sex and violence that the media puts before us. And why are we buying it? We are buying it (and they are selling it) because sex and violence naturally attract our attention... by generating and fueling our own powers of attention within us... in some way... on some level. Whether sex and violence are being packaged as pornography or the news, they continue to be marketable only because they continue to attract our attention.
We pay attention to what we desire. We pay attention to what we desire to eliminate. We pay attention to violence because we want to do violence. We desire to inflict it. We pay attention to violence because we fear it. We pay attention to violence because we want to be free of it. We pay attention to violence because we want to end it. And when we are not paying attention to violence, we are often paying attention to sex... and in some of the same ways. This is especially true of dangerous sex. Sex that appears dangerous. Sex that alarms.
The problem with sex and violence is that they attract our attention even when they alarm and repel us. It may even be true that they attract more attention the more they alarm and repel. After all, one can say we are never more alert than when we must run away or defend ourselves. If this is the case, then sex and violence will always be impossibly attractive to those whose livelihood depends on the manipulation and marketing of natural sources of attraction. Sex and violence are natural attractions. They are attracting and generating attention even when we are expending energy to ignore them.
DESIRE:
THE HOUSE THAT ENERGY BUILT
IS AS STABLE / UNSTABLE
AS ENERGY IS
attention!
attention!
brainstorm
tension is talent
attention is talent
only because talent
is the power, the ability,
to turn unwanted tension into
desirable attention, loving attention:
desire, love, aspiration, intension, purpose...
hate, vengeance, purpose... aim, action, conquest...
aim, act, connect... aim, act, success... aim, act, don't miss!
HOUSE OF PAIN > PANG > PASSION > POWER
PAIN > PANG > PASSION > POWER > PAIN > PANG
THE HOUSE THAT PAIN BUILT THE HOUSE THAT PAIN
DESTROYED THE HOUSE THAT PAIN BUILT DESTROYED
PAIN POWER PAIN POWER PAIN POWER PAIN POWER PAIN
[Guest Speaker Dr. Painpang continues]
The problem of "sex & violence" in the media lies in their being this primal source of attraction and force of attraction. It is unstoppable primal force for attracting attention. It is a juggernaut for generating attention.
Why is this so? Because sex and violence are primal forces / primal sources of ENERGY!
"Energy is Eternal Delight." More succinct, more pertinent, more insightful words were never penned than these; from "The voice of the Devil" in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Sex and violence create energy. Sex and violence are energy. Sex & violence sells... because energy sells... because everyone wants energy... because everyone wants Energy's Eternal Delight.
Somehow, the energy generated by sex and violence easily translates into conscious forms of energy (i.e., heightened forms of consciousness or forms of heightened awareness) that keep ideas about sex and violence so noticeably implanted in our minds. So if not much else is demanding our attention at any given time, sex and violence can easily stimulate our interest & energy, simultaneously. Our interest is aroused whenever our energy is stimulated. And our energy is stimulated whenever our interest is aroused. Interest and energy go hand-in-hand.
TO REPEAT: Sex & violence sells... because energy sells... because everyone wants energy... because everyone wants Energy's Eternal Delight —its consciousness of something eternal— the sense of something immortal. Energy sells because Energy's Eternal Delight is Conscious Pleasure In The Immortal... the highest form of conscious pleasure.
Energy sells because everyone is interested in it. Energy sells because everyone is conscious of it. And everyone is interested and concious of energy because energy is the foundation of interest and consciousness. Energy is the genesis of interest and consciousness. Energy is interest and consciousness. Energy sells because energy generates interest and, therefore, consciousness. Energy sells because energy is interest, energy is consciousness. "Sex & violence" in the media sells because of its energy, i.e., because of the conscious pleasure that energy gives: the conscious pleasure in one's sense of the immortal that energy gives: one's very own personal sense of the immortal: one's highly personal sense of the immortal. And, as Blake has shown, that other immortal, the devil, knows: real sex and violence in the world, too, sells for seemingly the very same reasons.
The dynamic approach to vitality and glowing health
Book jacket blurb for Naura Hayden's ENERGY : SUPER ENERGY... HAPPINESS... HEALTH! Book jacket quote for ENERGY : "Can give us the kind of energy that will make us all superstars." —Dr. Robert Atkins, author of Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution. |
[Guest Speaker Dr. Painpang continues]
What is the media industry selling again? Energy. Interest-generating-energy. Conscious energy. And stimulation is their means to this end. They call it stimulating content. And stimulating subject matter is supposed to stimulate meaning. But all they really know is that it must be stimulating to sell. It must stimulate our interest to pay attention to it and buy it. To be profitable, it must be exciting!
Every media industry is in the business of excitement to some degree, not just the entertainment industry. Every industry in the communication business or information industry is selling some form of excitement. Every idea is a form of excitement... a form of excitation, no matter how subtle. The more interesting the idea is the more exciting it is. Information interests us by becoming forms of intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and physical stimulation. Forms of excitement are the currency of all forms of meaning. For every form of information or communication worth having and knowing is something that interests us. And everything that interests us is exciting to us enough to excite our interest on some level.
Furthermore, every industry is in the information and communication business. This is because every industry is in the business of making itself and its products and services known to those whom it can interest to buy them. Thus every industry is in the excitement business, trying to excite interest in whatever they are selling.
• And what are they selling? They are selling our very own power of attention back to us.
Specifically, the media industry is selling us the power of attention generated in our own minds and the power of excitement generated in our own bodies by the arousing images and messages of sex and violence that the media put before us. And why are we buying it again? We are buying it (and they are selling it) because sex and violence naturally attract our attention... by generating excitement that stimulates interest and fuels our own powers of attention within us. And just why is this power of attention so attractive and so desirable that we would be willing to pay others to produce it in our minds and bodies? Because the experience of power —here described as the power of attention and the power of excitement— can be profoundly enjoyable. And power... described as energy... again recalls the words of that penetrating insight: "Energy is Eternal Delight." This is why we buy what they are selling.
We buy the sex and violence presented to us by the media industry because this media "sex & violence" raises our energy level. Sex and violence raise our energy levels just as they raise our blood pressures. And in some way, on some level, this energy raising we experience is intimately tied to consciousness raising.
ENERGY = CONSCIOUSNESS? It would be tempting to equate energy with consciousness. I might then say that we buy media "sex & violence" because it raises our level of consciousness as well as our energy by raising our interest level. Unfortunately, sex and violence... or their representations in the media... do not always cause heightened states of alertness that lead to higher states of consciousness. Here is the short list of reasons why:
1. ENERGY IS EXPERIENCED AS PLEASURE. And as pleasure; many will argue that pleasure of any sort has the power or potential to act like a narcotic that submerges consciousness into the warm, comforting, dark waters of the Subconscious and the Unconscious... without revelation, without valuable insight and without any real gain. Nothing further happens. There is no enlightenment. And they will say that "sex & violence" in the media only mindlessly sedates us... puts us to sleep.
2. ENERGY IS EXPERIENCED AS PAIN. And as pain; there will be plenty who argue that pain, too, has the power or potential to overwhelm consciousness, shocking and stunning us into stupidity, into a profound stupor, causing us to lose consciousness on some level or all levels in order to gain quick relief. And they will say that "sex & violence" in the media only batters and numbs us into mindless submission.
Consciousness is the big loser in both these two scenarios above.
Thus, the media industry is definitely in the business of raising human energy through greater arousal, because it is in the business of buying and selling our attention. And we instinctively pay attention to whatever raises our own energy. We instinctively notice whatever makes our heart race. Some may even wish to conclude that this experience of energy always results in a higher form of consciousness. But the experience of energy can be painful as well as pleasurable. And in either instance, the two arguments above outline the case against both for coming to any such conclusion that claims the attainment of any sort of higher consciousness is certain. The media industry is in the business of raising human energy through greater arousal, but it is not necessarily in the business of raising human consciousness through greater or lasting awareness.
"There is no business except show business:"
"game theory and the bid for time,
attention, energy & money"
[Guest Speaker Dr. Painpang continues]
Return now to Manohla Dargis' comment in The New York Times about the portrayal of violence dominating mainstream American films more than sex. Why does violence have more screen time... so much more screen time... than sex?
... At least in the public arena. For surely porn is a hearty contender for many's time and money in the most private arenas. But the mainstream is all about the public arena —the very public arena— i.e., what we do in the physical presence of others as a group and not just privately. And this very open display, this high visibility, of the public mainstream is what we are addressing here. And sex in the form of porn just does not have the extremely high visibility in the public mainstream, associated with a huge media presence in the public arena, that violence in the form of news, sports and entertainment does.
So why does violence have more screentime than sex in the public arena? Violence wins out over sex in the contest for attention, here, because violence is often more disturbing than sex. And often far more so. Violence wins the contest to become the center of attention because violence is generally more upsetting and therefore more able to cause excitement. And though this is often not excitation in the pleasureable sense that sex usually is, it is still exciting in the sense of attracting and generating attention.
Of course, none of this is true if the real reason there is more violence than sex in our films is that we are more comfortable with violence (at least on film and in group settings such as public movie theaters or the family room) than we are with sex. In that case, sex would be more disturbing to see than violence. Here, sex is less acceptable than violence. And common censorship practices seem to bare this out. Explicit violence in the form of news and fiction often gets away with more than explicit sex does as far as the public airwaves and public showings are concerned.
• explicit (adj.) : plain to see; readily observable
The EXPLICIT violence of actual OPEN warfare
...has no equal in sex.
EXPLICIT VIOLENCE VS. EXPLICIT SEX. Now I want to make one utterly clear illustration, one gross illustration, of the point that violence is far more visible than sex, if not necessarily more acceptable. Violence is far more visible than sex because you can see wars going on all over the world. And wars are huge public displays of real, hardcore violence that are easy to find, cover and present in the media. Whereas equally public, equally huge displays of real, hardcore sex... happening out in the open like war... are not found, covered and presented. Massive spectacles of violence are far more common than anything on that scale that sex has offered. Explicit violence gets away with more than explicit sex does only because it can. And it can only because it cannot be controlled. Explicit violence's dominance in both the media and the world, compared to explicit sex, is the consequence of our own helplessness in the face of violence; that violence is just harder to control than sex; that movie violence and TV violence gives one the illusion of control over violence; that the illusion of control gives us control over our emotions. The illusion of control is the media's real bread and butter. Man quickly learns to become desensitized to what he cannot control —learning to control his emotional response to what he cannot control— so that he does not become overwhelmed... and survives. But man just as quickly learns to transform what he cannot control, his pain, into the illusion of control he names his passion.
But whether it be pain or passion, sex or violence,... the energy & interest generated by excitement is still the name of the game here. Whether the cause be pain or passion, sex or violence, terror or the need to feel alive,... the winner in the contest for attention is the one who is the most attentive and alive. Most attentive and alive to his surroundings. Most attentive and alive to the fact that he is alive. Most attentive to feeling the facts. Most attentive to the need to stay alive. Most attentive to feeling and being alive. Most attentive. Most alive. But the one who feels the most alive is not always the one who survives. And the one who survives does not always feel alive.
Violence will always appear to be the biggest problem, not sex. For one thing, violence is by far the most visible problem. Art and entertainment only use this highly visible and visibly disturbing reality of life —its Uncontrollable Violence— because they are trying to tap into and exploit the undeniable energy of this violence for their own ends. Furthermore, art and entertainment only use the disturbing reality of the universe's Uncontrollable Violence because they believe they can control it — productively controlling the energy released by it and benefiting from their media manipulations of it. They only get into trouble when they lose control over their manipulations of existence's Uncontrollabe Violence or cause others to lose control in ways they do not enjoy or appreciate.
Good art successfully uses the energy unleashed by Nature's Uncontrollable Violence to heighten awareness of life, not to escape from it. The best art heightens awareness in a way that is magnificently elevating, because it is astonishingly elevating our respect, our love, for life... in the presence of Uncontrollabe Violence's great destruction of life. Great tragedies in art succeed in manifesting this strangely intensified appreciation for life in the midsts of great pain, anguish, death and destruction. And it is an energetic paradox made even more powerful by the seeming absence of easy answers for the devastation caused by Uncontrollable Violence; the easy answers that all hopes represent.
This astonishing elevation of one's love for life is not achieved through dry polemic alone. It may be wholly beyond the grasp of reason. And it is certainly not achieved through pedantry. It is achieved through the very daimõns of divine power and energy unleashed by sex and violence — sources of power and energy that we demonize on the one hand and utilize with the other. Successful art succeeds in drawing upon the primal forces of sex and violence to elevate our sense of importance... our inviolate sense of life's importance. Art that succeeds elevates consciousness by elevating the value of the life and lives it presents to us on its stage. It elevates our appreciation of life by elevating our sense of life. It elevates our appreciation of our own lives by elevating our own personal sense of our own and everyone's lives. Weak art and entertainment use emotional identification only for escapist entertainment that has no real staying power because it does not stick to any real sense of our own lives. Weak art and entertainment merely use the power of violence and sex to stimulate shortsighted interest it can manipulate for equally shortsighted gains. Ironically, the escapist fare offered by "sex & violence" in the media seems to some people to give momentary escape from the reality and problems of sex and violence in the world.
In either case, however, the victorious nature of sex and violence's power in the world to capture willing/unwilling audiences everywhere cannot be ignored. And I am not speaking, here, merely of "sex & violence" in the media. Wherever you go... Wherever you live... You... cannot... look away.
[A spotlight comes on revealing a banner: "Famous Movie Monsters & Their 52 (picture of playing cards) Beautiful Assistants." A handful of audience members in the back of the dark auditorium are also suddenly spotlighted. Donning famous monster masks, wearing T-shirts saying "may the Force be with me" and "less talk more action" ...brandishing guns, they rise up and shoot the Speaker. Curtain falls. Beautiful Assistant displays "Intermission / Urination / Popcorn" sign on stage. Auditorium lights come on.]
INTERMISSION / URINATION / POPCORN
[Moderator's voice distantly droning from off-stage as people begin leaving their seats during intermission.]
"INTELLIGENT ENERGY NEWS... PRESENTS: HOUSE OF PAINPANG Q & A. There will be a discussion on historical trends in the Art World that emphasize chance, random and assemblage as art. Making something by accident and making something from other things, especially other people's things. The following points will be discussed: ..."
[Beautiful Assistant displays more signs with the following bullet points as the moderator reads them.]
• "Is the slide show montage of random sex & violence appropriated from the media... art?"
• "Are works (of art) created from approriated images as creative as works created from so-called original material?"
• "What role does the larger question of accidental origins play in art, especially as it relates to the origin of violence... and the origin of man's violence?"
[Beautiful Assistant displays one last sign: "Sex Cells"]
"Finally, Cassell Bryan-Low and David Pringle of The Wall Street Journal will be here to talk about how 'porngraphy helped drive the early adoption of new technologies such as the VCR and the Internet,' and how, 'now, wireless providers in many countries are counting on sex to spur the use of their broadband cellphone services.'"
[Moderator's cellphone suddenly goes off and one can hear some latest catchy ringtone play.]
• life's a joke but we're not laughing •
The Bid for Attention Energy $
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