First published in Rue Morgue #38 March/April 2004
On one or two occasions I have been asked point blank whether being exposed to so much violence through my job at the magazine eventually takes its toll on me personally (it doesn’t), or whether I ever consider that prosletizing images of violence to the culture at large (and especially underage readers) could be a bad thing.
Really this is part of a bigger question; whether the genre of horror – with its obsessive interest in graphic violence – could have detrimental effects on anyone. Surely any sensible person would conclude that celebrating violence to the degree that we do at Rue Morgue can only be a negative thing. Perhaps even a dangerous thing for those who are a little unhinged.
As it turns out, I’ve devoted some thought to this very topic dating way back before I even embarked on publishing the magazine, so this editorial is a long-time coming. The bottom line is that I have discovered that horror movies and books (and a magazine like Rue Morgue) are not in any way detrimental to society. In fact they are the opposite; they are good for society. Surprised?
Okay I’m going to have to backtrack a little bit to be able to properly explain why I think this is the case. The first thing to consider is that violence – for better or worse – is one of the grand themes of humanity. Virtually every great story ever told has a violent component, certainly the major cultural touchstones – the writings of Homer, the Bible, Beowulf, Shakespeare – reverberate with violence implied or realized. For whatever reasons, our collective history is rooted in brutality, even if it is the desire to overcome it, even so, the predisposition for violence is something that has always been perceived as an innately human characteristic. And please note that I am not trying to justify anything by saying this; right now I am merely pointing out that the human preoccupation with violence is a matter of historical fact.
Secondly, it is important to note that, despite our living in an age of relative enlightenment, outbursts of violence are still as much in vogue in first world politics as they are among third world street thugs. The major evolutionary leap for us in this day and age is not that our generation has outgrown a penchant for spilling blood (the 20th century had more blood on its hands than a thousand years of medieval warfare), but that the modern world has cultivated a taste for fictionalizing acts of violence in popular art, like film, books and theatre, and even made a specialized genre out of it: horror.
If you look at this from the point of view of human history, this represents a huge step in the right direction; making movies in which people are killed is infinitely better than throwing people to the lions or having slaves fight themselves to the death for the purposes of general entertainment. No matter how bad things get in a horror film, it’s always just a film – this was not always the case. Despite the fact that we admire ancient cultures for their achievements in art, poetry, science and philosophy, the truth of the matter is that they were rooted in war and that actual violence was, more often than not, an integral part of their lives.
So back to horror flicks and books and what the hell, games that make kids go boom in the night. How probable is it that horror films pose an actual danger to impressionable people, especially those with a strong predisposition for violence?
Not very. For starters, horror, like any other branch of modern entertainment, is subject to highly targeted and heavily funded marketing campaigns. Violent films and games are tirelessly promoted, usually to teenage kids with an expendable income. The reality of it is that if these games and movies were in any way responsible for violent outbursts, our jails would be jam packed with almost everyone under 20. But they’re not, because, despite the fact that you regularly hear about kids going berserk in school and mowing down their classmates, it actually doesn’t happen that often. In fact, considering the size of the North American population, these occurrences are very, very rare. If violent movies actually cultivated that kind of behaviour, these incidents would not be so rare.
But what about the kid who’s a couple of cans short of a six-pack, what about him? When he decides it’s time to kick off his own private apocalypse at the schoolyard, how much does an incessant stream of horror film violence play a role in that?
It doesn’t. Because if it did, then there would never be any similar incidents prior to the 1800s, which is when literacy became widespread and before films were invented. But you and I know damn well that people – and kids too – killed other people prior to the 1800s, out of jealousy, out of rage and sometimes for no reason at all, because some people don’t need a reason.
To suggest that there is a causal link between violent entertainment of any sort and mentally disturbed person becoming violent is to trivialize what it is to be mentally disturbed. Trust me, if there were no horror films in the world, people would still find reasons to attack other people… with extreme prejudice. It’s a matter of historical fact.
Which pretty much leaves us with how on earth horror could be good for society. But I think I’ve already explained that. The fact that we, as a species, are becoming progressively more interested in violence in books and movies and whatever else means that we’re contemplating the issue rather than engaging in it. In other words, if you look at the big picture, our desire to immerse ourselves in make-believe violence is a very healthy sign. God only knows why this makes sense but it does. You know it does.