RANT: Maybe I'm Fucked, Maybe You're Just Lying

Today one of the teachers at my film school said that often violence in films is gratuitous, meaning unnecessary, shocking and insensitive. She then praised on student film for being "the only one that didn't make [her] want to slit her wrists." She reprimanded us for using violence in a film, and then stood in front of us and made a suicide joke. And it's the fictional depiction of someone swinging a stick that's insensitive? Fuck that.

If people have the rights to attack and exploit every traumatizing event in the name of humour, then people should have the right to display violence and blood in the name of entertainment.

Is it not really the same thing? Making disturbing matters a source of enjoyment by taking away the negative connotations and consequences. Isn't it better to explore violence and pain through art and film than in reality?

I will confess, although I see it less as a confession, and more a statement of fact, that I enjoy violence. I like to see broken noses and bloody lips. I gain enjoyment, and sometimes even glee when I watch pain and destruction. Maybe it's fucked up, but for me, it's the truth. It's natural. I don't know if it makes me feel strong or superior or anything like that, and it's certainly not a form of sexual arousal, (though pain and pleasure can be as sweet a pairing as caffeine and nicotine.) it merely pleases me to see such things.

And as I sit here and think of it now, it seems to be quite exact events that bring such enjoyment. For instance, I don't like the slow, agonizing cuts drawn across flesh, not bones being cracked into smaller and smaller pieces, definitely not rape or pleas of pity. It's the more sudden, violent events that gain my reaction. Shot gun blasts to chests, 50 cal bullets that rip skull from spine in a splatter of blood. Curb stomps and whip cracks. Sword slashes. Explosions and fire and cries of rage as a hammer is swung into a skull.

Even as I write these things, I gain a sense of urgency, my pulse quickens, my adrenaline is awoken and I feel the urge to Hit something. HARD.

But I don't, and that's the human feature or practice or habit or form of surpression known as civility. One of the things that makes us human is our ability to control our emotions. But this act of "decency" is just that, an act. I am still an animal, I still have urges. My instincts still drive me to eat and fuck and honestly yes, kill. And if I can't express myself, if I can't release these urges through art, through film, then where shall I do it?

If violent videos seem too insensitive, maybe you suggest I should get out more?