In Hip Hop Wars, Tricia Rose addresses the commonly held perception that the hip-hop often portrays violence in a glorifying way, thus encouraging and directly causing real life violence. She stands behind the claim there are no studies proving a direct link between consumption and behavior. Rather, she argues that it is important to focus less on “expressing outrage at hip hop’s [depiction of] violence” and more on the real-life violence that influences hip-hop culture yet remains ignored.
While I am not thoroughly familiar with contemporary hip-hop culture, Rose’s argument about the separation of real-life violence and hip-hop’s depiction of violence reminded me strongly of a related, ongoing debate about violence as portrayed in film, particularly action-packed blockbusters. Although it is a conversation that never entirely leaves the table, it became of particular significance last year with the release of Quentin Tarantino’s new film Django Unchained. An acclaimed director extremely well known for the heavy amount of entertainment violence of his films, he has taken on rather serious and sensitive issues and histories—including the Holocaust in Inglorious Basterds (2009) and American slavery in Django (2012)—to create action-packed satires.
While some audiences and critics have felt offended by Tarantino’s casual and even “fun” depiction of violence, his films continue to be successful both at the box offices and among critics. This conversation about film violence has over the course of his entire career been a topic that interviewers constantly try to bring up and to which he is extremely sensitive; however, he has made clear that he believes there is a definite distinction between enjoying movie violence and experiencing real violence.
Press Conference, in Newsday, 1994 (via Lexis Nexis)
"Violence is just one of many things you can do in movies," he said. "People ask me, 'Where does all this violence come from in your movies?' I say, 'Where does all this dancing come from in Stanley Donen movies?' If you ask me how I feel about violence in real life, well, I have a lot of feelings about it. It's one of the worst aspects of America. In movies, violence is cool. I like it."
In the Observer, 1994 (via Nexis):
'To say that I get a big kick out of violence in movies and can enjoy violence in movies but find it totally abhorrent in real life - I can feel totally justified and totally comfortable with that statement. I do not think that one is a contradiction of the other. Real life violence is real life violence. Movies are movies. I can watch a movie about the Hindenberg disaster and get into it as a movie but still feel it's a horrible real life tragedy. It's not the same thing at all.”
In Django, however, the violence is presented in two very different manners and seems to serve two different purposes. During one of the most climactic scenes of the film, Djanjo, a former slave turned bounty hunter, engages in a massive shootout with his oppressors where blood splatters everywhere across a white mansion, the action is obviously choreographed, and the overall scene is filmed very stylistically. Earlier, however, we are forced to witness the brutality with which Django’s wife and the other slaves are treated by slave masters in scenes where the music becomes less exciting and more tragic and the focus shifts to the explicit pain on the victims’ faces. These are two very different forms of violence—one from which we are meant to feel excited and triumphant by Django’s success and another to make us flinch.
Despite the prevalence and it even seems thematic significance of violence in Django, Tarantino, in an interview with Krishnan Guru-Murthy last year, launched into a furious tantrum and refused to answer Guru-Murthy’s question about the difference between enjoying entertainment violence and real violence. Although Tarantino has made clear that he believes there is a distinction, Guru-Murthy attempted to get Tarantino to expand on his ideas by explaining why he thought so. Despite the exhaustion I’m sure Tarantino feels about being asked this question and the right as an individual he has to speak or not speak as he wishes, does he not have an obligation as an artist and major contributor to the mainstream consumption of violence to provide commentary about its meaning and significance?
What distinguishes artful depictions of and statements about violence from entertainment violence (in film, hip-hop, or any other medium)? Is the pervasiveness of entertainment violence an alarming reflection or cause of desensitization, or can it serve as a healthy outlet for release of the violent tendencies of our nature? Although there is no scientific proof that films like Django directly cause violent behavior, is there still some link between real and fictional violence worth addressing?
What distinguishes artful depictions of and statements about violence from entertainment violence (in film, hip-hop, or any other medium)? Is the pervasiveness of entertainment violence an alarming reflection or cause of desensitization, or can it serve as a healthy outlet for release of the violent tendencies of our nature? Although there is no scientific proof that films like Django directly cause violent behavior, is there still some link between real and fictional violence worth addressing?
1 comment:
I think this is a very interesting comparison. Like Hip-Hop artists, Tarantino sees the violence in his films as works of art. He asks the viewer to think about the use of violence, for example why is it entertaining. Much like Hip-Hop songs that use violence in their music videos or lyrics, the artist requires that the audience have context when listening or viewing. Tarantino does not just liter his film with crazy violent scenes for no reason. However, there is a difference between music lyrics and Tarantino's films. Much of the violence in his films are highly stylized choreographed dances that happen in places do not exist. Violence seen in many Hip-Hop songs and videos relates directly to "real" places rooting the violent acts in a type of reality. It is easy to blame the media for perpetuating violent behavior in the public, but there are all sorts of other violent entertainment such as video games. It is not necessarily the responsibility of the artist to try and shape the way young minds behave, and present only the beauty in a world full of ugly.
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