Unit 4 Coursework Blog: Year 13 Critical Investigation Proposal

Year 13 Critical Investigation Proposal

Working title

"Is the media becoming increasingly violent, especially with the rise of the torture porn horror
subgenre in films such as 'Saw' and the 'The Human Centipede'? Why is this and what impact
might this have on audiences?"

Angle

My angle is focused on audiences and the media and how do such violent films like The Human Centipede affect the audience

Hypothesis

My Hypothesis is that the media is becoming increasingly violent but only affects a minority of people. We as a society are slowly becoming more and more desensitized and therefore leads to the creation of torture porn horror.

Linked production piece

E.g.: Newsnight-style documentary video report looking at the impact of violent videogames on young people.

MIGRAIN

The Genre is 'Torture Porn' Horror which is also known as 'Gorno' which is a conflation of the words gory and porn. In these films women are usually represented as the victims and are therefore the ones who are usually in a position of helplessness and leads to extreme sexualised violence towards women. This representation is referred to as a stereotype as it shows some sort of 'damsel in distress' which links to Medhurst's theory of shorthand stereotypes for easy identification, in most films women are also seen as quite alluring and are given sexual connotations and representations, in this there is very few bits of truth in the stereotype which is Perkin's theory of stereotypes having some elements of truth e.g. most sexualised violence or crimes which are committed are with many female victims.

The genre 'Gorno' or more popularly known as 'Torture Porn' Horror is a sub genre of Horror which is fairly new, the genre consist of the typical horror conventions e.g. blood, murderer/psychopath, victim (usually female in this genre). In this genre audience expectations are to witness the most intense and gruesome, life-denying piece of horror that aren't just filled with cheap jump scares, this is successfully shown in SAW but more noticeable in The Human Centipede. No one director or actor is associated with the genre, but the director who had pretty much got the genre most known is Tom Six of the Human Centipede.

In most Torture Porn horror the narrative is quite twisted and doesn't always have a linear narrative which therefore doesn't always follow the theory of the five stages of Todorov and the audience usually have some dramatic irony e.g. The Human Centipede but in films such as SAW the audience wouldn't have any idea of what may go on within the film. The audience isn't involved heavily, they're involved in a few jump scares but nothing too extreme. Villains in most of the films are also portrayed as heroes e.g. SAW has the main villain being a sick and twisted murderer called jigsaw but in actual fact he is the hero who is seeking justice in a corrupt society, he finds people who have wronged too many people and therefore tortures them in a maze of traps which will decide their own fate. The music within the genre is usually parallel, the music is intense, scary and tend to have screeches from violins or quite dark sounds from a variety of instruments, editing is usually straight cuts possibly to connote violence.

Audiences of this genre are usually from the lower socio-economic classes (C, D, E) and from psychographics of individualist which are opposite of mainstream. Individualist would want to be different and not always follow mainstream films. It'll also be aimed at the typical horror fan as this genre is a sub genre of horror. For SAW it'll bring along it's fan-base while The Human Centipede doesn't have an established fan base and therefore relied on its unique idea and plot to lure in audiences. For the socio-economic classes it's more likely for lower classes to be viewing videos from this genre as they are more likely to be desensitised and, according to the uses and gratification theory, will experience entertainment and escapism from their lives while viewing this.

SHEP

Social angle is that it mentally can affect a few people who are mentally unstable and therefore lead to higher crime rates and more higher crimes on females (most likely sexualised and violent crimes such as rape)

Historic angle is that this subgenre of horror is fairly new before this there were no horror films which showed extreme amounts of sexualised violence towards women or just extreme violence in general. We as a society have become desensitised to previous films which were considered quite extremely violent and it's possible that the same would occur with torture porn horror

Economic angle is that these films aren't usually big hollywood blockbusters (with the exception of few) but are very controversial which allows them to gain high audience shares and possibly make profits from the debates of how disturbing the film is, the hype and talk about the films encourage childishly curious people to watch the film as well as the usual horror film fans

Political angle is that David Cameron would like to make Internet Service Providers (ISP) to block adult content on the internet e.g. Porn which may also block Torture Porn Horror such as The Human Centipede.

Issues/Debates

Representation and stereotyping - Within torture porn horror films the stereotypical victims are usually females who are quite young and seen as in a position of vulnerability e.g. the human centipede females were broken down on an unknown road while lost and therefore were vulnerable. According to Medhurst this is due to the fact it allows quick identification for audiences even if the stereotype isn't true but Pekins does believe that some elements of the stereotype is true. The fact that women seem to have a negative representation (being seen in a sexual; objectifying way) could cause a lot of problems especially linking to feminism.

Regulation and censorship - The human centipede had merely passed the regulations of the BBFC but the follow up sequel was at first banned by the BBFC until 32 cuts were made to the final film as it was too violent and disturbing, especially the main character within the film who was a disturbed and quite reserved male who lived at home with his mother but had incredibly strange sexual fantasises and one was to copy the first film of the sequel as that film was also a film within the world of the human centipede 2 (which links to intertextuality). One of the cuts from the film apparently show the main character using a razor to 'pleasure' himself.

Media technology and the digital revolution (changing technologies in the 21st century) - Due to the internet there are billions of explicit and extreme content available to anyone anywhere and that allows a larger amount of viewers able to view potentially banned content and disturbing, graphic material that could be real life events of extremist or a film such as the human centipede.

Ownership and control - Linking to regulations, the BBFC were in control of giving the film a rating which was difficult for the sequel due to the tightening of their policy which controls the amount of violence within the film which therefore led to the 32 cuts needed to allow the film to have a rating from the BBFC.

Media effects - Media influence or media effects are used in media studies, psychology, communication theory and sociology to refer to the theories about the ways in which mass media and media culture affect how their audiences think and behave. For the human centipede audiences are likely to 'copy cat' the film as shown in human centipede 2 and may desensitise them to such violence and therefore making them want more violence, torture porn horror also shows extremely sexualised violence towards women which may increase crime rates of rape and extreme violence towards women.

TheoriesGender and ethnicity - Within torture porn horror there are a large amount of violence shown towards women which is usually sexualised violence, from a feminist point of view this would be suggesting that Judith Butler and her gender roles theory were correct about how they are socially constructed as this subgenre portrays the females as sex objects or there for the entertainment of male viewers

Audience theories - Audiences use horror as entertainment and escapism (uses and gratifications) as they need to find a way to escape their current life and possibly feel better seeing someone in a worse position than themselves, they also would want to be entertained by horror, they watch it to be scared and grossed out

Semiotics - Semiotics means the study of signs and symbols and within torture porn horror the signs we see are usually hidden or a red herring trying to distract the viewer. e.g. the storyline of the SAW franchise had unexpected turns of events when revealing the 'new jigsaw' it showed the signs that someone else was going to be the 'new jigsaw' but those signs were just a distraction

Copycat - Similar to the Bobo Doll experiment, this theory states that what audiences view, they may end up copying. An example of this is shown in the human centipede 2 the main actor watches the human centipede and copies it

Research plan (media texts, academic texts and websites)

Media texts
SAW
The Human Centipede

Other media texts
Hostel
Planet Terror
The Devil's Reject
Wolf Creek
Death Proof

TV documentaries
Channel four - How Porn Affects The Brain

Academic texts/books
Dean Lockwood: All Stripped Down: The Spectacle of "Torture Porn" (2009)

Adam Lowenstein:

Spectacle horror and Hostel: why ‘torture porn’ does not exist (2011)

Feona Attwood and Clarissa Smith:

Extreme Concern: Regulating ‘Dangerous Pictures’ in the United Kingdom (2010)

Clarissa Smith: Pornographication: A discourse for all seasons (2010)

Steve Jones: Torture Porn: Popular Horror after Saw (2013)

James Aston and John Wallis: To See the Saw Movies: Essays on Torture Porn and Post-9/11 Horror (2013)

Nancy Signorielli: Violence in the media: a reference handbook (2005)