Violence neither artful nor productive

The summer I turned nine, my family and I drove to visit family in California. As we turned into my uncle's street, we found a capsized motorcycle and a limp mass of what used to be a woman. Her head was flattened to the gravel, bits of skin and flesh were tangled in the glossy twists of her hair, and a halo of black blood pooled around her, reflecting the sky and the elms that lined the street. My brother and I sat with our hands clamped over our eyes and waited for the sirens of ambulances to drown everything out.

That vivid scene of violence branded a visual in my mind that I can never remove. That is what violence does: It bleeds perpetually through our memories so vividly that we can't help but remember it. And perhaps this is what makes violence inherently cinematic. For a long time, films have fed off of our innate interest in violence and rendered savagery into entertainment and art. From "The Godfather" and "A Clockwork Orange" to "Kill Bill" and the "Saw" franchise, the use of blood and guts has only increased, appealing to audiences in their own twisted ways and speaking to our darker, more sinister sides. They must; why else would there be cult followings that adore these gory presentations?

Recently, the blood-and-guts business is booming. What viewers struggled to stomach 10 years ago is now child's play. While watching "Hostel" some time back, I watched older couples leave the theater in a nauseated daze while the younger crowd munched on popcorn without flinching. Some even laughed. I sat through the film, but I questioned everyone's sense of morality and humanity — someone's eyeball just got burned out of her skull with a blowtorch, and you're laughing? Even as a horror-film fanatic, I was shocked at the sheer explicitness of the content; this was a pornographic snuff film rather than a motion picture.

These hardcore visuals have gone beyond theaters, entering commercials and prime-time television programs. When "Hostel" was released, atrocious images were packed neatly into a two-minute trailer that ran during Sunday-afternoon football games. Today, there are 10-foot posters of throat-slashed, ooze-spurting zombies advertising "Zombieland." These images are everywhere, distributed to everyone. How can we not become desensitized to it?

Violence is too exposed in modern society, and often, its presentation is neither artful nor productive. The savagery is peppered in to flavor an otherwise bland plot and to induce fleeting moments of shock. Children should not grow up numbed to violence; as cool as explosions and gunfights may seem in their cinematic portrayals, the reality is dangerous and unforgivable. Had I been exposed to this sort of full-frontal brutality earlier, would I have felt anything at all on that summer day years ago? Violence is much deeper and passionate than film or television can ever portray, and desensitizing people to it doesn't just mislead them in actual violent situations: It belittles the value of human life.

We love violence. We love blood and gore and all the exhilarating power that a human being can hold in a moment of vicious savagery. Stephen King said, "We use violent movies as a mental gutter through which we channel our worst fears and impulses and so cleanse our emotional systems." This is often the case. However, when these images are imposed upon people who are not necessarily expecting, wanting or ready to be confronted by them, violent entertainment becomes a weapon. For those of us who seek to bathe in the glory of human violence, there is plenty to go around. For the rest, we must respect their desire to live without violence's influence.

Youmi Park is a contributing columnist.