The Politics Of Gore

Ok, this post has been a long time coming. Here goes.

I will not be watching The Walking Dead. Not because it doesn't look like a compelling character study (it does) or because I don't like zombies or apocalyptic survival stories (I do), but because of the gore.

I don't like watching gore and I never have. When I was in middle school and Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer and all those other slasher flicks were hella popular, I would have such problems at sleepovers. Either I had to watch something that disturbed and repulsed me, or I would be branded a lame wimp and asked, "What is wrong with you?" I didn't get it; I still don't. I don't want to watch people being disemboweled or eaten and there's something wrong with me? Violence and gore have become such an ingrained part of our culture that it's not even questioned anymore, and that sad fact sickens me a little.

A big part of my resistance to gore is that I have a very powerful visual memory. I can call up images from years before at whim and I have incredible facial recognition abilities; I also have generalized anxiety disorder and insomnia. If I'm trying to fall asleep and one of the disturbing images I've tried so hard to erase from my brain (like, let's say, Brad Pitt getting shot in the face in Burn After Reading) pops up, it's nigh impossible to erase. It doesn't have to be recent, either; I'm still haunted by things from years before that can all of a sudden be triggered and get stuck in my head like a song.

So it bothers me when a show that I otherwise would love to watch, like Dexter or The Walking Dead, feels like it needs to get its excitement from grossing people out. I've seen bits of Dexter, enough to know that I would really like it if I felt like I could make the investment in the show, but also enough to know that I couldn't watch it without someone telling me when to look away. The gore is a schtick that a show with such good writing and acting doesn't need.

There's been all this brouhaha recently about the violent video games Supreme Court case. Gizmodo is acting like it's the end of the world; I think it's an awesome idea. These are terrible, inhuman things that we're raising our kids to think are no big deal - and video games put the control of violent acts into first person POV! If children don't see any horror in violence, only entertainment, there is something seriously fucked up going on. At least in the slasher films of my youth the violence was something to be abhorred.

I no longer feel ashamed when I say I won't watch something because it's too disturbing, or violent, or gory, or simply gross. It's part of who I am, and I'm not going to let the media machine tell me what is or is not entertaining. You can make movies that have an impact without being disgusting; look at Paranormal Activity or any of my favorite Hitchcock films. And look, I don't judge if gore's your thing and you love seeing people being gutted - to each their own. In the meantime, I won't be watching The Walking Dead, and I'm sure I'll sleep better for it.