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"Oh yes, there will be blood": Manifestations of Cultural Trauma in Contemporary U.S. Torture Films

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In Folder: Gender & Cultural Studies, MA

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"Oh yes, there will be blood": Manifestations of Cultural Trauma in Contemporary U.S. Torture Films

Mather, Mari - Thesis

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title: "Oh yes, there will be blood": Manifestations of Cultural Trauma in Contemporary U.S. Torture Films

creator: Mather, Mari C.

subject: Academic theses.

description: Since the onset of slasher films in the 1970‘s, the genre of horror has become notorious for being generally bloody, violent, and unforgiving to its victims. As horror films have progressed, the 2004 release of the first U.S. film entirely based upon sadistic torture, Saw, forever changed the landscape of the genre. Since then, there has been the quick development of additional major motion pictures that revolve around physical and psychological torture in a horror subcategory that I call "torture films." I identify the manifestations of torture in U.S. horror films as symptoms of societal concern regarding pain, torture, and captivity that has been developed by the lasting, shared effects of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Using the theoretical groundings of E. Ann Kaplan, this project illustrates that the infliction of sadistic suffering in contemporary torture films exists as unconscious eruptions of 9/11-related anxieties. These expressions of torture are the society-wide subconscious attempt to deal with these anxieties; however, we cannot assume that these outbursts are inherently therapeutic. In contrast to Kaplan‘s evidence that 1940‘s and 1950‘s melodrama assisted the culture in processing Holocaust and World War II-related trauma, contemporary torture films are continually raising the bar on the acceptable level of sadism in film. This project shows that as the U.S. society becomes more tolerant of these demonstrations of torture, and more accepting of the sadistic villain in these films, American culture will continue to become desensitized to violence, and accordingly, inherently more violent.

publisher: Simmons College (Boston, Mass.)

contributor:

date: 2007

type: Text

format: 1 PDF (52 Pages)

identifier: td_gcs_2007_mm

source:

language: English

relation:

coverage:

rights: Material from the Simmons University Archives collections are made available for study purposes only. For more information, or to request rights to reproduce or reuse any material, contact the University Archives at archives@simmons.edu.

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