Defending torture porn is not easy. The films that are listed under this sub-genre are, to put it lightly, uncomfortable to watch. To put it more realistically, they’re an absolutely excruciating experience. Watching human beings go through some of the worst that our species has to offer in the way of horrifying treatment is not what we typically imagine as entertaining. But somebody needs to defend it, because it’s worth defending.

In her article, Ms. Kelly claims that torture porn films are part of the reason we’ve become so desensitized to violence, and her reasoning is tempting. It makes some sense that after seeing gory and disturbing films like “Salo” or “A Serbian Film” we would be less shocked or disturbed by real-life examples of cruelty, but I think she has it backwards here.

While this sub-genre in film is becoming more popular again, it by no means is the cause of an increase in Americans being numb to violence. Violence is pervasive in today’s media and nowhere more so than in the news. The unfortunate truth is violence sells, and if you sensationalize it, it sells even better. Reports of violence are accompanied by eye-catching graphics and intense sound effects, and news stations scramble to fill their 24-hour cycle with as many top-selling stories as they can. Given that, it seems unlikely that torture porn is a large part or even a non-negligible part of our desensitization to violence.

I think, then, a far better explanation for our love of gory and violent movies is that they are a response to this desensitization and not a cause of it. These sorts of films rise in popularity along with our ability to sit through them because of our loss of empathy. While I agree that violence should not be entertainment, I question whether or not these fictional representations of violence count, especially considering the media’s love of making real violence into entertainment. While I might be wrong, I’m inclined to think that my desensitization to the ISIS beheadings is not due to my ability to sit through “The Last House on the Left,” but rather the fact that they’re sandwiched between reports of a beauty pageant and a science fair. It’s easy to see movies that make us uncomfortable as the issue, but we have to take a look at what we’re comfortable with to see the real problem.

Alex Fernandez
Philosophy major
Class of 2015