Tired of violence, torture, and gore

[mechanismj]

When I was a kid, I loved scary movies. Especially when they had atmosphere and tension. Sometime in the last couple years, however, a switch inside me turned off. I can't really look at the stuff anymore.

My wife has been watching a lot of newer shows filled with violence and torture and I find myself walking out of the room to go do other things. I never saw that coming!

I still get a kick out of the old movies I loved as a kid, but there is an ultra-realistic execution and tone in modern stuff that just turns me off. I don't feel like curling up on the couch to watch someone get their fingernails yanked out with a pair of rusty pliers while they scream bloody murder for five minutes. I find it kind of disturbing... what the hell happened to me?!

Admittedly, I did just go see Mandy. Granted, it had a lot of fantasy and atmospheric elements... and Nicolas Cage. I didn't exactly find it grounded in reality.

Any of you been feeling this, too?

[Gazebo4]

I guess you just grew tired of that bullshit. I mean think about it, what sane person would actually enjoy pain, torture, violence, etc. Pain feeds on pain, fear feeds on fear, violence feeds on more violence, etc. It's all part of the insanity called the current human experience. You only have to turn on the news to see insanity in motion. Stepping out of the collective madness is the first step.

[mechanismj]

I guess you just grew tired of that bullshit. I mean think about it, what sane person would actually enjoy pain, torture, violence, etc. Pain feeds on pain, fear feeds on fear, violence feeds on more violence, etc. It's all part of the insanity called the current human experience. You only have to turn on the news to see insanity in motion. Stepping out of the collective madness is the first step.

I think current state of the world may be a part of it. I have also been extremely busy with school so I try to avoid getting hooked on any new shows or movies, violent or not. I think it is that step back that I am taking that made me see how much I don't care for this type of stuff.

[Gazebo4]

I think current state of the world may be a part of it. I have also been extremely busy with school so I try to avoid getting hooked on any new shows or movies, violent or not. I think it is that step back that I am taking that made me see how much I don't care for this type of stuff.

Yeah sometimes taking a step back suddenly reveals some stuff you couldn't see before. That or you just naturally grew tired of it. Or both

Either way, it's only a natural process to get rid of stuff that is not serving you (anymore). Don't worry about it, there is probably plenty to come (or go, actually)

[mechanismj]

I think current state of the world may be a part of it. I have also been extremely busy with school so I try to avoid getting hooked on any new shows or movies, violent or not. I think it is that step back that I am taking that made me see how much I don't care for this type of stuff.

Yeah sometimes taking a step back suddenly reveals some stuff you couldn't see before. That or you just naturally grew tired of it. Or both

Either way, it's only a natural process to get rid of stuff that is not serving you (anymore). Don't worry about it, there is probably plenty to come (or go, actually)

So true. It wouldn't be the first time!

[747Music]

As I got older, I seemed to have the novelty and "cool factor" of such things be overshadowed by recognizing the gravity of the situation and the entire atmosphere of something so gruesome turns my stomach.

I very much agree with Gazebo4 in that I find myself not liking the idea of being entertained by suffering, especially of such intensity.

I'll tolerate violence and such if the movie is worth it. If the scene is actually necessary, then I don't mind so much. It tends to bug me if it's there for the sake of being there, though.

I think Valhalla Rising was an incredible film. There were some very gruesome parts, however they were there with purpose. I did not feel like I was supposed to enjoy those parts. Quite the opposite, actually.

On the other hand, I used to love the movie Ichi the Killer. I tried watching it the other day and couldn't get through it. It was just too much. To be fair though, it'll be tough to find a more gruesome film. My point is that I used to enjoy it, but no longer can.

[Lancer21]

It may be because before, you were watching these movies as to show "who's the boss" and tell to yourself "well, I'm an adult, I'm strong, I can watch that stuff all day long", but now that you ARE an adult, and that you're married, you don't need that anymore and thus don't want to watch butchery-porn movies anymore.

I had such a relation towards strong alcohols, I drank vodka, gin, whisky because that's what badass adults do, but now I don't feel any pleasure in drinking them and largely prefer wine, beer or even some soft drinks.

[mechanismj]

It may be because before, you were watching these movies as to show "who's the boss" and tell to yourself "well, I'm an adult, I'm strong, I can watch that stuff all day long", but now that you ARE an adult, and that you're married, you don't need that anymore and thus don't want to watch butchery-porn movies anymore.

I had such a relation towards strong alcohols, I drank vodka, gin, whisky because that's what badass adults do, but now I don't feel any pleasure in drinking them and largely prefer wine, beer or even some soft drinks.

Getting older is strange, isn't it?

[747Music]

It may be because before, you were watching these movies as to show "who's the boss" and tell to yourself "well, I'm an adult, I'm strong, I can watch that stuff all day long", but now that you ARE an adult, and that you're married, you don't need that anymore and thus don't want to watch butchery-porn movies anymore.

I had such a relation towards strong alcohols, I drank vodka, gin, whisky because that's what badass adults do, but now I don't feel any pleasure in drinking them and largely prefer wine, beer or even some soft drinks.

Getting older is strange, isn't it?

Well, I'm old enough that when Lancer wrote "who's the boss" I thought he was talking about the old show.

[s7409651]

I feel this 100%
As a teenager I loved kung-fu, horror and crime movies. The crazier the better.
I still love movies but I can't stomach torture and cruelty and gratuitous violence anymore. I feel like TV shows compete with each other to maintain a level of shock and cruelty. I find myself at best bored by it and at worse sickened.

My own theory is that I became less tolerant of this shit the more empathy and life experience I gained. But even the mildest people I know live for shit like Game of Thrones and I'm sorry, something's gotta change, otherwise it's only going to get worse.

[Gazebo4]

If you were not familiar with our contemporary civilization, if you had come here from another age or another planet, one of the things that would amaze you is that millions of people love and pay money to watch humans kill and inflict pain on each other and call it “entertainment.”

‘Why do violent films attract such large audiences? There is an entire industry, a large part of which fuels the human addiction to unhappiness. People obviously watch those films because they want to feel bad. What is it in humans that loves to feel bad and calls it good? The pain-body, of course. A large part of the entertainment industry caters to it. So, in addition to reactivity, negative thinking, and personal drama, the pain-body also renews itself’ vicariously through the cinema and television screen. Pain-bodies write and produce these films, and pain-bodies pay to watch them.

-Excerpt from Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth

[Josh]

When I was a kid, I loved scary movies. Especially when they had atmosphere and tension. Sometime in the last couple years, however, a switch inside me turned off. I can't really look at the stuff anymore.

My wife has been watching a lot of newer shows filled with violence and torture and I find myself walking out of the room to go do other things. I never saw that coming!

I still get a kick out of the old movies I loved as a kid, but there is an ultra-realistic execution and tone in modern stuff that just turns me off. I don't feel like curling up on the couch to watch someone get their fingernails yanked out with a pair of rusty pliers while they scream bloody murder for five minutes. I find it kind of disturbing... what the hell happened to me?!

Admittedly, I did just go see Mandy. Granted, it had a lot of fantasy and atmospheric elements... and Nicolas Cage. I didn't exactly find it grounded in reality.

Any of you been feeling this, too?

Yes. The older I get, the harder it is to watch violence and I was never a big gore/slasher movie fan to begin with. Movies that have ultra-realistic violence, especially torture, I tend to avoid unless I feel that there is a point to it, that it's not just violence for the sake of violence. Movies that are just basically a display of cruelty as entertainment aren't for me.

My dilemma is that I watch a lot of documentaries that I think are important to watch in order to better understand the world we live in, but many of these docs show real, actual violence as well as the devastation left in its wake. Sometimes it's too much to bear, but again, I go back and forth with the notion that by turning a blind eye to all the violence in the world, I'm in some way condoning it.

[Jonse]

Context is anything and everything is anything is context.

I don't watch what's worthless.

[Lancer21]

Yeah, there's that as well ; when confronted to the same amount of gore or violence, I'll be way more disturbed if the scene exists just for the sake of showing meat going through a blender than if it happens, let's say, in a movie about World War II, where the violence exists for the sake of conveying what actually happened less than 100 years ago.