Violence in Society

I enjoy films. I quite like ones which other people would hate. I really enjoyed "Sin City." Some people would say it was sickening, wrong, violent, barbaric, or any of a whole host of appropiate adjectives.

I might say it was escapism or fantasy. I wonder if there's any significance that these are nouns.

I wonder if my enjoyment of violence on screen is a release from an inner primeval need to witness violence and suffering.

Read that again.

One of the most violent characters in Sin City is described thus:

Most people think Marv is crazy. He just had the rotten luck of being born in the wrong century. He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an axe into somebody's face. Or in a Roman arena taking a sword to other Gladiators like him.

What do we do with people who need violence? One could quite happily argue that everybody needs violence. "Fight Club" works with this premise. So did World War II. Otherwise normal people found they had no trouble killing - killing as many as they could as fast as possible.

Perhaps modern thuggery and hooliganism are a simple expression of a repressed male need.

Me, I'll just carry on watching films.