Torture-tainment & Desensitization

We live in an age of technology.  And while technology has given us many advantages it has also taken something from us: our ability to recognize and react to violence.

As advances in technology have been achieved, society as a whole has regressed. I attribute this to the amount of free time the average American now has at his or her disposal. Technology, in my mind, is inherently linked to machines. As machines have developed they have taken on both menial and labor-intensive occupations that people are now free from performing. This freedom is mostly spent in attending to visual medias such as television and films. And here is where the desensitization comes in.

Television programs and films have increased the amount of Torture-tainment, a genre of visual media in which acts and moments of torture are depicted, in their content.  This constant exposure to violent scenes leads to a diminishing emotional response in those who watch and even to a lack of recognition that an act that violates human rights has taken place.  

The Hunger Games, both a book trilogy and a four film franchise, has been read and watched by hundreds of people. Its main target audience is adolescents.  At first glance, The Hunger Games seems to follow the protagonist Katniss Everdeen as she enters a life or death situation in lieu of her sister which in turn sets off a catalyst of reactions that end up with the oppressed people of The Hunger Games world to rise up against its government, the Capitol. 

With this rudimentary understanding, The Hunger Games appears to be a narrative of Good triumphing over Evil with overtones of Love conquering all. However, what most people gloss over is the methods that the Capitol used to maintain control: torture. Viewers and readers recognize that the government of The Hunger Games is not a functioning one, they categorize it in terms of tyranny and abuse of power. What they don't see or overlook is the systematic killings of 23 youths with one forced-killer surviving the genocide, often with psychological trauma. 

New Yorker staff writer Amy Davidson likens The Hunger Games to a story of counterinsurgency and wonders whether its popularity is stemmed from America's involvement in multiple wars. This not only speaks to a desensitization of torture but also a demand for violence by the public. 


This desensitization to violence is not a new idea. It can be traced back to the 1970s to German-American novelist Kurt Vonnegut and the publication of his book Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). Through this book Vonnegut published his concerns of society failing to react to images of mass death and violation of human rights that filled the newspapers and filled the television screens during the duration of the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Vonnegut himself was a veteran of World War II. 

Vonnegut may have been advocating for society to recognize its worrisome relationship with acts of violence and degradation of the human body in the early 70s, but it appears that society took no heed. With major blockbuster films such as Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and Deadpool (2015) America's relationship with violence, and by extension torture, appears to be stronger than ever. 

What does it say for the future of America that its most seen films and television shows are constantly screening images of torture- an act that demeans the human body?