Very few of us can claim to have seen a dead body, and even fewer can claim to have seen someone die. For most of us, extreme acts of violence are not a part of our daily lives. Yet television and movies depict horrific scenes regularly. It’s common to see one or two deaths in a single episode of television’s most popular shows. The first-ever TV Body Count Study in fall 2011 found HBO’s Game of Thrones and STARZ’s Spartacus: Vengeance to be the most violent shows, the former averaging 14 dead bodies per episode and the latter, 25.
The TV Body Count Study didn’t include the abundance of other types of violence in these shows, which include, but are not limited to, cannibalism, rape, bloody stabbings, amputations, and other graphic displays. Cable networks broadcast the deadliest shows, but network shows also have high body counts. CBS’s NCIS: Los Angeles averages six dead bodies, while the CW’s Nikita averages nine.
This trend extends to the big screen. Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, Django Unchained, included several deaths, whippings, rape, and a man torn apart by dogs. If that’s not the epitome of violence, I don’t know what is.
Many of these bloody shows, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead in particular, are very popular among viewers. Django Unchained won two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe and made more than $413 million in theaters worldwide.
What does the popularity of these violent shows and movies say about our culture? People can sit through a movie without flinching as dozens of people die on screen. Some deaths are seen as comical, or even amusing. Others inspire sympathy, but fewer and fewer people are sickened by violence in film. It begs the question: how would we react if and when we see real violence? Does the consistent presentation of violence desensitize us to it?
I think the answer is yes. I think people have grown so accustomed to fictional violence on screen that physical violence in the real world is generally accepted. I’m not saying people don’t react to violence; the Sandy Hook tragedy is a testament to that. People just don’t react as strongly to violence as they might have twenty or fifty years ago. Human nature hasn’t drastically changed in that time, but the number of attacks and shootings has skyrocketed. Our culture is slowly becoming more violent, and part of that stems from the violence we see on television and in movies.
I understand that some shows require death for the story to progress. Death is a part of life and that is reflected in our entertainment. But including horrific depictions of death becomes at some point unnecessary. It goes past artistic expression to the “blood n’ guts” mentality of Roman gladiators. It can be primitive and degrading. True artists should use their talents to develop creative ways to portray death without resorting to crude violence.