Camping Violence (the terms

On the concept of violence (extract from my MA Thesis)

Representation of violent images (such as shooting, killing, fighting etc) is highly popular on cinema and is increasingly gory nowadays with the support of sophisticated technology and special effects. If we consider for example the Cinematic box- office successes one could easily ascertain that images of violence, mayhem and horror are a large attraction. Zillmann (1998) contented that this “phenomenal appeal is not limited to audiences in the Western world, but universal. The attraction of superviolent entertainment is evident cross culturally” (180). It is puzzling, then, why we, or some of us, are interested in going to the movies to watch portrayals of barbarous violence, why we want to share this consumption experience with our friends and why we bombard our children with brutal fairy tales. The appeal of violence seems counterintuitive at first because when choosing violence, horror or mayhem images we intentionally place ourselves in peril of great emotional anguish
Some scholars, on the other hand, believe that violence is not as popular as other forms of entertainment and that it has a very limited appeal. According to Goldstein, (1998) violence is attracting to some boys or men. “ But for many, it may not be the violence per se but other satisfactions that are its main attractants. For the majority of consumers of violent imagery, the violence is a means to ends, an acceptable device valued more for what it does than for what it is” (213).
Indeed, there is not sufficient evidence proving that we like watching violence and it seems very difficult for scientists and theoreticians to agree on this point. What the box office numbers prove, however, is that whatever the popularity of violence per se may be, many films depicting extreme or soft violence in many forms sell. Traditionally, research on violence in media has been concentrated on the repercussions and effects for the viewer of such violent images but it has been neglected to question why these images exist in the first place and what the reasons are for viewers flocking outside cinemas featuring violent imagery.
Therefore, the scope of this thesis is not to prove whether the projection and viewing of violent imagery has repercussions in our behavior nor do I try to establish that violence is attracting. On the contrary, my main focus is, if we like watching action films that include violence and we take their appeal for granted, what could be the reasons for this attraction.
But before proceeding, some further clarifications on the scope of this research should be made. First of all, when I mention violence I mean what Harris (1994) has defined as “intentional physical harm to another individual” (186) or Gerbner (1980) explained as “the overt expression of physical force (with or without a weapon, against self or other) compelling action against one’s will on pain of being hurt and/or killed or threatened to be so victimized” (11).
Furthermore, this research distinguishes between the terms violence and images of violence, especially violence staged for the purposes of entertainment. In this research I only focus on the latter, namely the dramatic images of staged or mediatized violence, and not on violence in general. Therefore, when the two terms are used in the course of this thesis, they both refer only to the representation or reenactment of violent actions.
In addition, I do not consider violent imagery as a single concept. It would be wrong to consider that all violent imagery comes from the same source or has the same purpose. As Bloch (1998) contended, for example, ritual violence requires a different explanation than violent entertainment because the barrier between participant and spectator is less clear. For this purpose, this research does not focus on the violent imagery in general. Its specific focal point is on action films. By the term action film I mean the film genre that features:

a propensity for spectacular physical action, a narrative structure involving fights, chases and explosions, and in addition to the deployment of state-of-the-art special effects, an emphasis in performance on athletic feats and stunts. (Neale, 2000, 52)

On the concept of Camp (Extract from my article: “Daft Male Bodies Camping Youtube”)

Therefore, I consider imperative to define how I read the notion of “Camp” before going any further or differently said what are the aspects and characteristics of a Camp object ? Traditionally, Camp is associated to effeminate homosexual men. But in Literature, “Camp” has most of the times been employed to mean something else than “a swishy little boy with peroxided hair, dressed in a picture hat and a feather boa, pretending to be Marlene Dietrich” (Isherwood, 1954, 51). As Isherwood (1954) mentions, but never went into detail, Camp is “something much more fundamental”(51). Susan Sontag (1964) explains that

While it is not true that Camp taste is homosexual taste, there is no doubt a peculiar affinity and overlap. But all liberals are Jews but Jews have shown a peculiar affinity for liberal and reformist causes. […] Nevertheless, even though homosexuals have been its vanguard, Camp taste is much more than homosexual taste. One feels that if homosexuals hadn’t more or less invented Camp, someone else would (64).

Sontag has been attacked for her stance when arguing against the gayness of Camp. Gere (2001) considers that “she is not only dishonoring, but disempowering gay men” (361) and Meyer (1994) argued that her version of Camp:

with its homosexual connotations downplayed, sanitized, and made safe for public consumption,[…] removed, or at least minimized, the connotations of homosexuality. Sontag killed off the binding referent of Camp- the Homosexual- and the discourse began to unravel as Camp became confused and conflated with rhetorical

and performative strategies such as irony, satire, burlesque, and travesty: and with cultural movements as Pop. (7)

However, a big amount of literature has disembarked from the idea that Camp is a strictly homosexual sensibility. Booth (1983) clarifies that “while it may be true that many homosexuals are Camp, only a small proportion of people who exhibit symptoms of Camp behavior are homosexuals” (70) . And Core (1984) goes further stating:

I do not posit homosexuality as requisite for Camp: quite the contrary. Camp is most obvious to me in a homosexual context, but I perceive it in heterosexuals as well, and in the sexless professionalism of many careers.” (81)

This list of literature distancing or freeing Camp from male homosexuality could go on for quite a long time. From my research, however, on Camp literature, I have noted that the common denominator of all these theorists, even those believing that Camp is a homosexual sensibility, is that nearly all of them speak from a queer studies (and queer studies does not necessarily mean homosexual studies.or a feminist perspective_. In other words, Camp has always been studied as an issue of gender and identity. What I suggest here is to pacify, at least for the purpose of this article, the opposing views on Camp by perceiving camp as a Queer sensibility, not strictly homosexual though. What are then the characteristics of Camp as perceived aboved? Or differently put, what is it that makes something Campy?
First of all, Camp is “the love of the exaggerated, the ‘off’, of things-being-what-they-arenot”; “the hallmark of Camp is the spirit of extravagance” (Sontag, 1964, 56). Furthermore, Campy behavior or performance draws from a character and continuously repeat these characteristics probably in an exaggerated manner. Sontag (1964) mentions that “Camp is the glorification of ‘character’” (60).

What Camp taste responds to is ‘instant character’ […] and conversely what is not stirred by is the sense of the development of character. Character is understood as a state of continual incandescence- a person being one, very intense thing. This attitude toward character is a key element of the theatricalization of experience embodied in the Camp sensibility. […] Wherever there is development of character, Camp is reduced. (61)

And this stylization, this insistence to character means that the person who is campy is serious about this personification, he or she really believes in it and is passionate about his/her character . Susan Sontag(1964) expounds:

In naïve, or pure, Camp, the essential element is seriousness, a seriousness that fails. Of course, not all seriousness that fails can be redeemed as Camp. Only that which has the proper mixture of the exaggerated, the fantastic, the passionate, and the naïve. (59)

In fact, this seriousness is so much, indeed too much, that it fails to be taken seriously
altogether. This failure takes place in the moment where the real identity emerges within and because of the passionate devotion to the character. As Core (1984) argues, “Camp is a lie that tells the truth” (81). And I believe that it is this enlightening potential that we are seeking to see when in a theatron. Camp has, thus an innocent sincere quality that is both refreshing and witty. According to Sontag (1964):

Camp taste is kind of love, love for human nature. It relishes, rather than judges, the little triumphs and awkward intensities of ‘character’… Camp taste identifies with what is enjoying. People who share this sensibility are not laughing at the thing they label as ‘Camp’, they are enjoying it. Camp is a tender feeling. (65)

Having defined what I mean by Appeal of Violence and by Camp, I explained them that these ideas are not just what we want to represent, but they should also infiltrate the methodology and strategy of the creation process. In that sense, I am also looking forward for campiness and appeal of violence in the meta-level believing that such an omnipotence of the concepts will influence drastically our understanding of the terms and our consequent use (sounds complicated?). Well, in a few words, the idea is to had a camp methodology and use the weapons of the appeal of violence in our own words. Therefore, we get more experienced with the concepts in the whole of the work and not just by trying to represent them.