Hollywood or Traumawood - 10/29/97

I remember the first bloody-death special effects I saw used in a motion picture. The movies were "Dirty Harry" and "Bonnie and Clyde." Bodies were exploding with blood and tissue all over the set as bullets entered each target. Slow motion was added to enhance the special effect, making each scene even more traumatic. In the end it was supposed to be "only a movie" for entertainment purposes.

As I was growing up with television in the late 1960's I remember that when the bad guy was shot, he fell down. It was obvious to me that when the bad guy fell down and stopped moving that he was now out of the game. I could give attention to the rest of the story and forget the downed character. No exploding bullet wounds with blood and tissue falling all over the set were required for me to conclude that the bad guy had certainly been shot and died.

So why the change? What change occurred that imposed on us the visual of a body of being blown to pieces on screen. Directors and writers would have me believe that, in the real world, when people are shot there is exploding blood and tissue. "Realism" they call it. "We're going for realism in this film. We want to show what it is really like in the real world." No boring fall down and stop moving death scenes. Let's show people what it really looks like.

I'm all for that. As a patron of the movies, reality is good. Show me the reality. Show me the real world and hold back nothing.

If I were to see someone being shot, would they fall down in bloody heap in slow motion? Having lost the several quarts of blood used in the special effect, would a person get up once they had been shot into bloody little pieces? And, in real life, what percent of the American public actually sees someone being shot in their lifetime?

I don't think people die in slow motion. I don't think people who have lost several quarts of blood can get up. I don't think many people here in the United States ever see a person being shot. Logic would conclude that the "Reality or Real World" argument used by directors and writers would be false.

Freedom of speech is an unusual concept in this day and age. Let's go back to the time that it was written into the constitution. I've got an idea for this great realistic play and I bring it to one of our founding fathers. The play is about a battle that has recently occurred and I want the people being shot in the play to explode into a bloody mess and fall down bleeding all over the stage. After explaining my great idea of realism to one of the founding fathers, I would be surprised if I were not locked up some place and labeled insane.

I don't believe that the founding fathers intended the freedom of speech to be corrupted to include the right to visually traumatize the people.

I like to be able to get out of the house and go see a movie as many people do. I think it would be fine for the bad guy to fall down, without the use of special effects, when shot. I challenge directors and writers to tell the story and without the use of bloody-explosive special effects. When I was a freshmen in high school a friend of mine showed me a cool special effect. Take a small necklace box, cut a finger-sized hole in the bottom and in the cotton packing inside. Put my middle finger through the hole in the bottom, up though the cotton packing, and cradle the box using my remaining fingers to look as if I were holding the box in my hand. When the lid was opened, it appeared that a severed finger lay in the box. A little makeup and red food coloring added to the realism. Showing this little effect to someone was cool. It was even cooler if, after the viewer looked at it for awhile, I moved the finger. They would usually jump and go a little crazy for a moment or two before they realized they'd been fooled.

Fooled is what the directors and writers would do to you too; fooling you as if they were in their freshman year at high school. Some special effects wizard figured out how to make a persons body look as if it were really being shot to pieces and thought, "This is really cool." Without considering the emotional effects or how viewing this trauma might impact our society, they decided to use it in the next film portraying a death scene. "Suspension of disbelief" is a term used in film making; it means to emotionally and mentally fool the audience into believing that the events they are a witness to are real for the time they are viewing the film. Know one considered what the exposure to this type of realistic trauma might do to us in the long run; they only knew that the film would make more money, with this new technology, in the short run.

They say art is a reflection of a culture. Directors and writers would have you believe that the films became more violent because our culture is becoming more violent. They would have you believe that "this" is the reflection. They are wrong. What this trend in movie violence (of such a realistic nature) reflects is:

There are people in our society, with the power to influence our culture,

who have set aside the well being of our culture,

in order to make a lot of money.

Are directors and writers talented enough to fool the audience without the use of the special effect? Are the financiers of movie projects willing to forego some of the profits they enjoy to take a socially responsible position of wellness of the community first; making money second? Would our most famous actors and actresses be willing to turn down roles in any movies using bloody-death special effects; make it hard for directors and/ or producers to get talented people in movies that use bloody-death effects; make it as hard as it is for them to find talented people willing to do nude scenes?

It is possible for people to be as addicted to making money as any addiction; they would use our culture as their object of addiction. They will be in denial about this addiction, as any addict would be. "There is an elephant standing in the middle of the living room in our culture and its going to be tough to see it."

It is also possible that some of these directors and writers may be using this creative medium to dump their own baggage/ issues on the public. Again, they would use our culture as their objects of addiction in order to feel better. Each person in the industry will need to decide for themselves if they are telling a story free of a hidden agenda or resolving an issue that dumps baggage they own onto the audience.

Here's a short list of action television I remember watching that was void of today's vision of bloody special effects:

• The Wild, Wild West
• Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
• Combat
• Mission Impossible (the television series)
• Johnny Quest
• It Takes a Thief
• The Time Tunnel
• The Outer Limits

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