The Aesthetics of Violence in Contemporary Media

by Symonds, Gwyn

• ISBN13: 9781441185266
• ISBN10: 1441185267
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-01-05
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

The topic of violence in the media seems as inundated as can be. Countless studies and research projects have been conducted, mostly to show its negative effects on society. What Gwynneth Symonds proposes, though, takes this significant topic one step further: studying theaestheticsof media violence. By defining key terms like the 'graphic' nature and 'authenticity' of violent representations, and discussing how those definitions are linked to actual violence outside the film and television screen, Symonds broadens the arena of study. Engagingly written,The Aesthetics of Violence in Contemporary Media fills an important gap. Symonds uses existing studies for the empirical audience reception data, together with discussions of the different representations of violence to look at violence in the media as an art form in of itself. By looking atThe Simpsons, Bowling for Columbineand Norma Khouri'sForbidden Love, just to name a few, Symonds cross-analyzes violence in multiple media to see their affective role in audience reception - an important aspect when discussing media. The book strikes a balance between the readers' need to see how theory matches what actually happens in the texts in question and the demands of a theoretical overview.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Introduction

Chapter 1: 'Violence at the Speed of Live': The Televirtuality of 9/11 and Rebuking the Frame of (Re)Presentation

    - Deja vu and the Inadequacy of Fantasy

    - The Audio of the Image

    - Emotions and the Breakdown of Narrative Authority

    - The (Im)Perfection of the Virtual and the Assumption of Global Homogeneity

Chapter 2: 'We Can't Believe it's Not Butter': Polemical Violence and Faking Authenticity

    - Series 7: The Contenders

    - Audience Reception and Textual Interdiscursivity

    - Editing Versus Authenticity

    - Bowling for Columbine and Editing the Polemical

    - Norma Khouri and the Hoax as Reader Seduction

Chapter 3: 'It's a True Story But it Might Not Have Happend': Voyeurism and Fiction in the True Crime Narrative

    - Sensationalism

    - Audience Voyeurism and Forensic Actuality

    - Illusory Forensic Authenticity in Law & Order

    - The Author's Story Versus the Murderer's

    - Taking Sides in Joe Cinque's Consolation

Chapter 4: Show Business or Dirty Business?: The Theatrics of Mafia Narrative and the Empathy for the Last Mob Boss Standing in The Sopranos

    - Gangsters On and Off the Screen

    - The Sopranos and Performativity

    - Tony Performing Tony

Chapter 5: 'Solving Problems with Sharp Objects': Female Empowerment, Sex and Violence in Buffy, The Vampire Slayer

    - Sharing Gender Roles

    - Violence and the Erotics of Shame

    - Female Empowerment and the 'Almost' Rape

Chapter 6: "Getting Kicks From the Action Pix": Righteous Violence and the Choreographed Body in F(l)ight

    - Fightable Moments

    - The Flying Body

    - Pause for Applause

    - The Invulnerable Body

    - Killer Schlock

    - The Dance of the Parodied Body

Chapter 7: "It's Just Detail": Flaying the Scared and Prosthetic, Pixilated and Animated Violence in hte Hyperreal

    - Hyperrealism

    - Violence Against the Sacred in the Hyperreal

    - The Sacred and Pixilated Dismemberment of the Body

    - The Simpsons and Flaying the Sacred in Satire

Conclusion

Epilogue

Bibliography