Shock. Disgust. Outrage.
That’s what we felt when the infamous pictures of the Abu Ghraib torture scenes were published some three years ago. Now the dismay has receded. Out of sight, out of mind. Some of this can be explained as the inevitable fading away of any trauma. What was shocking once can’t be shocking forever.
But more can be explained by acculturation. That’s right, Hollywood’s brought torture in from the cold ““ torture’s now part of our culture. We’ve co-opted it and made it our own.
If you don’t believe this, take a look around. “Captivity,” a new movie, features torture as its main drawing card. You must have seen the billboard plastered all over Los Angeles.
The pretty blonde, an art admixture of blood and make-up smeared across her face, a single tear flowing down her cheek as she stares out at us from behind the bars of some madman’s cage. The film’s producers are counting on the titillating torture to bring in big bucks.
But if you don’t want to fork over any cash, you can always tune in to “24,” the Fox show that features torture sessions on a regular basis. Torture anyone long enough and they’ll confess to just about anything, including being the one-eyed daughter of Queen Victoria and Osama Bin Laden.
Word has it that the high brass didn’t succeed with the “24” honchos. What’s accuracy when ratings and profits are at stake? But let’s be fair. It’s not just “Captivity” and “24” leading the charge in the torture media rampage.
That self-appointed czar of Malibu, Mel Gibson, seems to have made torture a requirement for any movie he directs. “The Passion of the Christ” featured the spikes being nailed into the palms of Christ more than Christ himself, and “Apocalypto” did more for human sacrifice than any cannibal could ever dream of on his most gluttonous day.
“The Unit,” “Lost” and “The Shield” have also featured torture romps, and the latest James Bond film managed to fit in a scene with the villain physically abusing Bond in a scene fraught with exquisite agony.
In a tangential way, the gruesome lab scenes in the various incarnations of “CSI” also acculturate us to the raw exposure of blood and bone, further inuring us to the gore that torture and mutilation can evoke.
Nothing comes out of nowhere.
Culture fills needs. Whether it’s the thrill of the chase, the romance of love, or Jack Bauer shooting a man in his leg to elicit a confession, it’s there for a reason. So what need does the depiction of torture fill? I submit to you that it soothes a national conscience troubled about the torture perpetrated by our troops in Iraq.
With the president insisting that “We do not torture,” someone’s got to pick up the moral slack, and who’s better than Hollywood at giving ethical relief?
Especially when the mood of the country’s gone sour with a failed war and the image of naked men cowering in front of attack dogs wandering around in the back of our heads?
We can get used to anything. Torture doesn’t seem so weird now. We see it all the time. So what if they did it in Iraq? And in the same prison where Saddam Hussein had his enemies hooked up bleeding to the walls?
We can see pretty much the same thing on prime time almost any night of the week. And that eases the shame. Makes it seem normal. If you can see it on TV, it must not be that crazy. In World War II, Hollywood pitched in and did its share. They even made pictures that portrayed Russians as good guys.
So now once again Hollywood has answered the call by easing the moral burden that American torture lodged in our brains.
But what’s the big deal anyway? We already have the “war on terror.” Why not a culture of terror to go along with it?
Sullivan graduated from UCLA in June with a degree in philosophy and will begin the graduate program in geography this fall.