Vivian Sobchack's Pstmorbid Condition

In the “Pstmorbid Condition” by Vivian Sobchack she states that films use to use violence for a purpose to provide meaning and depth but today they grotesquely use violence without meaning. She states that 25 years ago in 1975 that films were using violence, but it was being used artistically to show great meaning in what was truly happening. It was through this kind of intelligent filming that allowed the violence to keep the people interested in trying to interpret what the director was trying to show. It is 25 years later that Sobchack states that films are now over using violence. The films such as Pulp Fiction that have an over use of violence are taking away the meaning that use to be in the violence. They no longer put in the aesthetics

in the scenes now just filling them with noise and gore. CGI and special effects are now allowing this to happen quantifying and spreading allowing the mass outbreaks of violence to continue in movies because they sell. However, it is the effects of these slasher films that Sobchack discusses. She says that these slashers are desensitizing the public to violence. The over use and exaggerated gore much like in Pulp Fiction is taking away any concern that use to be seen now the people dying are just dummies and the violence is just hilarious. This view travels into the lives of people without them even knowing through “road rage” and just plain violence. She states that the overuse of violence has only brought about a “moral frisson” in the general populace meaning that as a whole we feel the emotional impacts of violence for a short time if at all (432). From this lack of feeling in the violence now people see violence as a daily part of their lives and do nothing to stop it. Trying to stop violence has become helpless because it is through the desensitization that it is just a part of life, unavoidable just feeling a need to make sure it does not happen to you. It is with the now openly apparent lack of meaning in the use of violence that is numbing the public to it. Then it is just the amount of violence seen with no connection to any emotion. It has just created a public that feels helpless in the face of violence and feels only a slight “moral frisson” when it happens.