Numbed to Violence

"Ubiquitous violence in our culture, especially in our various forms of entertainment, has numbed us to its vicious bite. ... Neither kids nor adults stand a chance."

From Crisis

By Anthony Campagna, DPharm

How healthy, spiritually speaking, is watching so much movie violence for the soul of a person?

As soon as he saw the blood, he drank savagery in with it, and he did not turn away, but fixed his gaze on it, and poured the furies down his throat unawares, and delighted in the wickedness of the contest, and got drunk with bloodthirsty lust. He was not the same man who had come there. 

—St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book VI

A few months ago, the first trailer for the long-anticipated sequel to the 2000 film Gladiator was released.  Gladiator was the first R-rated film that I ever watched from start to finish, and I remember it vividly.  The film, a standard revenge story, boasts fantastic set pieces, an epic score, and plenty of battle and fight scenes drenched in blood and testosterone. The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Russell Crowe. To say that there has been great excitement and anticipation for the sequel would be an understatement. But I wonder how healthy, spiritually speaking, watching so much violence is for the soul of a person.  

A viewing of the first trailer for Gladiator II made me recall young Alypius in book VI of St. Augustine’s Confessions. Alypius protests as his friends carry and drag him to the Colosseum to witness and participate in the bloodlust of the gladiator spectacles. Alypius initially wants no part of the affair. He knows that witnessing and cheering as human beings die violent deaths is no good thing for the human soul, heart, or psyche, nor is it good for the imagination, or memory. Would that we had the same knowledge, and the same will to avoid such spectacles ourselves.  

While the original Gladiator isn’t as profound as it pretends to be, it was popular for a reason. I don’t think that it was popular solely for the violent action sequences, though I do think they were a part of its appeal. What attracts us to that? Why do we cheer alongside the crowds and Emperor Commodus as men are cut in half and decapitated? Concupiscence draws us to the violence, but afterward, the violence itself goes to work on our soul and psyche with a hammer and chisel. Indulging frequently in such violent content breeds a certain contempt for human life. A person that is trying to grow closer to God should feel a pit in his stomach after viewing life strewn about in such a manner. It should come as a punch to the gut that you weren’t ready for. The fact that it often doesn’t says something about our spiritual lives and our culture, or lack thereof.  

Orthodox. Faithful. Free.

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Ubiquitous violence in our culture, especially in our various forms of entertainment, has numbed us to its vicious bite. In addition to film, video games are largely full of first-person shooters and bloody combat. Television shows are full of pornography and gore. Neither kids nor adults stand a chance. What are we to do when there is a gladiator arena in every home? Satan doesn’t need our friends to drag us to the arena to seduce us with such violent pageantry. It’s right there, on demand.                    

We should pause here to consider another point. Many very famous and celebrated works of art contain images of graphic violence. This is true across all artistic mediums, and the same is true of film. A great deal of these works are Christian, and it’s true that not a few people have benefitted by engaging with them. Should we avoid all violent content in all media? Offering a definitive answer to these questions is beyond the scope of this article and is for someone with a higher academic pedigree than myself, or perhaps it is for the Church to decide. Instead, I encourage you to do honest self-reflection before and after viewing a violent film or work of art and to discern how it’s affecting you and what God may be calling you to do in that moment.

In reality, very little violence, if any, is needed in films; and what is needed can almost always be scaled back. You can’t make a gladiator film without gladiator fights. You can, however, scale a gladiator film back to PG-13 violence, if not further. We don’t need to see someone’s carotid spurting blood like a geyser to understand the inhumanity of the contests. We could, however, use more philosophy and better writing and dialogue, a feat much harder and much more worthwhile than cheap special effects. In this sense, violence stands as a substitute for doing the hard work of researching, reflecting on, and writing a good script.    

The core problem with most violent content is that it treats human persons in a manner far below their dignity, much in the same way that pornography does in movies and television shows. People are treated as disposable, reminiscent of the infamous “red shirts” of the original Star Trek series but in a far more decadent manner and on a much larger scale.  

Violence doesn’t have to be drenched in blood, either, to degrade. The average James Bond film, largely free of R-rated blood splatter, degrades with PG-13 violence and fornication in much the same manner as—and on par with—many R-rated films. When human life is tossed aside en masse for entertainment, or when humans perform acts below their dignity on screen for entertainment, we all lose. Our souls are wounded, our memories scarred, and our imaginations corrupted.

In addition, bloody revenge tales often pervert masculine virtue into something quite different and far below the dignity of all involved. True masculinity offers strength on behalf of others. When we take masculine strength and prowess and wield it irresponsibly, we don’t get something more masculine, we get something decidedly effeminate. True masculinity most often requires restraint as God asks it of us.  In fact, restraint is often what’s most arduous. Unchecked, murderous rampages show a man who has lost control of his faculties, doing, in a sense, the easier thing, the thing that promises instant fulfillment, not what God is calling him to do. Such a man paves his own road to Hell.    

I once heard a priest say that any movie or television show that we watch should lead us to Christ in some manner, and if it doesn’t, we shouldn’t bother with it. I’ve always believed the wisdom of that statement, though I don’t often act like it. The criteria need not be strict. A film full of beauty and goodness should aid in contemplation of the Lord. In this way, choice of movies and television shows is analogous to the rest of the Christian life. (For a collection of films full of goodness and beauty, and which are great art, I’d highly recommend Anthony Esolen’s Substack, Word & Song.) 

Gladiator isn’t close to the most violent movie out there, nor is it particularly gory by today’s diminishing standards, but it does serve as an interesting link between the time of Augustine and our own, and our standards for entertainment. The duty of Christians to guard our minds, hearts, and souls has always been of paramount importance, and that has never changed, nor will it, regardless of availability of mass entertainment, or whether we’re watching real people losing their lives, or actors and special effects. 

Things really aren’t much different now than they were when young Alypius walked the streets of Rome. Violence is perennially marketable. It draws us in and sinks its talons into our flesh, and after it’s gotten that far we’re helpless to escape. Should we attempt to avert our eyes, our ears will ensnare us, as they did Alypius. We then live with memories and an imagination cursed by images of violence against our brothers, resulting in a greater taste for the spectacle and a desensitization to its horror. Woe to the man that fails to avert his eyes and ears and allows society to drag him, much as Alypius’ friends did, to visions of Hell disguised as entertainment.