Whether they’re just too horrifying to look away from, or they’re somehow good for us, we just can’t seem to keep our eyes off of some things that are truly, truly hard to watch. Why do we watch these things?

What we talked about:

• Holly’s shirt
• “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo“
• “Kill Bill” vols. 1 and 2 and Holly’s problem with feet
• “Reservoir Dogs“
• “Schindler’s List“
• Pretty much everything by David Fincher
• Pretty much everything by David Lynch except “The Straight Story” (although Holly can’t watch that one, for entirely different reasons)
• Affective disposition theory and arousal-seeking tendency
• My failure to recall the name “Mononoke-hime,” aka “Princess Mononoke“
• “Elizabeth“
• “Grave of the Fireflies,” which is the saddest animated movie Holly and I have ever seen, and which she and I both recommend, especially if you’re aware of mostly American (or Allied) civilian perspectives during World War II
• “Bioshock“
• Everything by “Peter Greenaway“
• Optimal Stimulation Level theory
• “Pan’s Labyrinth“
• “Clockwork Orange“
• “Un Chien Andalou“
• “Julie Taymor” and “Titus“
• Stephen King‘s essay “Why We Crave Horror Movies”
• The past traditions of viewing executions
• “Does violence in movies and video games desensitize us to the real thing?” and “Do violent video games lead to real violence?“
• A Facebook wall note from listener Lissa, whose name is pronounced like “Melissa” without the “Me,” who wrote about episode 14, Single-player MMOs

My research:

• Oliver, Mary Beth et al. “Sexual and Violent Imagery in Movie Previews: Effects on Viewers’ Perceptions and Anticipated Enjoyment.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, December 2007
• Slocum, J. David. “Film Violence and the Institutionalization of the Cinema.” Social Research. Vol. 67, No. 3, Fall 2000
• Xie, Guang-Xin. “Anticipated Violence, Arousal, and Enjoyment of Movies: Viewers’ Reactions to Violent Previews Based on Arousal-Seeking Tendency” Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 148 no. 3, 2008

Link to the episode: Why do we watch what’s hard to watch?

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