Sorry, old habits die hard.
My post in defense of the term “torture porn” has resulted in some interesting responses. In favor are Bruce Baugh and Craig Moorehead, opposed are Steven Wintle and Kimberly Lindbergs, and somewhere in between are Jon Hastings and Jesse Mazer.
Steven’s response is the lengthiest, so I’ll take it point by point. He starts by arguing that appending the word “porn” to the equation adds a qualitative connotation above and beyond what a straightforward might do. (In order to illustrate the point, he tacks the word on to a whole bunch of different genres to striking and humorous effect here.) “I’m sure someone will come along to correct me on this,” sez Steven in the original post, essentially tossing me a softball right down the middle, “but I’m fairly sure ‘Torture Porn’ is the only horror sub-genre label that denotes not only the content of the film but also suggests a particular quality, as well.” Now, I’ve already suggested that the term “horror” itself has a pejorative connotation. But even putting that aside, there’s the entire “-sploitation” super-genre: exploitation, sexploitation, blaxploitation, nazisploitation, et cetera and sometimes ad nauseum. Then you’ve got “trash,” an appellation enthusiastically embraced by many niche horror bloggers. And surely “splatter,” “slasher,” and “creature feature” were not coined in the same value-neutral fashion as, say, “romantic comedy.” The recently en vogue “grindhouse” sure wasn’t. Hell, I think “torture porn” fits a lot more comfortably in the same continuum as “weepies” and “chick flicks” and “queer cinema” than Steven would admit.
Next, he quibbles with my attempt to play Webster, saying he’s encountered at least three applications of the “torture porn” label that hold to different definitions than the one I proposed (“horror films in which the physical brutalization of a person or persons, frequently to death and always while somehow immobilized or held captive by the brutalizer or brutalizers, is the primary locus of horror in the film”). He cites this John Campea post, arguing that “torture porn” refers to films that focus on torture to the exclusion of all other considerations, as exhibit A. In this case I think the problem lies not with the term, but with the person using it–he’s clearly out to use the phrase to describe only “bad” movies with torture on them. He’s written good movies involving torture clean out of the term, in a micro example of what the “transcending the genre” crowd does with horror writ large. But just because he has doesn’t mean we have to! As the above list of horror sub-genres demonstrated, we horror fans have embraced any number of labels with the scent of disrepute lingering about them, and I don’t see why a few misguided attempts to conflate “torture porn” with “horror movies that suck” should steer us away from doing so again.
Steven’s second example of a rival, irritating “torture porn” definition is one where it’s used to attack both film and audience, indicating a film designed for people who “get off” on torture. Steven means this in the “enjoying watching other people suffer” way; Jon takes it a step further and says it implies that they enjoy watching other people suffer “in a sexual way.” Again, I wouldn’t let certain critics’ attempts to use the term to deride the films’ audience dictate whether I must use it the same way. But regarding the linguistic point, Jesse points out “food porn” as an example of a genre wherein the “porn” tag is not meant to imply that people literally get aroused by watching the Food Network (unless, of course, Nigella Lawson is on), just that the food content is designed to bypass your usual rational filters and hit you straight in the lizard brain. Along those lines I’ve seen references to kitty porn, shoe porn, and T-shirt porn (I coined that last one myself, naturally). In my view, the violence in torture porn movies and in many horror movies in general is spectacle in the filmic sense, material that through its confrontational, aestheticized, frequently plot-independent presentation is meant to bypass the typical processes by which we view and comprehend film narratives and access you in a rawer way. “Torture spectacle,” though, doesn’t have that catchy internal rhyme to it. (I kid.) If the porn fits, wear it.
Finally, Steven points out that there are, in fact, literal torture porn films, movies involving extreme S&M and sex. Well, yeah. But this just reminds me of the argument that there are literal “graphic novels,” novels containing graphic sex or violence or language or whatever. That’s certainly a drawback to that particular term–and even if it weren’t, one need look no further than From Hell artist Eddie Campbell’s blog on any given day to see that you can haggle about definitions until armageddon–but take a look at my bookshelf and you’ll find a lot of book-length comics with the words “graphic novel” above the ISBN.
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