Recommended reading and viewing

A piece from about a year-and-a-half ago, and a clip from this year's Oscars, with no connection save that I saw and liked them both.

1. Why "torture porn" Isn't.

Excerpt:

the Saw movies actually contain less torture than most horror movies, in that most of the excruciating pain is self-inflicted by the characters. John "Jigsaw" Kramer (Tobin Bell), the bogeyman of the series, places his victims in death traps that are usually fast-acting and can only be stopped by an act of self-mutilation or the murder of another person. These are definitely nasty things to do to someone, but they're quick and are done out of a deranged kind of philanthropy—Jigsaw believes those who survive will be stronger people for it—as opposed to the prolonged interrogations we usually associate with torture today. The only real torture scene in the Saw movies takes place in Saw II, when Detective Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) beats up the cancer-stricken Jigsaw in hopes of obtaining a confession, breaking his fingers one by one. Jigsaw gives him one, but it turns out to be false (which is, of course, the primary real-world criticism of torture as a tactic). Matthews, in fact, has been made Jigsaw's pawn precisely because the mad genius disapproves of the way the cop has used torture and trumped-up evidence in the past to abuse his position.

2. (if you missed it)





Sock it towards them, Sean.