Digital Commons at Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School Research & Exhibition
Research & Exhibition Final Presentations 2015
Dec 15th, 4:40 PM
Violence in Post-9/11 American Film April N. Pratt Sue Scheibler Dr.
April N. Pratt and Sue Scheibler Dr., "Violence in Post-9/11 American Film" (December 15, 2015). Research & Exhibition. Paper 6. http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/honors-research-and-exhibition/2015/section-03/6
This Event is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors Program at Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Research & Exhibition by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. For more information, please contact
[email protected].
Violence in Post-9/11 American Film April Pratt Mentor: Dr. Sue Scheibler
Evolution of the Depiction of Violence
Factors identified as being involved in the depiction of violence include:
Availability of special/visual effects
Censorship laws and regulations
Audience tastes
(Fraser, Violence in the Arts)
Audience tastes may be tracked by ticket sales, but understanding them is more difficult.
Culture and cultural changes
(Kendrick, Film Violence)
Bonnie and Clyde, 1967
9/11: A Defining Cultural Event
Numerous psychological, sociological, and political studies of the effects of 9/11
As a culture, we became more patriotic and hegemonic
As individuals we became more anxious, more paranoid, more willing to give up privacy (and other rights)
(Faludi, The Terror Dream)
The film studies community has weighed in on this as well
9/11 is often considered intrinsically linked to the film/television industries
Most 21st century action/horror/thriller/… movies have been analyzed for thematic and visual connections to 9/11
(Wilson, “When Does the Hurting Stop”)
The Avengers, 2012 “The Falling Man,” 2001
Spider-man 2, 2004
But what actually changed after 9/11?
Individual case studies don’t say much about broad trends in the commercial industry.
There was a massive wave of visual effects innovation leading up the turn of the century.
How much of what we are seeing now is a result of this innovation, and how much is markedly different from what we saw before 9/11?
The Matrix, 1999
Methods
Compile a list of top grossing and Academy Award winning films from 1996-2011.
Analyze them for various components of cinematic violence
Type of Villain/Hero
Number of torture scenes
Active/Passive Images of Violence
Compare Pre- and Post-9/11 according to these criteria, as objectively as possible
Expected Results
Foundation for future research
Potential for a related secondary study of my own
Publication for the use of other film scholars
Implications for sociological/psychological studies as well
Commercial Implications
Analysis of trends in popular images may always be used by writers, filmmakers, and executives towards the creation of better films with more commercial value.
References
Carroll, Noel. “Film, Emotion, and Genre.” Passionate Views. Eds. Carl Platinga and Greg M. Smith. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Print.
Dittmer, Jason. “American Exceptionalism, Visual Effects, and the Post-9/11 Cinematic Superhero Boom.” London: University College London, 2011. Electronic.
Faludi, Susan. The Terror Dream: Fear and Terror in Post-9/11 America. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 2007. Print.
Fraser, John. Violence in the Arts. London: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Print.
Kendrick, James. Film Violence: History, Ideology, Genre. London: Wallflower Press, 2009. Print.
Kramer, Heidi Tilney. Monsters Under the Bed: An Analysis of Torture Scenes in Three Pixar Movies. M.A. Thesis University of Southern Florida, Tampa, 2013. Electronic.
Markovitz, Jonathan. “Reel Terror Post-9/11.” Film and Television After 9/11. Ed. Wheeler Winston Dixon. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004. 201-225. Print.
Nair, Kartik. “Plummeting to the Pavement: The Fall of the Body in Spider-Man.” Terror and the Cinematic Sublime. Ed. Todd A. Comer and Lloyd Isaac Vayo. Jefferson: McFarland & Co, 2013. Print.
Nielsen, Bianca. “Home Invasion and Hollywood Cinema: David Fincher’s Panic Room.” The Selling of 9/11: How a National Tragedy Became a Commodity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Print.
Rodje, Kjetil. Images of Blood in American Cinema. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2009. Electronic.
Sikov, Ed. Film Studies. New York City: Columbia University Press, 2009. Print.
Spigel, Lynn. “Entertainment Wars: Television Culture After 9/11.” American Quarterly 56.2 (2004): 235-270. Electronic.
Wilson, Scott. “When Does the Hurting Stop? Cloverfield and the (Re) Enabling of Fantasy in the Post-9/11 City.” Terror and the Cinematic Sublime. Ed. Todd A. Comer and Lloyd Isaac Vayo. Jefferson: McFarland & Co, 2013. Print.
