When Screen Violence Is Not Attractive

Abstract

Abstract Screen violence is not always attractive. In a volume focusing on the attractions of symbolic violence, it is useful to consider some of the limits of such attraction. In this chapter, I begin with research on disgust that found three documentary films of blood and violence that undergraduate students, at least, do not want to watch. After trying out some simple explanations of the unattractiveness of these films, I turn to theory and research aimed at understanding the genre of commercial film violence that should be most disgusting-horror films. This literature does not provide much help in understanding the unattractiveness of the disgusting films, but it leads to two new studies with results that suggest that viewers can enjoy the experience of negative emotions such as disgust and fear. I conclude by examining two possible theories of how negative emotions can be experienced as positive; both theories point to the importance of dramatic distance-framing violence as fiction-if screen violence is to be attractive.