The Spectacle of Sex and Violence

The three films for this week, at first glace, seem very distinctly different from each other. A documentation of a group attempting to recreate the JFK assassination, a mockumentary following the life of a self-absorbed serial killer, and (just realizing while writing this that Season TWO, Episode 2 of Black Mirror was assigned, not Season One...) a brief look into a society centered around virtual reality. While all three, in terms of topics, are quite different, they all aim towards a similar theme. That being a society obsessed with the spectacle of sex and violence.

The Eternal Frame was a strange film for me at first. It took me a few minutes to understand exactly what was happening. At first I thought it was a more recent film, styled as a film from the 70s. On top of that, it seemed as though it was a fictional piece looking to give a "what-if" sort of scenario, showing what JFK might have said after the shooting. While that was an aspect of the film, it obviously was a group looking to recreate and reenact the assassination. At first it seemed like a film done in fairly poor taste. It seemed as though the group was trying to parody the event, especially having Mrs. Kennedy being played by a man. This issue was somewhat addressed by their dialogue later in the film, when the man playing Mr.s Kennedy expressed just that. That the whole thing felt too grand and possibly offensive. What ended up being the most interesting part of the film was the reactions from people that were watching the recreation. Save one woman, who seemed to actually be sad and emotional from seeing the event recreated, every person that was interviewed was essentially joyful in watching. With several of the interviews, the onlookers were laughing and seeming to have a good time watching this recreation of someones death.

The reaction of the crowd in The Eternal Frame is personified in the character Ben in the film Man Bites Dog. Ben seemed to take utter joy and pride in the process and result of his killings, going so far as to hire a film crew to document his process and, eventually, take part in it. The entirety of the film seems to serve as a "highlight reel" of Ben's work. There are many moments that speak towards a society obsessed with sex and violence within this film, the most glaring being the rape scene. The camera crew initially start as fairly innocent characters. This was shown when Ben asks them to join him for dinner early in the film and they appear to not want to be involved with him outside of their working for him. This mentality is completely reversed in the rape scene. The entire crew takes turns having their way with the woman, ranting and cheering as they do so, showing that they have adopted much of Ben's mentality. Later in the film, after Ben returns from the hospital, he shoots a man in the head in front of everyone at the table, including the prostitute and his love? interest. Who both had appeared to be mostly innocent of his crimes before, but have little to no reaction to this death happening right in front of them.

And at this point in writing this response, I went back to check the name of the show and I realized I watched the wrong episode of Black Mirror. So I will go back and watch that episode at some point, but being that this largely hinged on the content of that episode I'll have to come back and revise this...