Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment [Hardcover]

Harold Schechter (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312282761 | ISBN-13: 978-0312282769 | Publication Date: February 10, 2005 | Edition: First Edition

Does violence in movies, on television and in comic strips and cartoons rot our children's brains and make zombies-or worse, criminals-of adults at the fringes? In this cogent, well-researched book, American pop-culture expert Harold Schechter argues that exactly the opposite is true: a basic human need is given an outlet through violent images in popular media.

Moving from an exploration of early broadsheet engravings showing torture and the atrocities of war, to the depictions of crime in "penny dreadfuls," to scenes of violence in today's movies and video games, Schechter not only traces the history of disturbing images but details the outrage that has inevitably accompanied them. By the twentieth century, the culture vultures were out in full force, demonizing comic books and setting up a pattern of equating testosterone-fueled entertainment with aggression. According to Schechter, nothing could be further from the truth. He also blasts those who bemoan the alleged increased violence in media today, and who conveniently scapegoat popular entertainment for a variety of cultural ills, including increased crime and real-life violence. Though American pop culture is far more technologically sophisticated today, Schechter shows that it is far less brutal than the entertainments of previous generations.

Savage Pastimes is a rich, eye-opening brief history that will make you rethink your assumptions about what we watch and how it affects us all.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"We belong to an innately violent species," argues Schechter. Violent entertainment is popular, he says, because it's natural to indulge in "taboo fantasies" and "escape into realms of forbidden experience." Indeed, from the crucifixions of the Romans to the guillotines of the French Revolution, from wax museums' torture dioramas to P.T. Barnum's sideshows, people have flocked to spectacles of gore and suffering. Motion pictures became popular, Schechter explains, partly by delivering realistic violence (the first special effect in cinema history was the simulated beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots in an 1895 feature). Crime fiction, from the penny dreadfuls to today's bestsellers, has always sold big, but even literary classics, like Poe's stories, continue to enthrall partly because they speak to the violent imagination. As far as Schechter, a Queens College literature professor and author of several true crime books on serial killers, is concerned, today's entertainment is far less violent than yesteryear's; special effects may make films and video games more graphic, but everything's simulated. While Schechter makes an engaging argument for the bloodthirsty tastes of our ancestors, he rather quickly dismisses contemporary sociological research on the effects of media violence on youth. This entertaining, provocative, not entirely convincing work will be a treat for literate readers who can't register for the professor's classes. Illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Ace serial-killer biographer Schechter doesn't buy the yap about movie/TV/video-game violence being worse than all previous gruesome entertainment and inspiring worse behavior. Violent crime rates are declining even if video games are getting gorier. Moreover, the history of violent entertainment suggests that humanity is kinder, gentler, and more squeamish than ever. As recently as the famously wholesome 1950s, shoot-'em-up westerns dominated TV, producing more corpses per half-hour during after-school and prime-time viewing hours than ever since: where are the westerns now? Farther back and for centuries, thousands mobbed public executions now considered appallingly sadistic, buying the likes of miniature guillotines (to decapitate birds and mice for children's amusement) as souvenirs. Only late in the nineteenth century did violent amusement become strictly representational, and the epicenter of theatrical gore, Paris' Theatre du Grand Guignol, closed in the 1960s. Nowadays action movies may be louder than ever, but onscreen mayhem is minimal. Of course, this history and its copious pictorial record make for great browsing as well as straight reading--but no moral trepidation allowed! Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (February 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312282761
• ISBN-13: 978-0312282769
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,230,553 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Harold Schechter is a professor of American literature and culture. Renowned for his true-crime writing, he is the author of the nonfiction books Fatal, Fiend, Bestial, Deviant, Deranged, Depraved, and, with David Everitt, The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. He is also the author of Nevermore and The Hum Bug, the acclaimed historical novels featuring Edgar Allan Poe. He lives in New York State.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not so Savage Savagery, November 1, 2009

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Thomas Fortenberry (Charlotte, NC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment (Hardcover)

So, it turns out much to everyone's surprise that our mediatainment industries are not churning out quite so much despicable junk to poison the minds of our children. Seems that violence has always permeated our entertainment, and at times in the past the amount of killings, etc., actually superceded today's low standards.

So is it evil or does it actually help our kids by letting them dispel fears and anger via fantasy and fun? Read Schechter's intelligent study and decide for yourself.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Our gruesome past, May 23, 2009

By 

Laura Crawford "soulgirl76" (Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment (Hardcover)

An interesting book on the spectacle of violence. Written more like a casual read than an educational text, it is nonetheless factual and makes pertinent points about moral panic and the way in which we as a species engage with violent entertainment.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great fun- but not on a full stomach, May 11, 2005

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M. Chmiel (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment (Hardcover)

Despite my heavy reading load, I couldn't put this book down. It was a great trip down the sick and twisted history of our entertainment desires. The author does a good job of telling the story of how children's entertainment (and entertainment in general) of become more humane, not less. The spectre of video games like Grand Theft Auto cloud our collective memories about the nature of childhood entertainment spanning many generations past. Your enjoyment of this book will serve as evidence for the author's argument.