Customer Reviews

Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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that violence has always permeated our entertainment, and at times in the past the amount of killings, etc., actually superceded today's low standards.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.

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.

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.

Shocking. Should be followed by: "Demonic Males---Apes and the Origins of Human Violence" by Wrangham and Peterson; "The Murderer Next Door---Why We Kill" by David Buss; "Heroes, Rogues, and Lovers" by Dabbs and "The Lucifer Principle" by Howard Bloom. Anyone reading all those books will be left with no doubt that we evolved from apes.

This is a somewhat telling study of the effect of violent entertainments throughout (Western) history on populations. The essential argument that Schechter challenges is that today's movies, television, video games, and pop culture in general are inspiring violence in the youth of America. This is an idea put forth by "worried" politicians and social thinkers who are at loses to explain and eleviate crime. Savage Pastimes then is his continued picking apart of that argument, with an emphasis that today's cultural entertainments are not only not more violent then those of past generations, but less. The seeming truism that the more things change, the more they stay the same, also holds court.
Schechter also points out to great and feeling effect, the essential need of violence in human history/experience. As civilization evolves, violence has become fictionalized, taking the place of brutality that we recognize we are better without. But the visceral and primal lusts of humanity bear respect, and entertainment has proven the vehicle for their experience.
While graphic (and interesting) in depiction, explanation and representation of past entertainments; penny dreadfuls, public executions, public displays of body parts, pulp/dime novels, western-themed t.v. shows, etc., Schechter counters their substance with little to no modern examples, other than mention of video games such as Resident Evil and movies like The Matrix. Now that may be efficient to a point, these games and movies being incredibly popular, their substance may not be necessary to express. But his point in made. I tend to agree more then not, and think the book succeeds.
I also found his scholastic refutation of common ideology appealing because his is a calming voice, one that cuts through the politicized subject of entertainment.

The purpose of this book is to provide a history of violent entertainment. A lot of empirical studies in this field have been generated out of the social sciences in Western society over the last century or so. These texts tend to be more appropriate for college classes or scientific studies, but not for light reading. Not so here; the length and style of the book lends itself to an easy read on a lazy afternoon, which is nice. The text is simple to read, and there are enough references on any page to provide depth and validity.

From my reading, the title is a misnomer as the book focuses more on the portrayal of violence in entertainment than violent entertainment itself. For example, the book spends a lot of pages reprinting and commenting on passages from texts by Shakespeare, Mickey Spillane, the Grimm brothers, and others that graphically describe violence such as killing, raping, fighting, and butchery. On the other hand, there is very little history on boxing, wrestling, gladiatorial combat, martial arts, and other forms of violent entertainment known to history. One glaring omission is the view of war and how it has changed with time. In the first battle of Bull Run in the US Civil War, civilians went to the battlefield with picnic bags beforehand to get good seats for watching the mayhem. Of course once the artillery started firing and the battle became a route, the fans ran off. But the fact that they came to watch instead of hiding in their houses tells something about their views on violence. For these omissions, I dock one star.

The book is formatted into eight chapters that chronologically describe the history of violent entertainment within Western society (Anglo-Saxon and now American) over the last 500 years or so. This is the quite limited. There is barely a mention of violence in entertainment within Eastern European, Hispanic, Asian, African, or even Native American cultures. To be specific, this book looks at violent entertainment within the context of Protestant society; Germany after Luther, England after Thomas More, and America. As such, the conclusions drawn from the text must be suspect for the limited scope of its treatment. For this I dock another star.

With respect to conclusions, this book makes two, though in very subtle ways. First, the portrayal of violence in entertainment does not lead to violence in real life. Second, the portrayal of violence in entertainment might even be a pressure valve to release stress that in turn reduces the frequency and/or severity of violence in real life. These conclusions, which might be true, are not well argued for by this book. With regard to conclusion number one, the author describes trends in the display of violence in entertainment and how that correlates to rates of crime. For example, crime rates have steadily gone down in the US over the last three decades even though video games, TV, and movies that portray violence have become more available to children. I think the drop in crime rate is due more to an aging of the population, and a rise in the use and efficacy of surveillance technology, than to any changes in our entertainment. Also, Americans have been getting fatter over the last three decades. Not to be demeaning, but overweight people are less likely to get into street rumbles or bar fights than physically fit people, solely because they are less physically able to. With regard to conclusion number two, I think the author should spend more time around teenagers. I have known several teenagers who after seeing an episode of "Jackass" were inspired to recreate some of these pranks in real life, often to the detriment of their community. For these huge leaps to conclusions, I dock another star.

In all, the book is easy to read, though the depth of coverage and insight does not inspire much. I give it two out of five stars.

When I was a girl, my dad would take me to town on Saturdays and I'd see the cowboy movies at the three theaters near Market Square. Later, when we were one of the first in our neighborhood to own a t.v. set, I'd watch Hopalong Cassidy, Lash LaRue (my favorite), Roy Rogers, Cisco Kid, Wild Bill Hitchcock, Kit Carson and the Lone Ranger (with Tonto). Full of violence, ambushes, shootouts, and Indian skirmishes, they were a type of amusement all the kids enjoyed.

On t.v. Davy Crockett used a flintlock rifle he called Old Betsy and wore a coon skin hat. 'The Ballad of Davy Crockett' spent six months at the top of the 'Hit Parade' and I sang it on a local talent show. Little boys loved to play cowboys. There is a picture of a real one completely outfitted on the cover with his trusty gun. For some reason, my sons weren't into the violence thing.

There are pictures intermingled throughout this book to demonstrate the text, not in a separate photo section. There is a diagram of 'Tortures of Medieval Times.' One of the most remarkable examples appeared in the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. From May 27 to November 1, on 424 acres along Lake Michigan, (a friend of mine, Virginia Barnes, from a small town in Middle Tennessee, attended this gala exposition.) "A Century of Progress" contained an exhibit called 'The Torture Chamber' with a souvenir booklet. This was touted as a modern marvel of mechancial engineering, complete with sound effects. Located near a Freak show and a Midget Village of sixty small entertainers, it showed the debased state of contemporary American culture. It also showed progress from real torture as entertainment to counterfeit cruelty on motorized dummies.

In the Middle Ages, daily life was steeped in grotesque forms of violence, public executions and animal torture. Church paintings and stained glass windows showed martyred saints in gory detail. There were 'miracle plays' about the apostles and mutilated Jews -- and religious drama about the 'Slaughter of the Innocents' showing infanticide to eliminate the Christ Child. Scenes of baby slaughter and torture of women (St. Barbara) were subjects of religious plays. They used illusion to portray the vivid torture.

Even Shakespeare's dramas were full of murder and mayhem, like 'Macbeth,' and 'King Lear,' called "revenge tragedy." 'The Punch and Judy' shows in the 1800s showed family violence with corrupt political, social, and religious overtones.

One of my favorites, Poe, used violence and morbidity in most of his tales. He was the master, slightly deranged. Even the 'Crockett Almanac of 1839' showed illustrations graphic in their brutality to accompany tales written in a backwoods dialect.

Harold Schechter has written four books about serial killers, THE HUM-BUG, THE BOSOM SERPENT:FOLKLORE AND POPULAR ART, among many others.