What is the aesthetics of violence?

What is "aesthetics of violence"

I don't know since when, we have seen and heard the term "aesthetics of violence" more and more. In film reviews, the works of a group of emerging directors are considered to be related to the "aesthetics of violence", such as Quentin Tarantino from the United States, John Woo from Hong Kong, China, etc. Some martial arts TV series and cartoons that were originally cute but have violent content added to them have been linked to "violent aesthetics"; some newly launched video game products are also rushing to use "violent aesthetics" as a selling point. Some news works, such as TV interviews with true crime records and photojournalism works showing cruel scenes, have also been labeled as "violent aesthetics". What exactly is “aesthetics of violence”?

"Violence aesthetics" is a broad, pan-aesthetic concept, not a strict aesthetic concept. The main characteristics of relevant works are the display of aggressive power and exaggerated and unconventional violent behaviors. In literary and artistic works, the presentation of violence can be divided into two different forms: First, after violence has undergone formal and social transformation, its aggressiveness is softened, and violence becomes easier to accept. For example, after bullets and bloody scenes, After using stunts and other methods, some of its aggressive tendencies were hidden. Another example is that in some American movies, the perpetrator represents justice but suffers injustice. This kind of character relationship setting also softens the aggressiveness of violence. Another situation is to more directly show the violent process and bloody effects, exaggerating the sensory stimulation of violence. This tendency can be seen in a variety of cultural behaviors. The two ways of presenting violence mentioned above have different aesthetic values ??and different social effects.

"Violence aesthetics" originally refers to a film art taste and form exploration that originated in the United States and matured in Hong Kong, China. Its characteristics are as follows: creators often use postmodern techniques to either dissolve the gun battles and fighting scenes in the film into games and jokes without specific meaning; or to symbolize them as visual and auditory aesthetics closely related to the film content. elements. This type of film pays more attention to exploring the formal sense of gun battles, martial arts actions and scenes, and promotes the formal beauty to a dazzling degree, but ignores or weakens the social and moral functions.

Affected by the "aesthetics of violence", martial arts movies and TV series produced in recent years have also tended to deal with violence (martial arts movements) in a dance-like, poetic, and performance-like manner. People are watching martial arts movies and TV shows When watching the play, it feels like enjoying a unique martial arts performance. Sometimes the bloody and brutal violence scenes present a kind of visual beauty, thus dispelling the cruelty of the violence.

"Violent aesthetics" is the embodiment of "disappearance of the subject" among the four aesthetic characteristics of postmodernism in film and television creation. These two contradictory words are combined to become a word with a completely new meaning. It weakens the traditional subject consciousness, focuses on the details and scenes of violence, and shows the characteristics of opposing authority, classics, subject creation consciousness and elitism.

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