A post by Margrethe Bruun Vaage

Trigger warning: rape in the context of rape-revenge films

I keep thinking that my next project should surely be about something nice. But in my research I keep being drawn to some of the darkest corners of film and television fiction. In philosophy there have been discussions about imaginative resistance, and how there are limits to what we are willing or able to imagine (see e.g., Gendler and Liao 2016 for an overview). It is not my aim here to revisit these debates, but rather to report from what is going on at the other side of town, so to say: as a film theorist it seems to me that there are many ways that fiction can and does invite engagement that breaks with our moral principles.

One such example is found in the antihero, who for some time has prevailed in television series, particularly in the US, but also in many other national contexts following the huge success of series such as The Sopranos and Breaking Bad. The most typical spectator response seems to have been to root for main characters such as Tony Soprano and Walter White, but they are in fact people we would be loathe to support in reality.

Another example of engagement that we might not fully condone is found in the central role played by harsh punishment in fiction. Media psychologist Arthur Raney points out that spectators of crime fiction, for example, “might tend to expect and demand (for the sake of enjoyment) a punishment that is greater than what is morally acceptable in reality; only such over-punishment will lead to enjoyment” (Raney 2005: 151). The proper villains getting their just desert at the end of a suspenseful story is a mainstay in fiction, sometimes sidestepping the law in vigilante stories such as the Dirty Harry films, for example. And it can be remarkably pleasurable to watch punishment in fiction, even for those among us who are decidedly against harsh punishment in real life: I for one am against any kind of capital punishment, and firmly believe in reform rather than prison as punishment. However, put on a Dirty Harry film, and I’ll gleefully enjoy watching those punks get lectured on the .44 Magnum.