Pornoviolence
I have to acknowledge a little bit of
gratitude toward my not-so-well-trained dog.
During my recent illness, I glimpsed this clear simplicity of
presence—no anxiety, no longing, little inner conflict. Just the simple satisfaction of sleeping when
I wanted to, the cool sweet taste of ice cream bar, the lack of inner conflict
when my mind offered only: It is time to
take a nap. Right NOW.
Now that I’m up and about, I’m trying to
take that show on the road—trying to still some of my thousand inner voices and
be present to whatever I am doing, recognize and turn toward a simply call or
need. That’s more difficult than you might think. This morning, I might have completely missed
the morning walk that I was taking, lost as I was in pornographic fantasies, if
Cosmo hadn’t seen a squirrel and bolted, jolting me nearly off my feet.
It wasn’t that kind of pornography.
Ten years ago, I read an essay by Tom
Wolfe, entitled “Pornoviolence.” It was
an old essay even then—but I find I’m finding it more relevant with every
passing year. In the essay, in 1976,
Wolfe argues that the problem with the growing violence in media isn’t
just—isn’t even really just—the violence.
The problem is its pornographic side.
And still, it’s not exactly that kind of pornography.
Wolfe defines pornography as anything
that sparks desire, rather than, for instance, appreciation. When you see the Mona Lisa, for example, most
folks don’t want to take her from the frame and tear her clothes off. There’s something about art that holds us
still, and present. Wanting to see,
appreciate, experience—instead of longing to possess. But, Wolfe asserts, the producers of
pornography—that kind, as well as advertising or tv—want
to inspire exactly that possessive urge.
Wolfe says that advertising is
pornographic at its core. You admire the
car’s engineering, certainly. But when
you begin to think of selling wife and children just to have those long sleek
lines in your garage…well, then you are responding just as the marketers have
hoped. And you’re responding in a way
that Wolfe considered pornographic.
The real problem with television
violence, Wolfe argued thirty years ago, is that we always see it from the
weapon’s point of view. We always see it
from the satisfaction of the one with power, with the implacable force to
destroy. His concern about the gunplay
of his day seems—well, quaint—in our
current atmosphere of videogames, dramas justifying torture, and the
opportunity to watch as real missiles hit their real targets. We watch the plume of smoke bloom at the
crosshairs on the screen, but miss the other truth of bodies torn to pieces,
people dying, blood there on the street.
This morning, on my dogwalk, neither sex
nor violence captured my attention. I
was wrapped in fantasies of porches:
banisters and balustrades, railings, roofs, and wooden steps. Girlfriend
and I intend to rearrange and rebuild our back porch one day. Ostensibly, I ogle all the neighbors’ porches
“just to get ideas.” This may be the
renovator’s version of flipping through a Playboy, just for journalism.
I can’t get down the block without
falling into lust and envy—two of the seven deadlies. I want that
curve of soffit, that mahogany up on that deck.
I even like to say the words, build up an incantation. I dream of building, shaping, owning. I wander down the sunlit sidewalk with my
head down in my basement.
Until Cosmo
nearly sends me face-first into curbing, for the simple joy of SQUIRREL.
The issue with this pornographic state
of mind is everything you miss when you are in it. The human that well-built
babe, the suffering beneath that missile’s plume, the beauty of this blue-sky
morning in the springtime in
© 2008 Melissa Capers
[Here’s a what’s the
world coming to moment… I tried to find a link to Tom Wolfe’s essay,
for citation and to share. Instead, I found a plethora of sites where you
could order up a term
paper all about it. Made this teacher’s
heart sink. I never spotted the
original.]