Gypsy Blood

Still waiting for "Regarding the Pain of Others"  by Susan Sontag to arrive...
Have been contemplating the ways in which the modern audience has become increasingly de-sensitized to violence and bloodshed. Has the modern audience become increasingly de-sensitized to violence? Or are we given a cleansed, false representation of violence and it is this that we have become accustomed to? I watched 'Gypsy Blood' this week- a documentary by photographer Leo Maguire on the violent culture that gypsy boys are brought up into. Reading reviews of the documentary afterwards has really made me question people's perceptions of violence and the 'real'.

One review which I felt particularly awful by Sara Hailan (who I feel completely missed the point)-
http://www.endofshow.com/2012/01/30/review-gypsy-blood/

Juxtaposed against this review by Gary Day (which I felt was a more balanced article that looked at more than just the surface of the documentary)-
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=418842

This documentary has caused quite a stir because of it's depiction of violence. However, i'm not sure if it's the depiction of violence that has bothered people so much but rather the way in which the violence has been depicted. Hailan made the point that it was all far too explicit and unnecessary and that "while it was insightful into the traditions of others Leo Maguire left nothing to the imagination".

It is as though people want a more manufactured representation of violence- akin to the violence that is portrayed in a Blockbuster film; cleansed of its rawness, its reality. I get the impression that the audience were taken aback by the realness of the violence portrayed. Although people want some kind of an insight into the lives of others they very quickly seem to become offended if this insight is too real.

The complaints over the scenes of rabbits and deer being killed in front of children (humanely) for food have made me wonder if people have well and truly completely disassociated themselves from the way meat arrives on their plate. One person did make the comment that the footage of animals being killed in this documentary were nowhere near as disturbing as footage secretly taken in slaughter houses. The common attitude is that not seeing is not condoning. What you don't see, or don't know, is not your responsibility. This really bothers me. People let their personal emotions and their own upbringing and lifestyle blind them to other realities.

It also made me think of the point that Sontag made that there is nothing wrong with standing back and thinking and of Obama's decision to hold back further photographs that depicted the abuse, rape and torture of Afghan and Iraqi prisoners in American custody in order to prevent further "anti-American opinion" putting "our troops in greater danger". The image has the power to cause injury, but it is not the image that had caused the damage- it is the act. Spectatorship is treated as the problem.

Maggie Nelson; “Nobody can think and hit at the same time”. 

The negative reaction to this documentary also reminded me of Artaud’s "Theatre of Cruelty". During the 1900's Artuad set about revolutionizing theatre. He wanted to create something more primal, honest and real. By "Cruelty" Artuad wasn't referring to physical pain but more to the violent, physical will-power it would take to destroy the false reality we had created for ourselves. Artaud wrote that this false reality lay "like a shroud over our perceptions." The cruelty in "The Theatre of Cruelty" would be in the actors showing the audience a truth that they did not want to see.