The Nihilism of The Walking Dead

a reply to: opethPA

Ummm, no.

These are the two themes I want you to hold together in your mind:

1. Getting to know and become connected to a character

2. Bloody an Gruesome killing

Now, if number 2 were the problem, I wouldn't watch the walking dead, now would I? The gore and killing of the show is ancillary to the more general theme of "coming together" against the chaos around them.

What the show did, in effect, was combine one and two in the most radical or ways: killing off a character with a type of detail and specificity that almost seemed to undo all and every last vestige of artistic merit the show had hitherto had.

I've had more time to contemplate this, and yes, in a real world, such stuff would probably happen. But why - on earth - should we subject ourselves to images that actually play a part in the construction of minds in a dystopian world? The whole reason why shows like this do well - just so you know - is the emphasis the creators place on the humanistic themes. The Walking dead is not hostel or saw, and its violence has never seemed to me on par with that. But last Sundays episode felt like that: it felt like a very personal insult against what Humans naturally feel - as one critic put it, the creators had fun putting on "torture porn" - for what purpose, other than to dramatize the evil of Neegan? But at what cost? We seem to forget that play and games have limits in a democratic society built - fundamentally - out of certain interpersonal emotions - and perhaps this sort of filth on T.V is very counter-productive to the production of feeling-states that support our democratic institutions?

a reply to: Orwells Ghost

Umm, actual visual imagery evokes emotions in a way and manner that stort-telling does not. Porn, for instance, can be more "exciting" than mere imagery. Similarly, hearing a story about a gruesome killing is not equal to an actual visual of it: the visual is naturally more provoking of an emotional response than the image.

For example, imagine I told you, "imagine getting you pupil surgically removed with nail-clippers?". Gross, right? Now imagine seeing a video of that happen - an actual real-life and real-looking visual.

I can assure you, the latter is more affectively arousing than the former. This is , as they say, "common sense".

a reply to: Astrocyte

People you know and are connected to will and do die. We all die. Admittedly not usually in such a gruesome fashion. Is that what the definition of dystopian is now? What about Saving Private Ryan? Dystopian? Or a war movie?

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Acting actually is an attempt at real human emotion- thats why we watch T.V.

Actors, in fact, are profoundly dissociative minds: minds good at hiding from their own observing consciousness i.e. taking on the image as if it were reality.

There is good acting and bad acting - as we all know - and the difference appears to be a function of how the actor can "forget themselves" during the moment of acting.

I marvel at the dissociative acrobatics which come so naturally to such people. Don't get me wrong: its also the same reason that actors tend to be full-of-$hit hypocrites: they shift self state way too easily i.e. the very thing which makes them effective actors also impairs their capacity to be consistent individuals.

Is this essential to acting? Of course not. But in the world we live, the vast majority of actors are very much caught up in the Dionysian "play at life" - which does, in fact, help them portray real emotions, but they may also lose all contact with objective reality and so come into the habit of replacing their virtual representations with real-life dynamics.

a reply to: Ruiner1978

"No" on the hyperbole and "yes" on the cryptic.

Would you mind pointing out the cryptic bits? They are bullet-points, for Christ's sake.

originally posted by: Dan00
a reply to: Ruiner1978

"No" on the hyperbole and "yes" on the cryptic.

Would you mind pointing out the cryptic bits? They are bullet-points, for Christ's sake.

Well you made a statement about people not knowing why The Walking Dead is bad for them, and after a few posts later you've still not really explained the why. You've regurgitated something about our mind's inability to to separate stories from things that actually happen to it, alluded to someone's link about thought forms and posted a load of word salad about catharsis.

I could give you a solid, tangible, direct, concise explanation why programming like The Apprentice and The Only Way is Essex ect are harmful, with examples.

Do you have that kind of explanation for The Walking Dead or is all you have just abstract nonsense?
Do YOU really know why Walking Dead is bad for you?

a reply to: Ruiner1978

Do YOU really know why Walking Dead is bad for you?

It's not looking that way.

Would you please explain it?

Honestly, I'd like to see what you can do with it.