VIOLENCE IN FILMS

           

          “He takes a hard look around him taking note of the dozen men surrounding him waiting to pounce. He stares at them with his stony eyes and makes a mental note of the weapons each person has in hand. Sweat drips down his neck as he inhales the musty air around him. He moves a step forward and two men sprint towards him. He raises his fist and, whaam, both the men fall down face first onto the ground. Four other men rush towards him, he flicks the man in front and all four fall down. Punches fly in the air in all direction as he single handedly defeats the entire gang. Dust fills the air and the hero emerges from it looking back at the doom of the men that tried to attack him.”

       Recognize that?  Well my friend if you are into movies, I guarantee that you have seen a scene similar to that in nearly all action packed movies. Almost all movies these days seem to showcase such elaborate and exaggerated scenes where the hero raises his hand and fifteen men fall down all at once. It’s funny how in the entire movie the hero might be a common man, just like us going to a job and everything but when suddenly the heroine get it trouble (god knows why she gets in trouble in the first place) the hero turns into this exceptional superhuman with hands stronger than iron and a threshold larger than that of Hercules himself! It’s remarkable how the hero suddenly becomes the macho man of the year flinging guys in the air that are twice his size. Also the entire boulevard magically turns into a catastrophe even though the fight is going on in one single part of the street.  And the funniest thing, no one expects him to pay for the damage he just caused. He just casually walk away dusting off his jacket. If you even try to do something like that you’ll get shoes thrown and trust me, you don’t have the threshold of Hercules.

Another thing I have a hard time understanding is the cars. I mean what is up with those cars. You see 1987 mustangs, Bugatti’s and Ferraris just blowing up in the air. The hero throws a punch and POW a car blows up, JUST LIKE THAT. What the point of having such a beauty in the act if you plan on blowing it up two seconds into the scene? And did I mention the people that are around? Instead of fleeing the place like sane people they stop to admire the shenanigans of the hero and his satanic friends. And exactly on cue they astonishingly drop everything in their hands to clap at the victory of the hero. They are so flabbergasted that the forget all they were doing just to cheer the hero. Everything is considered ‘normal’ in a movie from expensive cars blowing up to heroic ninjas and unholy destruction of the city.

So the point of building up this never ending rant was basically to say that movies nowadays have become so over the top and dramatic that it is considered mandatory to have at least one histrionic scene, be it any movie. They maybe a little too exaggerated but it’s all good if you take it nonchalantly and not get fixated on trying to become a superhuman, because trust me, (I have tried) you can’t.

-JUVERIA IQBAL