Voyeurism and Violence

Something that was touched on in Monday’s class that I would like to expand upon further is the importance of an emotional connection in interpreting and dealing with our reactions to depicted violence, specifically in the image of the Passion. As I’ve said before, I am not particularly religious. Loath as I am to say it, I’ve found that I don’t really have an emotional connection to the Passion, or at least not something that I can describe in any sort of religious way. I don’t like to see anyone suffer, and although I can appreciate the logical argument for why Christ must suffer, I don’t feel the sense of beauty in the suffering that I believe some of us in class described experiencing.

In class, I mostly agreed with Professor Fulton-Brown’s remarks that the way the Passion can be presented, especially in Passion of the Christ, seems obscene. There is a very particular kind of voyeurism that is present when watching someone suffer, something that I think is aroused most of all by depictions of gore and torture and, most of all, pain. There is a reason, after all, that movies like Hostel or the Saw sequels exist.

Now, I’m not trying to entirely equate The Passion of the Christ with an anonymous horror sequel. I accept that the former is a devotional exercise, and was meant as a way to connect with the suffering rather than relish in the watching of it. I also think, however, that to do so requires an emotional investment in the material. If you watch and don’t really have that, as in my case, then it is just a kind of very uncomfortable voyeurism. I don’t have any interest in watching The Passion of the Christ, but it’s for the same reason that I don’t want to see something like Antichrist, directed by Lars Von Trier. Arguments can be made for religious or artistic merit, and I’m certainly not going to try to dispute them, but to me, these films seem to offer the prospect of nothing but gazing at profound pain and misery for two hours-- and I don’t want to do that.

Everything that I’ve mentioned so far has been a movie, and I think that’s because there is a major visual component to this reaction. That is, I don’t get the same uncomfortable feeling of voyeurism or peering in on someone’s suffering from written accounts, as in the Meditations of John of Caulibus or from the accounts in the Gospels. A large part of this, I believe, is attributable to the opportunity for discretion I have as a reader-- a chance to determine how it is that I’m visualizing something disturbing. When Matthew, for instance, writes that “spitting upon him, they took the reed, and struck his head,” (Matthew 27:30, Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition) the level of detail with which I envision this is left as my choice. I can choose to ascribe great detail to it, to imagine “bruise upon bruise, cut upon cut” (John of Caulibus, Meditations on the Life of Christ, pg. 247); or, I can choose to simply pass over the description, to not dwell on the gory details. I can choose, in other words, to avert my mental eyes.

Of course, in the context of observing the Passion as a religious experience, to avert my eyes and turn my head is to entirely miss the point. For John of Caulibus, his unflinching portrayal of what he imagines to be the details of the Passion is the truest way in which he can meditate upon Christ’s sacrifice. It truly is a test of faith, I think, to be able to look at these violent, gory details and to not flinch away, but instead to find affirmation.

As I’ve already said, I lack that faith. I will choose to glance away, either literally or metaphorically, from these gory details every time. It is evident to me, however, while reading John’s Meditations or looking at treatments of the scene in Medieval art, that the creators of these works are able to find their own truth and beauty in this suffering through their faith. I’m not going to go so far as to say I envy them, but I certainly appreciate their ability to find beauty in Christ’s pain.

As a visual conclusion, I’ve attached an image of the Bocholt cross, a 14th Century object. In it, Christ appears broken and defeated-- he is, one can assume, at the moment of death. Whether or not one views this as a final triumph, in which humanity is saved, or simply as a needless, painful death, is a question that, I think, depends entirely on one’s faith.

    OK