Why do we use violence as entertainment?

 With the release of season 3 of Squid Game rapidly approaching I began to wonder why we find violence entertaining.

When the show was first released in 2021, there were trends dedicated to recreating the games, costumes, and setup of the show.  Influencers uploaded “I Recreated Squid Games” videos by the thousands.  Instead of focusing on the cultural message of class inequality and exploitation within the workplace, we focused on the death games.

Similar to Squid Game, when Bird Box (2018) was released, we recreated the situation, attempting to survive without sight.

Diving further back, when Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins was released in 2008, millions of people scrambled to buy a copy.  This would repeat with every new addition to the series, including both the books and the movies.  People were desperately trying to get their hands on a book series about children murdering each other for the entertainment of the masses.

The Hunger Games series, Bird Box, and now Squid Game, show us that the idea of using violence as entertainment has been a popular idea for at least fifteen years.  But why?  As humans, we pride ourselves on how much we’re against violence, yet when we’re faced with it, we can’t look away.  Think about it.  When you turn on the news, do you switch channels when they’re talking about the weather?  How about when they’re talking about a burglary or murder?

What I’ve come to find is that we find violence entertaining because of our primal instinct.  Our primary motivation is activated by threat, which violence poses on us.  It gives us a surge of adrenaline, making our heart beat faster and feel anxious or excited.  We seek new and exciting experiences, and seeing violence seems to count as a new experience. However, another theory suggests that it's due to benign masochism.  Benign masochism is when we enjoy negative experiences in the context of a safe environment.  It’s similar to how haunted houses feel fun.  Realistically, you would be terrified to provoke a curse, but because you know you’re safe in an amusement park, you get excited to go into a haunted house.  We enjoy violent movies, because we know we’re safe at home or at a movie theater.  By tolerating the mental pain of watching violence, we subconsciously feel that we have gained a survival instinct.  We feel relief that we are safe and have gained survival instincts in the safety of our own home.  

    However, this doesn’t mean “go out and watch every Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie out there to become the most experienced and prepared person in the world”.  In recent years, the media industry has begun to equate violence to horror.  Because of this, we have become desensitized to the violence in the real world.  Our exposure to the sadistic minds of directors has now stopped us from reacting to the sadistic minds of real world leaders.  If we don’t stop ourselves from watching violent media, we will forget how to react to the emotions of real people.  We will forget how to be people.

Let this be a reminder to you to step back from movies, sit back, and watch Teletubbies every once in a while.  Go out and pick flowers, crochet, enjoy the mundane experiences of life.  Watch a kids show.  Do anything to bring your emotional response to violence up to its natural point.  Sensitize yourself to violence again.  Violence is only meant to be entertaining in fiction.