Those seeking torture porn will be very disappointed.

Friday, 09. 4. 2009  –  by Janice

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Torture Porn?

One of the most aggravating things I have heard while promoting the film The Stoning of Soraya M. this summer is that it is “torture porn.” Given that there is nothing pornographic about the film, the fact that this term has been used so much in reference to it really, really annoys me.

At a recent dinner with many human rights activists concerned with the Middle East I got into a conversation with a married couple.  When my involvement with the film came up, the woman made an expression as though she had just eaten a rotten lemon. “I don’t like that film” she said. The next thing out of my mouth was to ask her if she had seen it. I was not at all surprised when she said she had not. I was surprised, however, when she proceeded to cite all the reasons she disliked a film she had not seen. Her husband pointed out that many have referred to the film as “torture porn.” When I pressed him to explain exactly what is meant by that term, he not only compared The Stoning of Soraya M. to The Passion of the Christ (a horrible comparison), he stated that a woman is tortured in the film and that some people are aroused by such violence.

"Torture porn" scene in The Stoning of Soraya M.

"Torture porn" scene in The Stoning of Soraya M.

So not only are men responsible for perpetrating such gross crimes against women, the perverted tendencies of what I assume to be a small minority of men with torture fetishes is used as an excuse not to allow Soraya’s story to be told.  It is ironic to me that the victim being a woman rather than a man should discourage so many from watching this wonderful film. Once again, Soraya faces injustice because of her gender.

I have to say, I also find it ironic and disturbing that so many feel the need to compare this film to The Passion of the Christ. The film that Robert Ebert famously referred to as the most violent movie he had ever seen, it remains the highest grossing non-English film in the U.S. I remember the zealous response from Christians when the film was released.

As a woman I have a similar zeal for Soraya’s story.

The flogging of Jesus alone in The Passion took ten minutes. This is as long as the entire stoning scene in Soraya, not very satisfying for those who are watching it for sexual arousal.

Consider another Mel Gibson film, Braveheart, perhaps the most violent movie I have ever seen (I have not seen The Passion). Although Mel Gibson is tortured and abused while wearing short kilts and exposing his muscular chest, I don’t recall every hearing the film referred to as torture porn. I also don’t recall hearing about people refusing to watch certain scenes due to violence the way I have seen people refusing the watch the stoning scene in The Stoning of Soraya M.

During one screening of the film I watched with disappointment as two viewers promptly got up and walked out of the room as soon as Soraya was lowered into the ground for the stoning. Watching the rest of us from outside the room, they commented on being too sensitive and affected by such “explicit violence,” as though the rest of us were just watching for the pornographic appeal. I have rarely, if ever, seen people walk out other violent movies.

Those who refuse to watch the movie or scenes from the movie should really ask themselves why they are so uncomfortable viewing this type of violence, particularly with an actual crime is being depicted. Those so concerned about "torture porn" should go after the violent and often illegal pornography found readily online and allow those of us concerned with telling the true story of injustice do our job a bit easier.




13 responses to “Those seeking torture porn will be very disappointed.”

  1. Mehdi Rifai says:
    September 5th, 2009 at 6:21 am

    Hi Janice,

    First, I'd like to voice my support for your ultimate point: The violence in the movie shouldn't be a deterrence to watching it, as it is necessary to make a point. That people still go through this gruesome death is unforgivable, and the scene is meant to prompt people to action, not to turn away.

    That said, I wonder if you have perhaps let the term "torture porn" color your judgment on the criticism. I obviously have not been speaking to the same people, but I know when people around me referred to The Passion as torture porn, no one was getting their rocks off to Jesus dying. Really, it was just meant as a metaphor for the amount of depicted violence, and perhaps a criticism meant for the director of the piece, who they feel displayed the violence a little too accurately. This criticism is ridiculous, as in both cases it was obvious the directors were working to make a point through the use of violence: the ordeal Christ went through to save us (if you believe in the crucifixion), and the monumental injustice Soraya suffered at the hands of her own village.

    In any case, the word "porn" is now just another term like "fetish" or "crack," not always referring to actual pornography. I can have a shoe fetish, and Krispy Kreme can be my Krack Kokaine, and in neither case am I expressing anything more than a deep love of footwear and donuts.

    Mehdi Rifai Reply:
    September 5th, 2009 at 6:27 am

    Oh, and Watch Passion. I thought it was an awesome movie, and I'm not even Christian. People get so caught up in the violence, they don't let the love that is in that movie get through: The love Mary had for her son, the conflict between the love of the disciples and their instinct for self preservation, Mary Magdalene for her savior, and others. That's my two-cents worth.

  2. karys says:
    September 12th, 2009 at 7:31 pm

    Janice I really enjoyed your post. For some reason, the reaction to this film, calling it "torture porn," bears certain similarities to society's hypersensitivity to muslims to the point of labeling any criticism as "islamaphobic"….all in the same spirit of political correctness.

    I too, find it rather pathetic (forgive my brutal honesty), though not surprising, that a human rights activist (often the most politically correct of all) would be so quick to judge a movie she hadn't seen. Congrats for having the moral courage to continue the conversation after that. If it were me, I probably would have pointed out her lack of authority to speak on the subject and ended it there.

    The comparisons to the Passion of the Christ and other sensationalized films are all just excuses, ways of coping with an uncomfortable subject while still appearing courageous. Really, it is cowardly.

    -karys

    p.s. Personally, I would not recommend the Passion. Strictly from a filmmaker's perspective, I rank it as one of the worst films of all time, from writing to production to acting to directing….

    Mehdi Rifai Reply:
    September 17th, 2009 at 7:02 pm

    @karys, LOL, I should probably let this go, but no way is Passion bad in any of the terms of which you speak. The acting was both emotive and effective, even as the actors had to speak in a language they weren't familiar with. The production values on every level were magnificent, from the locations, the sets, the makeup, the costuming, and the lighting, all detailed, very well planned out, and to my admittedly untrained eye incredibly authentic.

    The writing is something I disagree with a lot of people on: Basically, it's the New Testament synthesized in terms of premise, so if that is your complaint, then you're talking to the wrong people. If you mean the pacing of the movie, the chosen scenes, or the dialogue, I disagree again, and strongly so, since I felt it moved very well, was varied enough between flashbacks, cutaways, and main action sequences to maintain interest, and minimalist enough on the dialogue to make it very real rather than theatrical.

    I wonder if the complaint against the directing has to do with the director of the piece, who is a bit of an ass. Disregarding that, however, and honestly it was very well filmed, in terms of angles or chosen edits and scenes.

    As always, we're entitled to our opinions, but mine is strongly opposed to yours in this regard.

    karys rhea Reply:
    September 20th, 2009 at 1:42 pm

    Mehdi Rifai,

    Thanks for posting! Though we're getting a bit off topic, I know this will be a fun "reply" to "reply" to. Here I go.

    This is why I found The Passion horribly trite and an insult to artists everywhere:

    There was only one motive for every single aspect of the film. The angles/flashbacks/cutaways/ and main action sequences you speak of were solely meant to portray christ suffering as much as humanly possible. In an effort to bring this to the level of shock realism, they HAD to compromise the artistic process. In other words, everything, all shots and edits, were transparent and obvious. And therefore, the movie was actually incredibly easy for everyone, because no one had to be creative, they just had to get one point across in the most direct way possible. Not once did an editor or a DoP have to ask themselves, "what am I trying to get across here?" because they were told right from the start that the sordidness of Christ's suffering through blatancy and concreteness was their only objective. And since the make-up artists and costume and lighting designers all had this same job, the film wound up being laughably explicit. Seeing the decision making process shine through its result always trivializes a film. Yes the production value was good in the sense that the budget was huge, so all the "best" people worked on the film. But because everything was "detailed and very well planned out" as you mention, does that really make it "magnificent"?

    Nutshell? Every aspect of the film was straight-forward, glaring, recognizable, self-evident, unconcealed, and visible. This is the definition of sensationalism- when there is an agenda to impress upon the viewer one singular feeling or point of view. Some other terms that apply that I'm sure you're familiar with are "shock value" and "exploitation film." It was juicy though, I'll give you that, and the emotions you felt are real and legitimate, so I hope you don't think I am trivializing them. I am saying, however, that those emotions were instilled in you not through depth or subtly, which to me, are the two most precious elements of art. When the message and agenda are so obvious, it leaves nothing to the imagination and nothing up for interpretation. And how can there be an artistic process with no blanks for the viewer to fill in?

    Mehdi Rifai Reply:
    September 20th, 2009 at 4:36 pm

    @karys rhea, Hehe, yeah, it's off topic, but sort of on topic as well, since the comparison of Soraya is to Passion, and the question is: How much violence is too much, and when is it shock value or torture porn, and when is it simply a means to conveying a point?

    Also, perhaps it's slightly obstinate, or just me not fully absorbing your point, but I still disagree, and think you're perhaps overlooking certain scenes in favor of the torture. For me, in fact, it's when Jesus is not on film that I find the movie really shines. The tenderness between Jesus and his mother are hugely important for me in the movie, partly because as a Muslim-raised person it's always been impressed on me that Jesus was a human prophet, and therefore the normal activity between mother and son goes a long way to emphasizing that. The guilt that Judas feels at betraying his rabbi is also something important to me, since I always felt it was unfair the way Judas was portrayed generally as an unfeeling, money-seeking traitor. I was one of the few that were somewhat excited about the Gospel of Judas, although not authenticated, and which said that Judas was a necessary part of Jesus' plan to die for the sins of the world, and therefore a hero.

    The amount of politicking that went into Jesus' final moments were interesting to see. One has to wonder how much of it was personal bias, favoring the Romans over the Hebrews and the other tribes under King Herod, but the fact that it wasn't a quick pack off to the crucifixion was well represented I think, as were the possible political fallout of executing a religious leader in old Judea. The interactions of the apostles, the family and the onlookers is worth a look, too, with Claudia's premonition and wordless support to Mary and Mary Magdalene, as was Peter's guilt at denouncing his master (three times, yada yada yada).

    In any case, Jesus' suffering was the main act, but I feel there was enough there peripherally to keep it from becoming solely a Passion pity party.

    Janice Reply:
    September 19th, 2009 at 2:29 pm

    @karys, I should mention that the reason I chose to relate the fact that this particular woman was comfortable expressing strong opinions about a film she had not seen is that this had happened to me many times while promoting this film. Check out my post about one experience I had attending a demonstration for Iran where several of the organizers attacked the film, and me: http://irshadmanji.com/moralcourageproject/?s=exploitation
    People will often say what they think they are "supposed" to say or think…

  3. Neil Hicks says:
    September 15th, 2009 at 10:02 pm

    http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/movies/26stoning.html
    Hi Janice,

    I was a bit surprised to find our conversation at a cocktail party related on a public blog; however, leaving that aside, as I think I made clear in our conversation, I was quoting what I recalled from the NYT review. I have not seen the film and never suggested that I had. Looking back, as the link above shows, my memory was correct. If you have a problem with this characterization of the movie take it up with A.O. Scott…
    I thought our discussion, as it developed, was more about the depiction of violence as a way of building public opposition to particular practices. I have mixed feelings about this. Violence is certainly shocking, but it also provokes prurient fascination.
    Our discussion was short so we did not have time to explore these issues but I hope you would agree that they are not as easily disposed of as you seem to suggest.

    Mehdi Rifai Reply:
    September 17th, 2009 at 7:12 pm

    @Neil Hicks and Janice, reading the review, I don't find that A.O. Scott holds the "torture porn" title against the movie, it's simply a label to evoke the necessary gruesomeness of the stoning itself. He does imply that people enjoy the violence while disguising it with righteousness, but frankly, since the reader reviews have amounted to a 4.5 stars, it doesn't seem to affect the overall opinion of the movie.

    Also, anyone, when is the movie coming to the Middle East? I'm in a cultural desert here, it seems :p You'd think the Lebanese would've shown it by now. Guess not.

  4. Anthony NYC says:
    September 18th, 2009 at 4:08 pm

    Whether the phrase "torture porn" is commonly associated as sexual or not isnt really the point here. I think the point is that it is disgusting that the incredibly brutal way in which Soraya is tortured and killed is seen as entertaining or exciting at all (let alone arousing) to anyone. And even more disgusting is the premise, perpetuated by the first paragraph of the Times review, that the stoning scene was designed to take advantage of this. It is quite the opposite as the director actually toned down the violence from the book in order to increase viewership.

    It is torture however, and is supposed to show how barbaric the practice of stoning is and if some actually ENJOY that and are so ignorant to interpret it as meant to gratify their twisted fetish, its their problem and not the film's.

    Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think to say "some see it as torture porn" (as a reference to a review that states as much) in the context of a debate on the films merits, is to say that you at least do not disagree with the statement and its implications.

    See the film for yourself, define "torture porn" for yourself, then smash the two together and see if they stick.

  5. Janice says:
    September 19th, 2009 at 12:04 pm

    Thank you everyone for your comments and wonderful discussion.

    To me this is really not as much an issue of the various understandings of the word pornography as it is an issue of why people have insisted on putting that label on this particular movie. It appears to me that the public is generally uncomfortable accepting that such horrendous things happen to women on a daily basis, much less actually viewing the abuses themselves. So instead of critics exploring this dynamic, they paint negative pictures of the film to discourage people from seeing it. Regardless of your own understanding of what "pornography" implies, the term is being used to discourage people from seeing the movie with a sexual implication of some sort.

    I feel that this is precisely due to the abuse happening to a woman rather than a man, which is why I use the example of The Passion, which was shockingly well received.

    As I point out in my post, Soraya's gender led to her violent death and her gender now leads to the true story of her death being kept hidden.

    Neil my writing about our conversation was very much more about my experience than it was about you. I have often written about personal conversations on this blog and other places to demonstrate the reality of the issues and dilemmas we explore online. I appreciate you joining the conversation so much :)

  6. Bill says:
    September 30th, 2009 at 10:03 am

    Jesus died that all men could live. "Be in the world, not of it"

    It was "Moral Courage" itself. The violence was not just explicit and shocking. It was unceccessary for One to get the point.

    Now to influence others by jerking them into "THE WORLD" instead "NOT OF IT". The lessons of Christ, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammad, Gandhi is SELF CHANGE not MASS CHANGE.

    Group participation or MASS change ambition, with or without Kumbyha, is not the answer or solution. It is self right action which is totaly without VIOLENCE

  7. :: wife mom maniac :: says:
    November 1st, 2009 at 2:11 pm

    I have had to walk away from violence in movies if I relate to it too closely. For instance, I'm passionately against child circumcision, boys and girls. A brilliant documentary on traditional Jewish circumcision, http://www.cutthefilm.com/Cut_Website/The_Film.html shows one happening and while I can watch the documentary repeatedly, i have to leave the room and plug my ears when the infant cries because I have a baby boy and I relate to the baby's suffering too closely. I wouldn't relate so closely to a powerful man suffering, but I would to a woman's. Maybe this has something to do with why some people need to walk away from certain violent scenes, but not others.

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