Each challenged the sensibility of the times. But today's entertainment is completely different....today we have virtual reality.....when you see acts of bloodshed in a comic, in an old movie, or on TV in decades past....there was no real blood, everyone knew it was fake....but today when you can play a game and run people over with your car, or shoot them with a powerful weapon and see the carnage as virtual reality, something in the brain shuts down compassion. What does it take to shock us anymore?....and kids who have grown up with VR in their gaming don't seem to demonstrate any care or compassion for others any more
Actually, I contend this. Yes, special effects have greatly enhanced through the generations and advancements in techniques and technology. That said, in the makeup field, figures like Jack Pierce and even Lon Chaney Sr (aka the man of 1000 faces) are still renowned and seen as the gold standard yet to be topped. And this was during the 1910s until the 1940s. The makeup for the Wolfman is still more realistic than many productions today. What Lon Chaney accomplished with some putty and wire is enough to frighten children even to this day. (Though it must be said that the disfigured Phantom may have hit a little too close to home for many people at the time, considering the facial disfigurements many soldiers had when they returned from WWI.) Which is pretty impressive.
And every generation claims the younglings lack compassion and care for others. My grandfather said the same of my father, who grew up during the great depression. Over 70 years ago. Please forgive my eyeroll.
VR is new and still experimenting. But have you seen a lot of the early movies of the adolescence of film? Terrifying and experimental, even by today's standards. I remember being kept awake as a child by quite a few lol
Worth a look for anyone interested in cinema.
Since those primitive tendencies are the product of uneducated minds who just wanted to kill for the sake of a piece of land or their personal glory, and they would plunder and pillage and rape because their gods taught them nothing better.....shouldn't we expect more in this so called enlightened age? We are not barbarians are we?
We are, we no longer do those things and rely on fiction. By definition we have evolved.
Also The Roman Empire is something we still build upon even to this day, in terms of architecture, art and even philosophy. They didn't exactly sit around knitting all day. Very "pillagy" by today's standards.
Besides, the instincts will never leave us. They might be subdued, but they will never be gone. Be thankful there's an outlet that allows continued peace.
Why do humans hold such a fascination with violence? All entertainment does is cater to the appetites of the masses. What sort of appetite do they have now?....and why? Are we progressing or regressing in our morality?
We have remained fairly static, in all honesty. Probably a little softer, when taken into the context of human history.
You want to talk depraved? All right, ever hear of the Libertine movement? For god's sake, the most prominent member is the literal namesake for the word "sadism" in the English language!
They weren't some product of violent video games. They existed during the 1700s. Do tell me what were they playing? What were they listening to? What were they watching? Cinema, video games and rock 'n' roll wouldn't be invented for another 2 centuries.
I remember when a child read a book that contained some scary scenarios, that scene in the child's mind was modified according to that child's imagination. It was confined to something that could be limited by each child's imagination....each one reading that book had a different movie playing in their heads. But what do we have now? Nothing is left to imagination any more.....it is graphically portrayed in all its gory detail....how is that not damaging?
Lol, the imagination is considered the most visceral tool in Horror even to this day. That said, I needed no imagination when reading of the plagues sent down by God. I needed no imagination for the horrifying depiction of crucifixion. (Christ or otherwise.) Granted Mel Gibson went a little too far in his torture porn. Though the suspension of disbelief did crack when he went down that road. Because you''re aware that the blood and makeup is fake and over the top. But if you think showing everything is worse than imagining it, you have no idea the power of human imagination even has. If anything movie makers are weak in comparison.
Regardless of one's religious beliefs, the one thing remained a constant throughout the generations of the past was a concept of good and bad that was shared by the majority. That is the world I grew up in. Standards were set by society and deviation was seen as rebellion. Immorality existed but it was not promoted like it is now. Families were tight knit, and kids grew up with their full siblings and the same Mum and Dad. Today we don't see that. Everything it seems is broken.....and not fixable.
Meh, my father would disagree. He grew up in the horror that was the Great Depression. I doubt the high infant mortality rate and subsequent numbness that carried with it, made life all that rosy during the Victorian Era for people actually living in it. We adapt to what we're given, that's just how life is.
It used to be improper for a woman to speak out of turn. To speak against child marriage was to be in conflict with the times. To treat the mentally disabled with respect was once seen as ludicrous, since they belonged in the sideshows in olden times.
Screw the past values. They would have me chained to a kitchen, popping out babies that may or may not have died agonizing deaths in my hands. It would have me shun and hate my friends and family for being gay. It would have me spit at criminals and have me baying for their blood when ostensibly convicted for stealing a loaf of bread when starving. It would have me married at age 12-15 and giving birth at an age that would be dangerous given how puberty works in our species. It would have me be a delicate dumb flower ever reliant on violent men who could beat me within an inch of my life without anyone caring. Give me modernity, warts and all, any day.
Y'all need to crack open a history book, mate.
I don't really understand the "cry wolf" bit, but if you come from an era where a man was as good as his word....helping your neighbor was a given, and the small, simple things that families enjoyed did not need a bunch of money to facilitate....then you see where we are now.....if I didn't know what God was doing.....I wouldn't want to live on this earth. I hate what people have become and what the future will hold if man is left to his own devices much longer. The world is a beautiful place, but the people who rule it are not beautiful at all.
Cry wolf refers to honestly the most famous folklore tale ever conceived. The boy who cried wolf. Surely you encountered that as a kid? Come on, how did you get through preschool without hearing that tale?
I was basically pointing out that for the last 1000 years or so, people have been decrying the moral decay of society. Hell even Plato wrote about that, and he lived before Jesus! The corrupting influence of entertainment is something beaten to death and then some. From Shakespeare to Mozart to Leonardo Di Vinci, to Dante (for some reason.) And every single time, these very people reveal their own ignorance of anything remotely related to art.
You might be happy here, but this is not the world I was programmed for. I am an alien in this world.
I take what I can get. I'm very thankful for the lack of traditional child marriages, the medical treatment of the mentally ill, the condemnation of domestic abuse (which is a very recent phenomenon indeed) and indoor plumbing. But if you long for the days of old, the real days of old. Meh, each their own.