2013/01/01 by Will Gartside · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Crime, Deviance, and Social Control #Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology #Law in Society and Culture #Torture #Rhetoric #Criminology #Thematic analysis #Sociology #Law #Media studies #Psychology #Psychoanalysis #Art #Political science #Human rights #Social science #Philosophy #Qualitative research #Theology
paper · doi:10.3167/proj.2013.070107
openalex publication_date 2013/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/07
Torture porn's crowning achievements, as identified by Gregory A. Burris (2010), are the Saw and Hostel series. He argues that the Saw series represents a puritanical mind-set running amok, while the Hostel movies reflect a culture struggling to come to terms with the horrors of Abu Ghraib. This article challenges this position. It identifies thematic patterns within the Saw and Hostel films to demonstrate how the images of violence on display throughout both series tend to reinforce, rather than subvert, the popularly held belief that the Abu Ghraib scandal represented mere abuse, as opposed to torture. The article shows how these films trivialize and rationalize torture and the roles that sex and gender play in this process.