Violent Artistic Expression

What constitutes “violence” and “art” is a subject of cultural construction, conversation, and even contention. Media researchers generally operationalize violence according to levels of aggression, defined as relational (such as defaming, bullying, or isolating—causing social harm), verbal (such as yelling, ridiculing, or threatening—causing psychological harm), and physical (such as hitting, stabbing, or shooting—causing bodily harm) behavior that may be provoked or unprovoked. Scholars such as Nancy Signorelli and George Gerbner have further limited their study of violence to include only overt speech or behavior that threatens or aims to hurt or kill. Definitions focus on action and intention but not aesthetics. This entry discusses how violence is portrayed in various forms of artistic expression and how new technologies have caused changes in violent artistic expression.

[Page 389]Society has broadly recognized art as the expression of creative skill and imagination that may take varied forms via multiple media. Specifically, though, individual interpretations instruct popular perceptions that legitimate some works as art while others remain ignored. Art forms that gain a critical mass of recognition resonate with some regard to aesthetic archetypes, cultural conventions, and human motivations.

Due to the subjective nature of what is violent and what is art, the collective concept of violent artistic expression seems fluid, shifting and evolving within contexts of both media content production and consumption. However discursive, it invites an intuitive impression that the content be somehow stylized, glamorized, fetishized, and aestheticized. Margaret Bruder (2003), in her work on the aestheticization of violence in film, argued that such media representations must be stylistically excessive, significant, and sustained; not only are the narrative acts relevant, but so are the elements of editing and cinematography. Ultimately effective and provocative, violent artistic expression is reflected in sometimes subtle yet often extreme imagery in music, television, film, gaming, and on the web.