Violent films are popular social rituals, and one of the most frequent topics of young adult conversation in and out of the classroom. Yet a central flaw of most discourse around the adolescent spectator of film horror and violence is limited by a fixation on issues of censorship or cause and effect. This paper presents results of an important study whose central aim is to inquire into the experiences of youth viewing film violence in order to enrich understanding of adolescent film spectatorship as it is currently conceived. Explored is a sample of 120 ethnically diverse, discursive interpretations about the experience of cinematic violence during focus group interviews and prose narrative responses to an elaborate questionnaire. Identified are young people’s reactions to cinematically constructed aggression and violence, events recalled from movies, reasons for rejecting violence, capacity to discriminate types of violence and justify some of them, degree of identification with aggressors and victims, and sensitivity to the aesthetic and ethical styles of portraying violence.
About the presenterAlison J Matika
Alison’s research focuses on audience studies and what we talk about when we talk about teaching English. She completed her BA in English Literature at the University of Pittsburg, her secondary teaching credential at the University of Texas at Austin, her MA at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English, and both her MPhil and PhD in English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.