A pinch of snuff
August 15, 2006 8:02 PM Subscribe
Snuff films do not exist. Except in fiction. And YouTube. All fakes. But this guy will pay you $10,000 for a real one.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- travelingthyme
He's probably already done that, mervin.
If it's any comfort, he definately ain't got $10 000 to spend on snuff these days.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:29 PM on August 15, 2006
If it's any comfort, he definately ain't got $10 000 to spend on snuff these days.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:29 PM on August 15, 2006
Thanks, but I won't be clicking on those search strings. I don't think I want that showing up in my browser history. Or cache. Or IP logs.
posted by lekvar at 8:29 PM on August 15, 2006
posted by lekvar at 8:29 PM on August 15, 2006
let's just delete this one....
posted by HuronBob at 8:41 PM on August 15, 2006 [1 favorite]
posted by HuronBob at 8:41 PM on August 15, 2006 [1 favorite]
Snuff films do not exist.
LOL! Mortals are so naive. Its cute. Our touring snuff-film veterans are putting on Hamlet in the fall. Its going to be big. Like Menudo big.
posted by the ghost of Ken Lay at 8:48 PM on August 15, 2006
LOL! Mortals are so naive. Its cute. Our touring snuff-film veterans are putting on Hamlet in the fall. Its going to be big. Like Menudo big.
posted by the ghost of Ken Lay at 8:48 PM on August 15, 2006
I met Al Goldstein at a homeless shelter in Manhattan. He definitely doesn't have $10,000 to spare, but a fabulous documentary covers his Mr. Micawber-esque misery.
posted by Kirklander at 9:24 PM on August 15, 2006
posted by Kirklander at 9:24 PM on August 15, 2006
mervin_shnegwood : "the frightening thing to think about is that those who film snuff and/or watch it for sexual purposes would like to actually take part in it"
How do I parse this sentence? If snuff films don't exist, that means no-one watches them, and no-one films them. So it's frightening that people who don't exist would like to take part in snuff films?
In related news, the frightening thing to think about is that space zombies think my brains would taste better than my neighbor's.
posted by Bugbread at 10:04 PM on August 15, 2006
How do I parse this sentence? If snuff films don't exist, that means no-one watches them, and no-one films them. So it's frightening that people who don't exist would like to take part in snuff films?
In related news, the frightening thing to think about is that space zombies think my brains would taste better than my neighbor's.
posted by Bugbread at 10:04 PM on August 15, 2006
In related news, the frightening thing to think about is that space zombies think my brains would taste better than my neighbor's.
I tried to figure out a way that making a snuff film of your neighbor would help obviate this fear. But I couldn't.
posted by Brak at 10:30 PM on August 15, 2006
I tried to figure out a way that making a snuff film of your neighbor would help obviate this fear. But I couldn't.
posted by Brak at 10:30 PM on August 15, 2006
so they don't exist? why don't the al qaeda beheading videos count?
posted by matt_od at 10:58 PM on August 15, 2006
posted by matt_od at 10:58 PM on August 15, 2006
matt_od : "why don't the al qaeda beheading videos count?"
They aren't made to be entertainment.
posted by Bugbread at 11:35 PM on August 15, 2006
They aren't made to be entertainment.
A snuff film is a film that depicts the killing of a human being (without the aid of special effects or other trickery) perpetuated for the medium of film and circulated for the purpose of entertainment.Some people may find the beheading videos entertaining, but that's unrelated to whether something is or isn't snuff. By the same token, if someone commits and films a murder for entertainment purposes, but nobody is entertained, it's still a snuff film, because the killing, filming, and circulation were performed for the purpose of entertainment.
posted by Bugbread at 11:35 PM on August 15, 2006
fandango_matt : "There's plenty of snuff videos at ogrish.com."
There's plenty of videos of people dying/being killed which are being circulating for entertainment purposes. That's not the same as a snuff video. Snuff videos are videos of people killing other people on film for the purpose of entertaining others with that film. I've heard of videos of people dying in accidents, which obviously isn't snuff (it's accidental). I've heard of videos of people being killed on purpose for the purpose of inspiring fear in others (not snuff, as it's not for entertainment). I've heard of videos of suicide on video (not snuff, as it's not for entertainment). But I've never heard of a video, on ogrish or rotten or anywhere else, which consists of someone being killed on purpose with the express goal of filming it in order to entertain others.
posted by Bugbread at 11:40 PM on August 15, 2006
There's plenty of videos of people dying/being killed which are being circulating for entertainment purposes. That's not the same as a snuff video. Snuff videos are videos of people killing other people on film for the purpose of entertaining others with that film. I've heard of videos of people dying in accidents, which obviously isn't snuff (it's accidental). I've heard of videos of people being killed on purpose for the purpose of inspiring fear in others (not snuff, as it's not for entertainment). I've heard of videos of suicide on video (not snuff, as it's not for entertainment). But I've never heard of a video, on ogrish or rotten or anywhere else, which consists of someone being killed on purpose with the express goal of filming it in order to entertain others.
posted by Bugbread at 11:40 PM on August 15, 2006
Bugbread, I think the point made earlier was that even if people are only fake snuff films, that still means that someone is whacking off to images (pretend or otherwise) of someone dying.
Think of it this way: if an eighteen-year-old girl plays a thirteen-year-old in a porno, the guys who are whacking off to that porno are creepy. Maybe a notch or two less creepy than the ones who got their hands on *real* child porn, maybe not. It's debatable.
posted by ®@ at 11:53 PM on August 15, 2006
Think of it this way: if an eighteen-year-old girl plays a thirteen-year-old in a porno, the guys who are whacking off to that porno are creepy. Maybe a notch or two less creepy than the ones who got their hands on *real* child porn, maybe not. It's debatable.
posted by ®@ at 11:53 PM on August 15, 2006
I've stayed the hell out of theaters for over a decade now because I internalize their product as snuff.
Silence of the Lambs, for example, is snuff for the masses. Safe snuff, to be sure, but vicarious snuff nonetheless.
So--my definition of "Fake Snuff" pretty much includes all of popular filmmaking today. I have no interest in it.
posted by sourwookie at 12:30 AM on August 16, 2006
Silence of the Lambs, for example, is snuff for the masses. Safe snuff, to be sure, but vicarious snuff nonetheless.
So--my definition of "Fake Snuff" pretty much includes all of popular filmmaking today. I have no interest in it.
posted by sourwookie at 12:30 AM on August 16, 2006
®@ : "Bugbread, I think the point made earlier was that even if people are only fake snuff films, that still means that someone is whacking off to images (pretend or otherwise) of someone dying."
Right. My point was just that, as much as that sucks, it doesn't make it snuff. That isn't saying "so it's a good thing", just that it's a bad thing, which is like snuff, but isn't snuff.
fandango_matt : "I think you will have a hard time arguing videos such as this of soldiers killing Iraqis, or these photos were not recorded for purposes other than entertainment."
Someone, somewhere, gave a handy rule of thumb for separating snuff from other ogrish videos: "If the victim would be killed even if the camera ran out of film, it isn't snuff". I think the video and the photos (probably) fail that test.
I'm not saying for sure that no-one has ever made a snuff movie. So if someone said "There's a snuff movie deep in the ogrish archives", well, I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. But to say that there's "plenty" of it indicates either that there's been a massive change in the last several years, which, for some reason, is being completely ignored by the policing authorities of most countries, and, even stranger, almost everyone on the internet, or, more likely, that the person saying there's "plenty" of it is working with a slightly mistaken understanding of what constitutes snuff.
posted by Bugbread at 1:03 AM on August 16, 2006
Right. My point was just that, as much as that sucks, it doesn't make it snuff. That isn't saying "so it's a good thing", just that it's a bad thing, which is like snuff, but isn't snuff.
fandango_matt : "I think you will have a hard time arguing videos such as this of soldiers killing Iraqis, or these photos were not recorded for purposes other than entertainment."
Someone, somewhere, gave a handy rule of thumb for separating snuff from other ogrish videos: "If the victim would be killed even if the camera ran out of film, it isn't snuff". I think the video and the photos (probably) fail that test.
I'm not saying for sure that no-one has ever made a snuff movie. So if someone said "There's a snuff movie deep in the ogrish archives", well, I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. But to say that there's "plenty" of it indicates either that there's been a massive change in the last several years, which, for some reason, is being completely ignored by the policing authorities of most countries, and, even stranger, almost everyone on the internet, or, more likely, that the person saying there's "plenty" of it is working with a slightly mistaken understanding of what constitutes snuff.
posted by Bugbread at 1:03 AM on August 16, 2006
Actually, on reflection, I would buy that the Aegis video is snuff. The other one fails (probably) on the "wouldn't have killed if camera ran out of film" test, as well as the "filmed in order to distribute" test.
posted by Bugbread at 1:15 AM on August 16, 2006
posted by Bugbread at 1:15 AM on August 16, 2006
So if the extreme is jerking off to a movie of someone dying, then is the opposite extreme jerking off to a movie of a woman giving birth? If the first makes you a sick pervert, then does the latter make you a saint?
posted by nlindstrom at 2:13 AM on August 16, 2006
posted by nlindstrom at 2:13 AM on August 16, 2006
fandango_matt : "whether the videos and the motives for their creation can be construed as entertainment is, to say the least, subjective"
In what way? It seems pretty clear that they are intended to both rally together supporters and scare opponents, and not as entertainment. I mean, to some degree, sure, I am not the people who made it, so I can't really know if they meant it to be entertainment or not, but by the same token, I'm not you, so I can't really tell if you believe there is a lot of snuff, or if you're just being sarcastic.
posted by Bugbread at 3:16 AM on August 16, 2006
In what way? It seems pretty clear that they are intended to both rally together supporters and scare opponents, and not as entertainment. I mean, to some degree, sure, I am not the people who made it, so I can't really know if they meant it to be entertainment or not, but by the same token, I'm not you, so I can't really tell if you believe there is a lot of snuff, or if you're just being sarcastic.
posted by Bugbread at 3:16 AM on August 16, 2006
Actually, never mind, put that all on hold; there seems to be some disagreement between my definition (which is pretty close to, for example, Wikipedia's) and that of Snopes (which I consider pretty durn reliable). According to the Snopes definition, any murder filmed by the murderer (or with the murderer's permission) qualifies as a snuff film, in which case the beheadings, military contractor pot-shots, and the like all qualify as snuff films. So I'm going to have to look a bit more into definitions to see which is more accurate.
posted by Bugbread at 3:35 AM on August 16, 2006
posted by Bugbread at 3:35 AM on August 16, 2006
Here's something to wrap your brains around:
The week of 9.11.2001, when all television turned into a place where there were no commercials, no regular programming, nothing but the footage of planes slamming into buildings, the footage that most people couldn't stop watching, there's your experiment in what happens when a large percentage of the US population watches snuff videos nonstop for a few days. My buddy had one of those old-style, large satellite dishes, and when I went over his place on the afternoon of 9.11, he was watching a Mexican feed of footage of the people jumping from the buildings, the stuff that thankfully didn't get on most of the US channels. He was staring at this stuff along with his wife and two children. I walked into the house, saw this, and switched the channel to a domestic station. The four of them looked at me, and all burst into tears. They were mezmerized by the falling bodies, and my switching it away forced them to come back to "reality".
That week we crossed a barrier that we can't go back behind, snuff television changed the American psyche in ways we still don't understand. A half-naked nipple caused a monster stir, but parading graphic images of dead, bloated terrorists on primetime TV is somehow OK by the FCC. What a fucking mess.
posted by dbiedny at 3:47 AM on August 16, 2006 [1 favorite]
The week of 9.11.2001, when all television turned into a place where there were no commercials, no regular programming, nothing but the footage of planes slamming into buildings, the footage that most people couldn't stop watching, there's your experiment in what happens when a large percentage of the US population watches snuff videos nonstop for a few days. My buddy had one of those old-style, large satellite dishes, and when I went over his place on the afternoon of 9.11, he was watching a Mexican feed of footage of the people jumping from the buildings, the stuff that thankfully didn't get on most of the US channels. He was staring at this stuff along with his wife and two children. I walked into the house, saw this, and switched the channel to a domestic station. The four of them looked at me, and all burst into tears. They were mezmerized by the falling bodies, and my switching it away forced them to come back to "reality".
That week we crossed a barrier that we can't go back behind, snuff television changed the American psyche in ways we still don't understand. A half-naked nipple caused a monster stir, but parading graphic images of dead, bloated terrorists on primetime TV is somehow OK by the FCC. What a fucking mess.
posted by dbiedny at 3:47 AM on August 16, 2006 [1 favorite]
Snuff films do not exist.
I've always operated under the assumption that, if you can imagine the act, no matter how depraved or evil, there is probably some form of underground feeding the need to those who are excited in some way by those acts.
The human experience is so dense and varied in its needs and motivations for this not to be. Throw in the profit motive and it just makes sense that some sort of "industry" exists to accomodate the darker corners of life.
So, do I believe that somewhere on this planet, people are being killed for the entertainment (and profit) of others? And these killings might be filmed/taped for possible distribution to willing, paying individuals?
You bet.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:35 AM on August 16, 2006
I've always operated under the assumption that, if you can imagine the act, no matter how depraved or evil, there is probably some form of underground feeding the need to those who are excited in some way by those acts.
The human experience is so dense and varied in its needs and motivations for this not to be. Throw in the profit motive and it just makes sense that some sort of "industry" exists to accomodate the darker corners of life.
So, do I believe that somewhere on this planet, people are being killed for the entertainment (and profit) of others? And these killings might be filmed/taped for possible distribution to willing, paying individuals?
You bet.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:35 AM on August 16, 2006
Blood and dismemberment and death has always been acceptable material for American television.
I'd say blood and dismemberment and death has always been acceptable material for entertainment full stop.
Gladiators, public executions, theatre, cinema and now television. The desire remains, only the media changes.
posted by twistedonion at 4:42 AM on August 16, 2006
I'd say blood and dismemberment and death has always been acceptable material for entertainment full stop.
Gladiators, public executions, theatre, cinema and now television. The desire remains, only the media changes.
posted by twistedonion at 4:42 AM on August 16, 2006
So if the extreme is jerking off to a movie of someone dying, then is the opposite extreme jerking off to a movie of a woman giving birth? If the first makes you a sick pervert, then does the latter make you a saint?Yes, but failure to finish before the head crowns makes you a pedophile.
posted by Freon at 5:14 AM on August 16, 2006
fandango_matt : "I do agree the videos were undoubtedly made to rally supporters and frighten opponents, and in the case of the former, I'm at a loss to call that anything other than entertainment since the videos in question were created by and for people who want to see it, and who want to present it to others who want to see it."
Setting aside the definition of snuff film, I disagree that creating something for someone who wants to see it is thus necessarily entertainment. I bought a book to study for my CCNA a few years ago. That book was written for people who want to see it, but a CCNA textbook is not entertainment. The activists who give impassioned speeches outside the train station to rapt audiences are also saying things that others want to hear, but I don't think they're talking about their disagreements with the government for entertainment purposes.
fandango_matt : "Blood and dismemberment and death has always been acceptable material for American television."
Really? Simulated, yes, but real blood, dismemberment, and death was, while I lived in the US (until 1996) something I mainly associated with Mexican newspapers and other overseas news. I remember seeing photos of victims of bank robberies, blood dripping into gutters, and thinking "Holy fuck, there's no way that would be allowed in the US". However, as I say, this was up to 1996, and I don't know past that. Did things change a lot in the half-decade before 9/11, or did 9/11 change things?
posted by Bugbread at 5:45 AM on August 16, 2006
Setting aside the definition of snuff film, I disagree that creating something for someone who wants to see it is thus necessarily entertainment. I bought a book to study for my CCNA a few years ago. That book was written for people who want to see it, but a CCNA textbook is not entertainment. The activists who give impassioned speeches outside the train station to rapt audiences are also saying things that others want to hear, but I don't think they're talking about their disagreements with the government for entertainment purposes.
fandango_matt : "Blood and dismemberment and death has always been acceptable material for American television."
Really? Simulated, yes, but real blood, dismemberment, and death was, while I lived in the US (until 1996) something I mainly associated with Mexican newspapers and other overseas news. I remember seeing photos of victims of bank robberies, blood dripping into gutters, and thinking "Holy fuck, there's no way that would be allowed in the US". However, as I say, this was up to 1996, and I don't know past that. Did things change a lot in the half-decade before 9/11, or did 9/11 change things?
posted by Bugbread at 5:45 AM on August 16, 2006
Leonard Lake & Charles Ng , Paul Bernardo & Karla Homolka are a few makers of snuff films. Their film collection are locked away somewhere as evidence. But yeah, their films were totally for entertainment of a sick variety. There is no denying that.
posted by JJ86 at 5:51 AM on August 16, 2006
posted by JJ86 at 5:51 AM on August 16, 2006
JJ86 : "Leonard Lake & Charles Ng , Paul Bernardo & Karla Homolka are a few makers of snuff films."
According to Wikipedia, Lake & Ng and Bernardo & Homolka filmed some of their crimes against their victims, but not the actual murders themselves, so in those cases, there's torture video, but no snuff. (Note: this is not meant as a counterargument against the existence of snuff in general, just being a stickler for accuracy).
posted by Bugbread at 6:29 AM on August 16, 2006
According to Wikipedia, Lake & Ng and Bernardo & Homolka filmed some of their crimes against their victims, but not the actual murders themselves, so in those cases, there's torture video, but no snuff. (Note: this is not meant as a counterargument against the existence of snuff in general, just being a stickler for accuracy).
posted by Bugbread at 6:29 AM on August 16, 2006
bugbread, that is true only if we assume that Wikipedia is the ultimate source of accuracy. I've heard the opposite said of the videos from news articles. I'm just saying...
posted by JJ86 at 7:01 AM on August 16, 2006
posted by JJ86 at 7:01 AM on August 16, 2006
JJ86,
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Wikipedia was more correct than other news sources. I was working under the assumption that you had selected those cases due to the very frequent "murderers filmed their crimes" phrasing used in the media, which implies that the crimes which were filmed were murder, but which were actually other related crimes. That apparently wasn't the case, so I apologize. Do you have any links to those other news articles? (Not a challenge: I can understand if you don't)
posted by Bugbread at 7:23 AM on August 16, 2006
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Wikipedia was more correct than other news sources. I was working under the assumption that you had selected those cases due to the very frequent "murderers filmed their crimes" phrasing used in the media, which implies that the crimes which were filmed were murder, but which were actually other related crimes. That apparently wasn't the case, so I apologize. Do you have any links to those other news articles? (Not a challenge: I can understand if you don't)
posted by Bugbread at 7:23 AM on August 16, 2006
I can't recall what happened to the footage shot by Ng & Lake, but Bernardo's footage has been destroyed apparently (though of course one hears rumours to the contrary, at least in Southern Ontario, where many a "friend of a friend" has supposedly seen it, if not actually in possession of a copy themselves). It is perhaps worthy of note that neither set of videos actually contains a murder.
I would have to agree with Thorzdad - a market for snuff must surely exist by now, if only by virtue of so many people talking about it for so long now. Not to mention the lure of the forbidden, and the present ready access to digital photography/video. Having said that, snuff does remain elusive - in 1997, Yaron Svoray came out with a book called "Gods of Death" in which he attempted to obtain a snuff film in order to prove their existence (he says he gets one, but it's later stolen, in case you're interested).
Not mentioned so far in this thread has been the recent crop of American 'psuedo-snuff' films, like "August Underground" or "Mordum", inspired in large part by Hideshi Hino's ground-breaking "Guinea Pig" series from Japan (this was the stuff Charlie Sheen called the FBI about, thinking it was real snuff). These are films that are supposed to look like snuff videos : often the camerawork is shakey and handheld, the actors will give direct address, a lack of onscreen creditation, and so on. In some ways, these films are worse than the real thing because the only limit becomes one's imagination, and the only yardstick for appeal becomes "how gross is it?"
Let's face it, the ante is just going to go up and up and up - that's the thing about getting addicted to shock. We're hungry for some real death after pretty much earsing it from our own lives. It's not difficult to extrapolate mainstream snuff in the near-future from current tastes ("Saw", "Fear Factor" and "Hostel" being three easy examples).
As far as footage anyone might obtain that fits the criteria laid out in this thread, the main thing that comes to mind is a brief scene in the documentary "Africa Addio", wherein a man is shot and killed on camera. This scene was supposedly set up by the directors (Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi), and would therefore qualify as death for entertainment. In fact, charges were brought against Jacopetti & Prosperi, but they were eventually exonerated. The debate around the morality of such films continues; the film is now available as part of a DVD set.
I would argue that, far from real snuff being something one would find going on in backrooms of California hotelrooms (as suggested by mainstream films like "Hardcore"), one is actually most likely to find snuff in war-torn areas, and in countries where atrocity and lawlessness is commonplace. The reasons why are obvious - if people are being killed en masse somewhere, the death of one person, however torturous or grotesque, means little. So the kind of people who might enjoy watching "snuff" are probably quite happy seeing censored news footage and propaganda videos from Ogrish, et al. YMMV.
/watches mainly Thomas The Tank Engine videos nowadays, don't worry
posted by stinkycheese at 7:45 AM on August 16, 2006
I would have to agree with Thorzdad - a market for snuff must surely exist by now, if only by virtue of so many people talking about it for so long now. Not to mention the lure of the forbidden, and the present ready access to digital photography/video. Having said that, snuff does remain elusive - in 1997, Yaron Svoray came out with a book called "Gods of Death" in which he attempted to obtain a snuff film in order to prove their existence (he says he gets one, but it's later stolen, in case you're interested).
Not mentioned so far in this thread has been the recent crop of American 'psuedo-snuff' films, like "August Underground" or "Mordum", inspired in large part by Hideshi Hino's ground-breaking "Guinea Pig" series from Japan (this was the stuff Charlie Sheen called the FBI about, thinking it was real snuff). These are films that are supposed to look like snuff videos : often the camerawork is shakey and handheld, the actors will give direct address, a lack of onscreen creditation, and so on. In some ways, these films are worse than the real thing because the only limit becomes one's imagination, and the only yardstick for appeal becomes "how gross is it?"
Let's face it, the ante is just going to go up and up and up - that's the thing about getting addicted to shock. We're hungry for some real death after pretty much earsing it from our own lives. It's not difficult to extrapolate mainstream snuff in the near-future from current tastes ("Saw", "Fear Factor" and "Hostel" being three easy examples).
As far as footage anyone might obtain that fits the criteria laid out in this thread, the main thing that comes to mind is a brief scene in the documentary "Africa Addio", wherein a man is shot and killed on camera. This scene was supposedly set up by the directors (Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi), and would therefore qualify as death for entertainment. In fact, charges were brought against Jacopetti & Prosperi, but they were eventually exonerated. The debate around the morality of such films continues; the film is now available as part of a DVD set.
I would argue that, far from real snuff being something one would find going on in backrooms of California hotelrooms (as suggested by mainstream films like "Hardcore"), one is actually most likely to find snuff in war-torn areas, and in countries where atrocity and lawlessness is commonplace. The reasons why are obvious - if people are being killed en masse somewhere, the death of one person, however torturous or grotesque, means little. So the kind of people who might enjoy watching "snuff" are probably quite happy seeing censored news footage and propaganda videos from Ogrish, et al. YMMV.
/watches mainly Thomas The Tank Engine videos nowadays, don't worry
posted by stinkycheese at 7:45 AM on August 16, 2006
A few nights back I was flipping channels during prime time and caught a glimpse of one character in a crime show holding a gun to another person's face (this one of the "big four" US TV channels -- don't remember which one). If we're showing graphically depicted threats of lethal violence to entertain people and sell cars, beer and fast food, I'm past caring whether snuff films are real -- the battle for humanity vs. commercialism is already over, and I can't be arsed about a bared nipple during a Super Bowl halftime other than to make jokes about the hypocrisy of the fallout. I'll stick to old movies and Teletubbies.
posted by pax digita at 8:06 AM on August 16, 2006
posted by pax digita at 8:06 AM on August 16, 2006
Blood and dismemberment and death has always been acceptable material for American television. - fandango_matt
Really? Simulated, yes, but real blood, dismemberment, and death was, while I lived in the US (until 1996) something I mainly associated with Mexican newspapers and other overseas news. [...] Did things change a lot in the half-decade before 9/11, or did 9/11 change things? - bugbread
It hasn't changed, bugbread. There's still graphic violence on fictional shows all.the.time but the news about the wars the USofA is fighting don't include any footage of suffering at all. Maybe some clips of grainy black and white video shot from bombers and/or missiles before they hit their target. But more often the coverage is of Condoleeza Rice or George Bush at some photo op with a foreign leader or of the White House press secretary in front of that blue curtain holding a press conference. Totally totally sanitized.
I find this disconnect very odd. On the one hand, imagined violence depicted graphically is okay, but showing real violence is avoided.
posted by raedyn at 8:24 AM on August 16, 2006
Really? Simulated, yes, but real blood, dismemberment, and death was, while I lived in the US (until 1996) something I mainly associated with Mexican newspapers and other overseas news. [...] Did things change a lot in the half-decade before 9/11, or did 9/11 change things? - bugbread
It hasn't changed, bugbread. There's still graphic violence on fictional shows all.the.time but the news about the wars the USofA is fighting don't include any footage of suffering at all. Maybe some clips of grainy black and white video shot from bombers and/or missiles before they hit their target. But more often the coverage is of Condoleeza Rice or George Bush at some photo op with a foreign leader or of the White House press secretary in front of that blue curtain holding a press conference. Totally totally sanitized.
I find this disconnect very odd. On the one hand, imagined violence depicted graphically is okay, but showing real violence is avoided.
posted by raedyn at 8:24 AM on August 16, 2006
...one is actually most likely to find snuff in war-torn areas, and in countries where atrocity and lawlessness is commonplace...
I would add to that list anyplace where economic disparities are such that many, many people are brought to eke out a living doing whatever they can, no matter how degrading or vile. For women, this generally means a huge trade in sex and prostitution. In some ways, one could see snuff films as the the lowest possible rung on the ladder of prostitution.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:39 AM on August 16, 2006
I would add to that list anyplace where economic disparities are such that many, many people are brought to eke out a living doing whatever they can, no matter how degrading or vile. For women, this generally means a huge trade in sex and prostitution. In some ways, one could see snuff films as the the lowest possible rung on the ladder of prostitution.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:39 AM on August 16, 2006
I can't believe nobody has mentioned the most successful snuff film of all, The Passion Of Christ. Take your kids, it's fun for the whole family.
posted by Mr_Zero at 8:40 AM on August 16, 2006
posted by Mr_Zero at 8:40 AM on August 16, 2006
My Dad was a ccop for 30 years, busted up a snuff film ring once... they're for real.
posted by jacob hauser at 9:08 AM on August 16, 2006
posted by jacob hauser at 9:08 AM on August 16, 2006
If we extends snuff to include killing of animals, then vitually every Mondo film is guilty, and Pink Flamingos, and Cannibal Holocaust. It ain't easy to see a human being murdered for the sake of the camera, but animals are another matter.
posted by Sailor Martin at 9:08 AM on August 16, 2006
posted by Sailor Martin at 9:08 AM on August 16, 2006
"So, do I believe that somewhere on this planet, people are being killed for the entertainment (and profit) of others? And these killings might be filmed/taped for possible distribution to willing, paying individuals?
You bet."
Uh-huh. People commonly believe a lot of things that aren't true because it just makes sense to them. But what we know is that according to people who have researched this repeatedly, no law enforcement agency has ever busted people on a movie set making a snuff film. Evaluate that statistic against how common snuff were widely thought to be only as recently as the eighties. People don't talk about them much anymore, and there's certainly not as many fictional treatments of the subject as there used to be. But I can recall when a lot of people and much of the media believed that there was a thriving underground of snuff films in the US.
This is comparable to satanic ritual murder. I know that at least as recently as 1991, when I attended a briefing by a US law enforcement agency representative on the subject, that the FBI and no other US law enforcement had ever caught any group in the act of a satanic ritual killing nor had any serious prosecution of such a cime been attempted. Again, if you go back to how people were talking in 80s, supposedly there were organized groups practicing ritual human sacrifices all over the US and around the world. In small towns and large cities, there were baby sacrifices and such said to be occuring every week.
And given your view of things, that the world is a big place and there's a lot of truly crazy people out there, then isn't actually surprising in that context that no undisputed snuff film has ever come to light, or other hard evidence of the trade, or likewise hard proof of a group of crazy people chanting "Satan" and regularly killing people with knives and burning incense? You'd think somewhere there'd have been a few crazy teenagers who actually believed this stuff and did it enough to get caught at it. But, apparently, not so.
Anyway, the issue here really isn't about whether a bonafide snuff film has ever been made or a true-believer group of Satanists has ever met once a month to kill virgin blondes. It's not even that these things might be going on now and then on a small scale. What's it about is people's willingness to believe outlandish things ("there's a store downtown where if you say the right password, you'll be led back to a room filled with snuff films for sale" or "at schools throughout the US there are teenagers who secretely worship Satan, recruit others, and practice ritual sacrifice, desecration of Churches, and ritual sexual abuse") because even though they have little evidence for these beliefs, these beliefs satisfy them in some self-validating fasion.
This is why people believe urban legends which are false, and it's why such urban folklore follows some well-known, well-understood patterns (like emphasizing how crazy, dangerous, and unpredictable those non-white teenagers in old cars can be, or how sexual infidelity will eventually result on one's deserved, and often hillarious, punishment).
This is why people can look at each other and the rest of the natural world and conclude that we're God's Special Creations. Or that liberals are stupid and conservatives are smart. Or that conservatives stupid and liberals are smart.
People believe these things with very little evidence, or no evidence, or even in spite of contrary evidence, because at some level it feels good to believe these things. They're comfortable.
On Preview: Ha! "My Dad was a ccop for 30 years, busted up a snuff film ring once... they're for real." I'd very much like to see facts to back this up. What was the evidence? Were there any films as evidence? Did it go to trial?
Just as is so often the case with urban legends, almost everything is second-hand, like in your case with your father, and when people actually go to check, that original source also turns out to be second-hand, and so forth. And then there's exageration. Given what numerous reliable sources have found when actually researching snuff films, it's almost certain that this kind of thing is what's going on with your dad's story.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:43 AM on August 16, 2006 [2 favorites]
You bet."
Uh-huh. People commonly believe a lot of things that aren't true because it just makes sense to them. But what we know is that according to people who have researched this repeatedly, no law enforcement agency has ever busted people on a movie set making a snuff film. Evaluate that statistic against how common snuff were widely thought to be only as recently as the eighties. People don't talk about them much anymore, and there's certainly not as many fictional treatments of the subject as there used to be. But I can recall when a lot of people and much of the media believed that there was a thriving underground of snuff films in the US.
This is comparable to satanic ritual murder. I know that at least as recently as 1991, when I attended a briefing by a US law enforcement agency representative on the subject, that the FBI and no other US law enforcement had ever caught any group in the act of a satanic ritual killing nor had any serious prosecution of such a cime been attempted. Again, if you go back to how people were talking in 80s, supposedly there were organized groups practicing ritual human sacrifices all over the US and around the world. In small towns and large cities, there were baby sacrifices and such said to be occuring every week.
And given your view of things, that the world is a big place and there's a lot of truly crazy people out there, then isn't actually surprising in that context that no undisputed snuff film has ever come to light, or other hard evidence of the trade, or likewise hard proof of a group of crazy people chanting "Satan" and regularly killing people with knives and burning incense? You'd think somewhere there'd have been a few crazy teenagers who actually believed this stuff and did it enough to get caught at it. But, apparently, not so.
Anyway, the issue here really isn't about whether a bonafide snuff film has ever been made or a true-believer group of Satanists has ever met once a month to kill virgin blondes. It's not even that these things might be going on now and then on a small scale. What's it about is people's willingness to believe outlandish things ("there's a store downtown where if you say the right password, you'll be led back to a room filled with snuff films for sale" or "at schools throughout the US there are teenagers who secretely worship Satan, recruit others, and practice ritual sacrifice, desecration of Churches, and ritual sexual abuse") because even though they have little evidence for these beliefs, these beliefs satisfy them in some self-validating fasion.
This is why people believe urban legends which are false, and it's why such urban folklore follows some well-known, well-understood patterns (like emphasizing how crazy, dangerous, and unpredictable those non-white teenagers in old cars can be, or how sexual infidelity will eventually result on one's deserved, and often hillarious, punishment).
This is why people can look at each other and the rest of the natural world and conclude that we're God's Special Creations. Or that liberals are stupid and conservatives are smart. Or that conservatives stupid and liberals are smart.
People believe these things with very little evidence, or no evidence, or even in spite of contrary evidence, because at some level it feels good to believe these things. They're comfortable.
On Preview: Ha! "My Dad was a ccop for 30 years, busted up a snuff film ring once... they're for real." I'd very much like to see facts to back this up. What was the evidence? Were there any films as evidence? Did it go to trial?
Just as is so often the case with urban legends, almost everything is second-hand, like in your case with your father, and when people actually go to check, that original source also turns out to be second-hand, and so forth. And then there's exageration. Given what numerous reliable sources have found when actually researching snuff films, it's almost certain that this kind of thing is what's going on with your dad's story.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:43 AM on August 16, 2006 [2 favorites]
You can make a pretty convincing-looking snuff film without actually killing anybody, so why bother actually killing anybody? All it takes is some reasonably competent acting and special effects.
People believing things without evidence, i.e., faith trumping rationality, intersects rather well with the idea of snuff films at The Passion of the Christ, doesn't it?
posted by pax digita at 9:55 AM on August 16, 2006
People believing things without evidence, i.e., faith trumping rationality, intersects rather well with the idea of snuff films at The Passion of the Christ, doesn't it?
posted by pax digita at 9:55 AM on August 16, 2006
I'll put forth an argument from a slightly different angle, namely that snuff, to coin a phrase, is in the eye of the beholder. We know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there are people who enjoy watching footage of other people dying violently. If these people did not exist, there would be no audience for phenomena like ogrish.com and the Faces of Death videos. Now, do you really think that it matters to people in this group how such footage is obtained, whether it be staged or accidental, or for propaganda or entertainment? I doubt it. I'll argue that a death filmed is a death filmed, and it only becomes "snuff" once someone chooses to watch it for entertainment.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:23 AM on August 16, 2006
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:23 AM on August 16, 2006
That's a good argument and it's right in its own way. But surely we can see the difference between a staged snuff film and a real one? The latter is actually killing a living, breathing human being specifically for that purpose (the point being, without that purpose, the person wouldn't have been killed). As similar as we can see the immorality of the viewer who knows a real snuff film is real and the viewer who thinks and fake snuff film is real, there still is that actual difference of a person being killed. And I think that counts for a lot. I mean, at the very least look at it from the opposite perspective and see that calling the difference irrelevant is not so far away from calling that human life irrelevant.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:29 AM on August 16, 2006
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:29 AM on August 16, 2006
mervin_shnegwood: ...the frightening thing to think about is that those who film snuff and/or watch it for sexual purposes would like to actually take part in it.
In the universe where I live, there are plenty of genuinely scary people who are actually committing violent acts. I feel little need to waste energy worrying about what some unknown number of hypothetical snuff-film fans might wish to do.
Entertainment in general and pornography in particular have always been about fantasy, anyway. It may seem to you like common sense that a person who enjoys watching a particular fantasy also wants to experience it personally, but I think you'll find very actual evidence to back it up.
In fact, you may find evidence very much to the contrary. Rape, for example, is a fairly common theme in a certain class of thinly-disguised pornography targeted at a female audience - the romance novel. I think you'll find that quite a lot of women read such stuff, but just about none of them have any desire to actually be raped. And for that matter, I doubt most pizza-delivery boys would respond positively to a customer's proposition-from-nowhere.
Where does this sort of worrying-about-fantasies end? Popular movies and TV shows often depict the heroes as unstoppable killing machines. Does that imply that the viewers also wish to mow down dozens of people every week?
posted by Western Infidels at 10:33 AM on August 16, 2006 [1 favorite]
In the universe where I live, there are plenty of genuinely scary people who are actually committing violent acts. I feel little need to waste energy worrying about what some unknown number of hypothetical snuff-film fans might wish to do.
Entertainment in general and pornography in particular have always been about fantasy, anyway. It may seem to you like common sense that a person who enjoys watching a particular fantasy also wants to experience it personally, but I think you'll find very actual evidence to back it up.
In fact, you may find evidence very much to the contrary. Rape, for example, is a fairly common theme in a certain class of thinly-disguised pornography targeted at a female audience - the romance novel. I think you'll find that quite a lot of women read such stuff, but just about none of them have any desire to actually be raped. And for that matter, I doubt most pizza-delivery boys would respond positively to a customer's proposition-from-nowhere.
Where does this sort of worrying-about-fantasies end? Popular movies and TV shows often depict the heroes as unstoppable killing machines. Does that imply that the viewers also wish to mow down dozens of people every week?
posted by Western Infidels at 10:33 AM on August 16, 2006 [1 favorite]
The difference between a person killed on film, and a person killed for film (in which case presumably the murder would not take place were the camera not running) is that, in the later case, anyone watching said film is arguably culpable.
This is the special tweak one would presumably get from a "true snuff" that one would not get from atrocity news footage - the idea that you, the viewer, had a part in all this. You were involved, albeit peripherally. The person died and the proof is in your VCR (or DVD player or whatever). Rewind and slo-mo at will, their life and death is now yours to savour again and again and again.
posted by stinkycheese at 11:03 AM on August 16, 2006 [1 favorite]
This is the special tweak one would presumably get from a "true snuff" that one would not get from atrocity news footage - the idea that you, the viewer, had a part in all this. You were involved, albeit peripherally. The person died and the proof is in your VCR (or DVD player or whatever). Rewind and slo-mo at will, their life and death is now yours to savour again and again and again.
posted by stinkycheese at 11:03 AM on August 16, 2006 [1 favorite]
stinkycheese: for some reason, you have utterly utterly creeped me out. I'm going to sleep with the lights on I think.
posted by aramaic at 4:06 PM on August 16, 2006
posted by aramaic at 4:06 PM on August 16, 2006
Entertainment in general and pornography in particular have always been about fantasy, anyway. It may seem to you like common sense that a person who enjoys watching a particular fantasy also wants to experience it personally, but I think you'll find very actual evidence to back it up.
This is true. As much as I enjoy porn, I have no desire to actually experience sex.
posted by Sailor Martin at 4:33 PM on August 16, 2006
This is true. As much as I enjoy porn, I have no desire to actually experience sex.
posted by Sailor Martin at 4:33 PM on August 16, 2006
Mr_Zero writes "I can't believe nobody has mentioned the most successful snuff film of all, The Passion Of Christ. Take your kids, it's fun for the whole family."
James Caviezel is dead?
Faint of Butt writes "I'll put forth an argument from a slightly different angle, namely that snuff, to coin a phrase, is in the eye of the beholder...do you really think that it matters to people in this group how such footage is obtained, whether it be staged or accidental, or for propaganda or entertainment?"
No, I don't think it matters much to them, but as unclear on the definition of snuff as I might be, whether viewers care or not is not part of the definition. By that token, my grandma probably doesn't care about the difference between marijuana and PCP, but it would not be correct to therefore say that Bill Clinton admitted using PCP.
posted by Bugbread at 6:53 PM on August 16, 2006
James Caviezel is dead?
Faint of Butt writes "I'll put forth an argument from a slightly different angle, namely that snuff, to coin a phrase, is in the eye of the beholder...do you really think that it matters to people in this group how such footage is obtained, whether it be staged or accidental, or for propaganda or entertainment?"
No, I don't think it matters much to them, but as unclear on the definition of snuff as I might be, whether viewers care or not is not part of the definition. By that token, my grandma probably doesn't care about the difference between marijuana and PCP, but it would not be correct to therefore say that Bill Clinton admitted using PCP.
posted by Bugbread at 6:53 PM on August 16, 2006
I'd be happy to blow a hole in Al Goldstein on film....but just for art's sake.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:22 AM on August 17, 2006
posted by Smedleyman at 12:22 AM on August 17, 2006
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