Blood Splats and Bodily Collapse: Reported Realism and the Perception of Violence in Combat Films and Video Games

Abstract

A clear definition of realism is understandably difficult for critics and theorists to agree upon when applied to texts such as the war film or combat shooter, which can have a very direct connection to events that have actually taken place. This article uses textual observation and analysis to advance the concept of "reported realism" as an alternate analytical tool to account for the impression of truth and authenticity produced by specific stylistic components of these representations of combat violence. Drawing on cognitivist theories of meaning and the imagination (Torben Grodal, Stephen Prince) and neoformalist film studies (Kristin Thompson) this article points toward some of the significant developments in the evolution of violence in war films as well as the adjacent genre of the first-person shooter video game. The article shows that the intensified audiovisual detail in contemporary screen representations of war enable film viewers and game players to construct more vividly imagined mental simulations, thus offering a greater affective realism.

Fright, attention, and joy while killing zombies in Virtual Reality: A psychophysiological analysis of VR user experience

“…The audio of each scenario differed significantly: The Horde Mode featured suspenseful music, as well as multiple zombies, growls as the player become increasingly surrounded, while the Abandoned Mine had fewer zombie sounds but each growl was regarded by the researchers' initial analysis as significantly creepier because of the lack of music and very specific spatial placement of the zombie sounds within the scene. This analysis of audio‐visual esthetics followed previous theoretical and critical work in screen media (e.g., Bender, 2013; 2014; Prince, 2003). Participants' self‐reported immersion in each gameplay mode validated the theoretical construct of immersion varying due to these factors, as outline below.…”

“…Indeed, this sense of immersion and realism may have little to do with what is actually realistic and can be an effect of the level of nuanced detail and audio‐visual saturation in the film, game, or VR experience (Bender, 2013). For example, as the details of a game—such as photorealistic graphics, motion‐captured animations of characters, layered and texture sound design—the audiovisual construction becomes more textured and “the player's imagination is able to run an increasingly vivid mental simulation of the game world” (Bender, 2014, p. 15). VR, with its insistence on realism and a sense of “being there” (Fencott, n.d.) seems to be a prime medium to consider the impact of audiovisual details and immersion.…”

“She's Built Like a Tank”: Player Reaction to Abby Anderson in The Last of Us: Part II

“…For example, in real life, human vision and combat footage does not shake, but this technique is used in films and games provide a sense of ‘combat reality’ (Bender, 2014, p. 28). Bender continues (2014: p. 13) that “the details simply need to appeal to the audience’s expectations of reality” which are “dependent on the viewer’s world experience as well as experience with other texts”.…”

“…Yet for some players certain representations of reality, however inauthentic, are understood to communicate realism. Bender points out that specific textual cues in the combat genre tend to be linked to claims of realism, even if such representations are not “authentic to real-life experience” (2014: p. 3). That is, cinematic devices in games and films are used to “appeal to ideas about reality”, regardless of whether that representation actually imitates reality (Thompson 1988, p. 17; cited in Bender, 2014, p. 3).…”

‘Dude, get a shot of this’: The performance of violence in the school shooting film Excursion

“…Cognitivist film theory argues that the human imagination is central to engagement with narrative, in that audiences run 'offline' mental simulations of the events depicted on screen (Currie 1995;Bacon 2009;Bacon 2011;Bender 2014). For instance, Torben Grodal argues that cinematic 'hunter-and-prey scenarios' are like games of hide and seek in children's play activity, which are 'expressions of innate viewer dispositions for emotional engagements in such scenarios, emotions that were advantageous for our hunter-gatherer ancestors' (Grodal 2009: 7-8).…”