MANED EXETER (Sontag, 219)
Maned Exeter, beleaguered metalunan

victor or the victim. The success of such spectacles indicates that most people identify with the victor; they are immortal. I identify with the victim. Screen violence is horrible because I am its object. Thus, a taste for distance and formalism in art (Sontag on Bresson). Porno, on the other hand, involves a similar, but titillating, projection. In this case, I am aggressor.
Screen gore is the successor of the public execution. Could the sex act replace the death act as public spectacle? Mores and censors overwhelmingly favor the latter. But couldn’t ceremonial and stylized execution proceed from erotic drive?
The energies must address a specific, delimited goal.

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

Written in the 70s, 70s-9. (Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)