Enough with the torture scenes, please

A scene from “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” in which Captain America and Black Widow are trying to get information from a bad guy:

Jasper Sitwell: Is this little display meant to insinuate that you’re gonna throw me off the roof? Because it’s really not your style, Rogers.

Steve Rogers: You’re right. It’s not. It’s hers.

[Natasha kicks Sitwell off the roof]

In context, it’s a really funny scene. Don’t worry, they didn’t really kill Sitwell.1 Cap’s pal The Falcon was below, waiting to fly up and catch Sitwell and throw him back down onto the roof. Then Sitwell talks, because in the superhero genre torture always works (at least, it does when the good guys torture).2

Colin Smith, in an excellent post about a torture scene in a Spider-Man comic, describes the elements of a typical superhero torture scene:

6.) A situation in which the torture’s been designed to be gruesomely compelling for the reader, because torture is, as [the writer] amongst many others obviously believes, an entertainment in itself.

7.) The clear suggestion that the heroic torturers are never sadists, incompetent or misguided, let alone evil.

8.) Information gained from the torture leads to decisive action which saves the day, because the torture, of course, always works and always works in an entirely productive fashion which allows the sins involved to be entirely eclipsed by the thought of all the children and puppies who’ve been protected.

9.) An outcome which either ignores any suggestion that the victim of the torture will suffer any lasting ill-effects or which actively implies that they won’t.

10.) The sense that the hero or heroes who sanction and commit the torture will themselves suffer no lasting, dehumanising effects from their behaviour beyond a noble air of angst earned through the suffering which they – and not their victims – underwent as a result of the cutting and poking and burning and so on.

11.) The clear sense that torture is something which real heroes rise to, and which marks the truly super-heroic superhero as a figure willing and able to do anything in order to save the world once again.

Torture has been routinely used by “dark” superhero characters like Batman and Daredevil for so long – I’m really enjoying the Netflix Daredevil series, but I think this show uses torture even more than “24” did – it’s become normalized. By now, “light” superhero characters like Spider-Man and Captain America both use torture, and it’s seldom questioned. (Although it’s odd that in both those examples, the actual physical torturing was done by a “dark” female friend of the male hero, rather than by the male hero himself.)

I accept that in some genres, heroic characters do things that would be horrible in real life (like, you know, being a vigilante), and often that’s part of the fun. But the routine, fruitful use of torture by good guys in pop media – and not only in superhero films – worries me, because the typical American voter mainly learns about torture from pop culture, and the view of torture pop culture pushes is horrifying. If pop culture wasn’t so relentlessly pro-torture, would the American public be so quick to accept it when our government tortures?

wonderella-torture

  1. Later on Sitwell does get murdered by a villain – but the villain in question is VERY good-looking and on a redemption narrative arc, so that’s okay too, I guess. []
  2. Honorable exception: The Dark Knight, a movie in which Batman tortures two bad guys, and it doesn’t work either time. Unlike Frank Miller’s Dark Knight graphic novel, in which torture works. []
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29 Responses to Enough with the torture scenes, please

  1. 1
    Ben Lehman says:

    Here, here.

    If I never see another heroic torture scene, it’ll be too soon.

  2. 2
    Lirael says:

    Yeah, this was one of the very few things that I didn’t like about CA: Winter Soldier. That damn scene. It’s especially jarring because Cap is in general a pretty progressive hero, in that movie and in general.

  3. 3
    Daran says:

    In what way are points 6 to 11 limited to Superheros? It seems to me that this trope can be found in multiple genres.

  4. 4
    Pesho says:

    It’s “Hear, Hear!”, as in “Listen to to this, it’s worth hearing!”, or “Ouillez, Ouillez” if you are at a Renaissance Faire, and want to be a snobbish Norman as opposed to some grubby Saxon.

    As for whether torture works or not… well, my instruction covered it, way back in the ugly days of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. According to my instructors, it was good for four separate purposes, and collecting information was a distant third, and in only very specific cases.

    The purposes went like this:
    – Breaking the subject’s self-confidence by making them realize that everyone breaks under torture.
    – Dehumanizing the subjects in the eyes of cooperators.
    – Collecting information, with a ton of caveats: only information that can be verified before you have to act on it, and only when you have the luxury to conduct the torture over long periods of time, because you have to take the subject through separate states of mind, and you cannot rush the process.
    – Making uncommitted cooperators cross a line from which there’s no coming back.

    By the way, this was for informational purposes only. Everyone in my unit had failed (or passed, as we liked to believe) the psychological tests that had deemed us unfit for work abroad or for certain other units operating inside the country. We were explicitly told that we were not trained for it, not expected to attempt it, and that getting involved in anything qualifying as torture would make us unfit for out duty. This said, slapping people around to get their attention or to help establish someone else’s Good Cop credentials was not considered torture.

  5. 5
    Daran says:

    My imediate response to the moving gif: I don’t remember Amy Pond ever kicking anyone off a roof!

  6. 6
    Harlequin says:

    I thought Serenity had an interesting take on this (IIRC–haven’t seen it since it came out), in that these sorts of bad acts were considered bad by the bad guy, who thought of himself as the one who did it so the good guys (ie his side) wouldn’t have to…

    Weirdly I was just discussing this with some friends a couple of weeks ago. We were having a general discussion of things we’d consider immoral and wrong under any circumstances, and someone else brought up torture, but then disagreed with himself, more or less with the superhero argument: you’ve got a suitcase nuke in front of you and you need the code to disarm it. Couldn’t dissuade him from that position, unfortunately.

    One thing I find interesting is how rarely people seem to put themselves in the shoes of the person being tortured. (Myself definitely included, at least in some cases–I didn’t even clock the Winter Soldier scene as torture until someone else pointed it out.) I think from the POV of the torturer some of the superhero-type torturing tropes make sense, but as soon as you try to think of yourself as the torturee, the ineffectiveness becomes obvious; and since effectiveness is often the argument employed to paint torture as a lesser-of-two-evils sort of situation, it seems like that should be enough. Yet, somehow, many people don’t seem to get there. (And of course I may be wrong with the psychology there.)

  7. 7
    Harlequin says:

    And forgot to say–thanks, Pesho, that’s really interesting information!

  8. 8
    RonF says:

    So glad to see you too are an “The Non-Adventures of Wonderella” fan, Amp!

  9. 9
    Grace Annam says:

    So far I am 4 episodes into the Netflix Daredevil, a superhero I have often liked very much in comic form (particularly the Born Again story arc), and I have almost quit at least once because of the torture scenes. I’m hanging in to see if this is preliminary stuff which he eventually throws up about as he gets his superheroing legs under him, or if this just keeps happening.

    Now that I know you’re watching, Barry: does it keep happening a lot? Because if so, I have better things to do with my time.

    Grace

  10. 10
    mythago says:

    you’ve got a suitcase nuke in front of you and you need the code to disarm it

    The terrorist with the code has been brainwashed so that he is physically incapable of giving it up unless he sees you rape your infant daughter. Do you do it?

    What if raping a baby is the only way to convince a ring of evil pedophiles that you’re one of them, so that you can infiltrate them and destroy their conspiracy forever; is raping an infant OK then?

    You can come up with all kinds of shitty imaginary scenarios about how torture saves the world. That doesn’t mean that torture is a good and effective tool outside the macho fantasies of people with logic issues.

  11. 11
    Tamme says:

    I’ve always hated the whole “terrorist with a ticking bomb somewhere in the city” question.

    That situation has never happened once in human history and probably never will. And the frequency with which that question is asked as a so-called exercise in ethics, usually outside of the context of a formal ethics class, means that it has actually reached a point where it is as much a part of the torture-promoting pop culture as any movie or TV show.

  12. 12
    Tamme says:

    As an aside, it bothers me how (relatively) common female torturers are in pop culture, when in reality, torturers, like rapists, are overwhelmingly male.

  13. 13
    Duncan says:

    “If pop culture wasn’t so relentlessly pro-torture, would the American public be so quick to accept it when our government tortures?”

    I think you have it backwards: the reason pop culture is so relentlessly pro-torture is that the American public is so relentless pro-torture, at least in fantasy. And why not? One of the core attractions of Christianity, from its beginnings to the present, is the fantasy that people you don’t like will Get Theirs, and Theirs is described in doting detail. If you’ve been very good, you’ll get to watch, from the safety of Heaven and the bosom of Abraham. (See the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, in the gospel of Luke. It’s possible, even likely, that Jesus didn’t actually tell this parable, but it’s easy to see why someone did and included it in Luke.) The fantasy of being tortured and spitting in the eye of your torturer is also a popular component of Boy Culture, from way back.

    These are fantasies, of course, and most people would probably find it difficult actually to torture a real person, just as most people find it difficult to kill. It’s important to remember that fantasies are not reality, and mean something other than reality to the fantasist. Rape’s another example: people tend to forget that fantasies about rape are really ravishment fantasies, where the fantasist is in control of the loss of control, unlike the reality, which is messy and deeply unpleasant.

    People forget that the people they want to see punished, tortured, degraded, killed, dismembered, are real people like them, because the abstractive features of language allow us to detach them. Media also help: what you see in movies or on TV is fantasy, even if it’s ostensibly real. Governments use these psychological facts to manipulate their constituents, but they couldn’t do it if people weren’t already like this, by and large. And of course there are all sorts of other factors — deprivation, frustration, the desire to take out one’s frustrations on a safe because distant target — that aggravate this. But I wouldn’t blame popular culture for pandering to its audiences; that’s what it does.

  14. 14
    Lirael says:

    Hmm, I edited my comment shortly after posting it yesterday, and none of the edits showed up.

    Anyway, part of what I was saying in the edits is that one way in which I disagree with the linked article about comics, is in this implication that torture and America are, except for a departure during the Bush II years, concepts that don’t go together. Torture happens all the time in American jails and prisons and from cops on the street. Rough rides, as happened to Freddie Gray, are either torture or its lesser cousin “cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment,” depending on how bad they are. Long-term solitary confinement, prison sexual assaults or threats of such by staff – those can be and often are torture. And the US has certainly sponsored its share of torturing governments.

    Another series (not comics, but SF/F) that I like very much but that has some problems with this among other things is the Dresden Files series. When I reread Turn Coat I actually just skip the section where they interrogate Binder because, aside from my general problems with the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique trope (as TV Tropes calls it), I have a specific and personal problem with endorsements of Chicago police brutality. On the other hand, of the two most egregious times I can recall where Harry tortures someone in the series, in the first case it comes back to bite him in the ass a couple of books later (since his victim wants revenge), and in the second case it turns out to be an early sign that a powerful demon is trying to brainwash him while he sleeps. So those are maybe not unqualified endorsements of torture.

  15. 15
    Daran says:

    It’s possible, even likely, that Jesus didn’t actually tell this parable

    It’s likely that Jesus, assuming he ever existed, didn’t say or do any of the things attributed to him in text written decades after the claimed events, by people who weren’t there to witness them.

  16. 16
    Christopher says:

    Superheroes torturing people is something that I find particularly distasteful, simply because superheroes also have this explicit, self-congratulatory “I don’t kill people” morality to go along with things to make them extra hypocritical.

    When I went to the Watchmen movie, they gave away the first issue of the comic as a promo, so I reread it for the first time since I was a teenager. There’s a scene where Rorschach tortures a guy for information, and when I was a teenager I didn’t particularly notice it, but when I revisited it as an adult, I went “Wait… is there any evidence that this guy knows anything? Did Rorschach literally just grab a completely random guy and start torturing him?”

    I think the main evidence that the guy was bad was that Rorschach was torturing him. Superheroes don’t make mistakes, so if Rorschach is torturing him, that’s proof enough that it deserved to happen.

    I like a good sadistic revenge movie, where somebody is wronged horribly and then goes through hell to destroy the people who did it. Not that I approve of vigilantism in real life, but it can be cathartic in fiction. But the guy in the hardscrabble revenge flick usually has a monologue about what a shitty guy he is. Superheroes have this gross thing where they torture people horribly and are still portrayed as moral paragons, above the rest of us.

    I get very tired of the hypocrisy of “I won’t kill you, but I’ll break all your bones until you think you’re going to die. Aren’t I a moral person for not killing you?”

  17. 17
    Myca says:

    I think the main evidence that the guy was bad was that Rorschach was torturing him. Superheroes don’t make mistakes, so if Rorschach is torturing him, that’s proof enough that it deserved to happen.

    Though I agree with the gist of your argument, Christopher, I think that scene was supposed to be upsetting, because it’s so clear that the guy may well not know anything, and that Rorschach is a dangerous fucking psychopath.

    —Myca

  18. 18
    JutGory says:

    Psychopath, sure, which is why he was so like able.

    But, it is ironic that we are talking about the Rorschach torture scene, because, if it is the one I recall, the torture (breaking the guy’s fingers) did NOT work. Torture did not work AND did real damage AND left Rorschach puzzled (in a very clinical and psychopathic way).

    I thought that was a very informative scene.

    -Jut

  19. 19
    Christopher says:

    Though I agree with the gist of your argument, Christopher, I think that scene was supposed to be upsetting, because it’s so clear that the guy may well not know anything, and that Rorschach is a dangerous fucking psychopath.

    Oh, yeah, I was a little unclear on that.

    Even as a teenager I got the basic thrust of the comic and the idea that Rorschach wasn’t a nice person, and that torturing that guy was nasty and pointless, but I did pretty much accept the standard superhero torture narrative, assuming that Rorschach must have a good reason for choosing this guy. Superheroes wouldn’t just pluck a random guy off the street and assume he knows about the criminal underworld; that would be nuts. Obviously Rorschach must have good reason to believe that this dude has important information.

    Whereas I came back to it and was like “I really think Rorschach just literally grabbed a guy completely at random because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there’s no indication that this guy is even a criminal or a person with ties to criminality, let alone that he has the specific info Rorschach wants.”

    I don’t have Watchmen on me right now, so I might be misremembering that scene, but six years ago it seemed to me that the only indication that Rorschach wasn’t completely fucking nuts was that he wears a cool mask. And when I was a teenager I was carried right along with that; Superheroes don’t torture innocent people, so the fact of the torture is itself all the evidence teenage me needed that the torture was deserved. If that guy was innocent, then why would a Superhero be breaking his fingers?

    I might well be wrong about how unmotivated that scene was on Rorschach’s part; it’s been a long time. But in a way I prefer to think that’s how Moore wrote it, because that seems like a big part of how torture is justified in the real world. “We don’t torture good guys, so if you’re being tortured, it means you must be a bad guy. QED.”

    I do think one of the really good points about Watchmen is how much work Moore lets the reader do; you often assume that the characters are heroic, because they do the things that people do in a superhero story, but Moore hasn’t created a world that justifies their actions.

  20. 20
    JutGory says:

    Christopher,
    I think you are basically remembering it correctly, but my copy is not handy either. It was not quite at random though. Rorschach went to where the bad people were and that guy just mouthed off. Wrong place/wrong time, as you said.

    Now, I am going to look dumb by stating the obvious: the Watchmen is pretty complex. And, on the issue of torture, Moore gave us stark examples.

    Pop quiz! Who is worse: 1) the Comedian who kills for fun; 2) Rorschach, who inflicts punishment out of his sense of right and wrong; 3) dr. Manhattan who, in one scene where he blew up some guys head, said “the morality of my action escapes me” or something like that, suggesting that even though he is the most out of touch character, that he is the least clueless; 4) Owl Man (crap! How could I forget his name! I might have to turn in my Nerd card), who only got vigilant and abusive when he found out about his friend’s murder; or 5) ozymandias, who killed millions for the greater good, leaving all but Rorschach morally confused about his actions.

    And, no, I did not leave the silk spectre out because I am sexist. It is just that we know she smokes, so, according to the Simpsons, she is worse than Hitler. (Nerd card redeemed!)

    -Jut

  21. 21
    Grace Annam says:

    JutGory:

    Owl Man (crap! How could I forget his name!

    Night Owl.

    Grace

  22. 22
    Harlequin says:

    Nite Owl, in fact.

  23. 23
    Grace Annam says:

    Harlequin:

    Nite Owl, in fact.

    Right you are. Amazing. Dreiberg had all that technical prowess and he couldn’t spell.

    Grace

  24. 24
    Tamme says:

    @Grace: Well, remember, he took the name from the original Nite Owl, who presumably couldn’t spell. Dreiberg was just being faithful to his idol, warts n’ all.

  25. 25
    closetpuritan says:

    I read an essay or blog post about portrayal of torture (not in superhero contexts–in “Zero Dark 30”, “24”, etc), I wish I could remember where, that I thought made a good points–that the argument that portrayal of torture influences CIA operatives, members of the military, etc. to use torture is more sophisticated than the “playing violent video games causes kids to be violent!” argument; kids aren’t going to be in a situation similar to that portrayed in the video games, but portraying torture as something effective and something that truly heroic people do, sacrificing their very moral integrity to save their country, is likely to influence people’s actions when they’re in these very specific situations. The superhero comics discussed here seem to have the same message.

  26. 26
    Charles S says:

    Possibly in the New Yorker? I remember reading a New Yorker article some years back that described instructors from one of the major military schools meeting with the show runner of 24 to ask them to please quit it with the torture because the instructors were seeing many more officer candidates coming into training who were strong believers in torture. Can’t remember the year or the author, sadly.

  27. 27
    closetpuritan says:

    I think the one I read was relatively recent, Charles S, but it sounds like the one you’re talking about may have formed part of the basis of it.

  28. 28
    Grace Annam says:

    closetpuritan:

    …sacrificing their very moral integrity to save their country…

    I had not thought of it that way, before. Thank you for that really penetrating insight.

    Grace

  29. 29
    Charles S says:

    The article I was thinking of was Jane Mayer’s The Politics of 24 from 2007.