MovieChat Forums > American Horror Story (2011) Discussion > Mehhhhh I'm being tortured with porn!!!

Mehhhhh I'm being tortured with porn!!!

posted 8 years ago by SensualSpiveySkeetones
91 replies | jump to latest

Please stop using the term torture porn when referring to this season, you clearly have no *beep* idea what that means. There's been four characters that have had sex all season if I'm not mistaken, and they've been some of the mildest sex scenes this show has ever depicted. Furthermore the term you are looking for is gore. It's been a staple in the horror genre pretty much since they figured out how to create fake blood several decades ago, and it's something fans of this show have been begging for for years so just stop. If you simply must use the term torture porn I have to refer you to 'Hotel' there was significantly more of said term in that season than this one, which hasn't had any. I get that seasons of this show aren't for everyone and this is a message board so everyone is entitled to their opinion, but the imbeciles are shouting extra loud this year. I've been pretty quiet during this season but I feel it is my civic duty to educate said mother *beep* on their incessant complaints of this season that have no basis in reality. I'm not sure if there are just way more children watching the show now, or if it's just a bunch of Gaga fans waiting for another of her music videos, or what. Been a fan since Murder House and my only hope is that your moronic shouting doesn't ruin this show for the rest of us. Ryan Murphy and company, if you are listening, this is one of the best seasons this show has had in years, please keep up the good work...And now, back to your regularly scheduled program.

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[–] ravenzcorner 8 years ago

That's not what "torture porn" means. It's referring to the over abundance of unnecessary, therefore gratuitous, torture in the show.

The word porn has been completely normalized (which is a bad thing) so it's used to describe indulging in anything. Food porn, cloud porn, whatever.

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[–] BlankTom 8 years ago

Please stop using the term torture porn when referring to this season, you clearly have no *beep* idea what that means.

haha - you obviously have no idea what it means! "Torture Porn" doesn't need to have sex. the sex is replaced by over the top violence and gore. Torture Porn are basically movies/shows that have intense, graphic scenes of turture and no real plot. Or the plot only serves the purpose of introducing and furthering the scenes of torture (like saw).

I think American Horror Story toes the line of torture porn.

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

I think he's referring to when the whining about torture porn first started this season. The whiner brought up sex and torture.

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[–] BlankTom 8 years ago

well, he sure is complaining about something. but he's still using the term incorrectly.

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

Ofcourse he's complaining about something. He's complaining about the misuse of the term to deride the season by people who arent enjoying it this year. The same thing happens on the WW board. Waa Waaaa it's torture porn because 'I dont like the rape scene' when there has not been any rape even depicted on screen, let alone a lengthy, drawn out, graphic scene of rape for the sake of it.

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[–] d_chatterley 8 years ago

Complaining about people complaining is completely legitimate and he is right about it.
Complaining about people misusing the term "torture porn" to reduce or relegate the show is justified as well.

But you do see the irony of it when they themselves obviously do not know the correct definition of the term, right?

"That gum you like is going to come back in style."

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

As I said earlier, I just ASSume he was referring to the initial whiners who were confusing sex with the term. More than one person blatantly said in their whine the sex in the season was torture porn.

I will stand corrected if Spivey clarifies when he finishes work.

I just really dislike the term and how it's morphed by kids who have no idea what it means. Stepping off high horsey.

I will say, however, I was unaware that the creator of the term was referring to 'the money shot in porn'. I thought the derisive term came about to accuse fans of extreme horror as being turned on by the torture scenes.

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[–] SensualSpiveySkeetones 8 years ago

Thanks for defending my honor Dani haha. I'm saying it's wrong in both instances in reference to the sex but even more so when it comes to gore. Just bc someone doesn't like violence doesn't make it gratuitous. For something to be "torture porn" (dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb) whether it be vioence or sex it has to not serve the show in any way, which is not the case especially this season. The violent acts The Butcher, and the Polk family have commited fit the aesthetic of the season perfectly. Who wants to see tamed down cannibalism? That's what stations like ABC and CBS that don't have the freedom to do those things are for.

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

it has to not serve the show in any way

Exactly. It also has to be protracted scenes with the camera focus giving the viewer a bird's eye view, so as the creator of the term explained, the viewer feels tortured rather than just confronted.

Maybe the people throwing it around do feel tortured by the violence, but if so, why stick with a show described as a psycho sexual thriller that has had violence from the get go?

I cant see a cable network like FX going full on torture porny anyway. They cant even show nips or peens so why would they have a lengthy scene of that dude in the background with the chainsaw cutting his head off. If it was torture porn Drilldo would have been shown ass raping the drug addict for several minutes and it being a totally meaningless act except to shove in (Ha. No pun intended) a rape scene. I doubt the sponsors would be too happy with torture porn on FX if they managed to slip some in (Ha, I did it again).

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

I like this guy's explanation

http://www.themovieblog.com/2007/what-torture-porn-is-and-what-it-is-not/

A torture porn scene for me was in (I think) Turistas. A film about harvesting organs from backpackers. When a backpacker was on the slab about to have organs removed the bad dude cut her nipple off (all clearly visible) and shoved his fingers into her breast to grope around. No rhyme or reason to it.
Maybe it wasnt turistas but something like it. Too long ago for me to remember except I was screaming bad words at the tv. Just went too far and like the creator of the term, I physically and psychologically felt tortured.

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

Here's one person's list of top torture porn movies. Severance was torture porn? I thought it was a freaking comedy. Brilliant movie if you like british humour. Laughed all the way through this. Great fun.

http://www.thetoptens.com/torture-porn-movies/

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

Apologies for replying to myself but I want to use the link as an example of what I think torture porn is to keep the discussion going for those who know what torture porn means. I havent seen all of the films listed, though.

Saw. Had a point so I would say no.

Salo. My husband wont let me watch this. Not because of the movie but because he thinks I'll freak out at the 'kid exploitation' concept. True. I dont like seeing kids or animals tortured or killed. Dont really want to see kids being forced to eat sht.

A Serbian Film. No. The movie has a point and a very strong analogy.

Ichi The Killer. Started watching it but we had a black out shortly after it started and I havent picked it up again.

Baise Moi. Got one screening here and then got banned. I missed it.

Cannibal Holocaust. Real life killing of animals pissed me off but not sure I'd classify it as torture porn. Too far back to remember other than torture because the acting was so bad.

Martyrs. No. Has a point to the torture, even if I didnt like that point. Great movie.

HCII. I would give this a yes simply because Six went out of his way to piss off censorship lobbies so shoved it in everyone's face. Good. Eff Off, censorship lobby groups. Banning films will not stop people watching them because of your little johnny. Dickheads.

Hostel. I thought it was pretty tame, really. II was probably more in your face.

Turistas. Already mentioned in a previous post.

Devil's Rejects. Cant remember it except for Spalding.

Antichrist. Pretty disturbing but dont think it was torture porn.

Planet Terror. Grindhouse rather than TP.

Severance. As previously posted.

Inside. Didnt like it. Cant remember why. I think I just thought it was a shtty movie so walked out.

I spit on your grave. I laughed. Another sht movie.

Collector I and II. Disturbing but not sure I would call it TP.

Irreversible. Walked out. The shaky cam and overblown sound made me vomit. A 9 minute anal rape scene, however, would probably classify as TP, but I didnt last that long.

Final Destination. Wait, wut? A tween movie is TP? That's new.

Passion of the Christ. An entire movie that was TP? Must have been the overblown score that made people feel like they were being tortured. This movie was a boring as a limp penis.

OK, I'm done.

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[–] the_dirty_bandage 8 years ago

I've been dying to see Ichi the Killer. It looked absolutely mental.

Baise Moi wouldn't be worth the watch: Thelma and Louise get raped and decide that they want to get back at men by seducing them (thus proving just how shîte men are), and then killing them. I'm pretty sure that's the message, or so it seemed. There's hardcore sex in there, and a scene where one of the women shoves a pistol into a man's anus and blasts. Fun.

The problem I'm seeing with this list is that they are really liberal with the application of the term, which further shows me what everyone here has been saying: it's an arbitrary term that's used to dismiss a work without actually giving it much thought. How are any of these movies related? Why are we seeing a mixture of movies with hardcore sex and no sex? Why are we looking at some movies that revel in violence while others just have a couple of instances of extremely brutal and graphic violence?

I want to make a movie where Helen Keller can see dead people. It's called 'The Fourth Sense'

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

As you can see the term has lost all meaning. Whether or not sex is in it is neither here nor there. Porn in the term refers to 'the money shot in porn' being the final kill scene with a geyser of blood. And that porn is nothing but screwing screwing screwing squirt, whereas TP is torture torture torture squib. No plot, just in your face kills.

The pistol rape sounds hilarious but yeah, no...I'll take your word on it and give it a miss. Still laughing that Severance is in there. WTF?

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

When asked about the phrase a few years ago, director Eli Roth stated that using it, “genuinely says more about the critic’s limited understanding of what horror movies can do than about the film itself.”

BOOM!🙌

Full article. Very good read. Should be a sticky on the board to try to minimise facepalming in future but the "OMG it's torture porn" trogs wont read it anyway..

https://filmschoolrejects.com/can-we-stop-calling-it-torture-porn-already-621788ad6ad6#.78r3kdct9

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

What the? Now this is really jumping the freaking shark. Title of an article which I could not be bothered reading

The Shallows Is Torture Porn, With a Shark

Unbelievable.

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[–] SensualSpiveySkeetones 8 years ago

haha I thought this thread had a lot of posts but that dude that called AHS and all of it's fans *beep* got just as many in an hr. Guess I'm slacking

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

LOL. He's posting up a storm for a new account holder.

Anyway, back to your OP, lots of good reading there. I had fun going through those (and a few others but they were a bit verbose so I didnt link)

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[–] BlankTom 8 years ago

you should try your hand at politics.

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

Me or Spivvy? I doubt either one of us is the least bit interested in the real torture pornographers who are fat cat politicians. Ass hats. I just cant tolerate the mofos.

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[–] BlankTom 8 years ago

Spivvy, you're not as good as pivoting.

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

Spivvy is cool. Why on earth do you think he wants to be a poli?

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[–] SensualSpiveySkeetones 8 years ago

Both points were the same from the get go, you choosing to only comment on one so it sounds like I don't understand torture porn doesn't mean I'm pivoting when I go back and re-explain

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

I'm not sure why he thinks I was attempting to pivot either

Another dill who doesnt understand the term. Lots of interesting articles on TP, and confirmation that so many people who lob it around have not got a clue.

Torture porn, vicious slaughter and brutal rape is not sexy, nor should it be eroticized in any way because it is a horrible part of reality.

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

LMAO. Eli Roth ROCKS!

http://deadline.com/2007/09/more-eli-roth-whining-over-anti-torture-porn-media-takes-on-ews-lisa-schwartzbaum-3317/

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

Comment by a guy called Joey Magidson

What I’m getting at is that these films may be too much for some, but to give the idea that they have no point except to arouse through violence is no good to me. He also seems to be angry that people like these flicks, but that’s neither here nor there. I don’t like that people like the ‘Transformers’ films, but to each their own.

👍

Especially to the comment about arousal. I'm not aroused by torture films. I'm horrified, totally confronted and left a jittery mess, and in the case of A Serbian Film, left in freaking tears because of the point the director was putting across. It's why I watch them when I'm in the mood to be completely confronted out of my nice cosy bubble, but I wont watch horrifying footage of real life events because unlike the sensationalised news or documentaries, I know what I'm watching is not real.

Seems to me that the reviewers misusing the term simply dont like in your face gore (which is fine) and dont watch it (aso fine) so bash the horror sub genres that use graphic violence, and the viewers who watch them.

Edit to ad ful article. Lots of really good points. The only comment I disagree with is that A Serbian Film is a failed social commentary. Not for me it wasnt. I found it an extremely powerful commentary.

http://www.awardscircuit.com/2011/10/31/torture-porn-is-it-true/

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[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] mboj 8 years ago

Um? you know the 'Torture Porn' genre isn't about combining porn and torture, right? Know your horror genres. Though, I personally always give that one a wide berth.

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[–] daydreamer021979 8 years ago

This season is definitely not torture porn. When I complain about something being torture porn, a horror genre I am admittedly not fond of, it's a horror movie with no real plot that largely exists for no other purpose than to show a small group of people being gratuitously and brutally ripped to shreds for an hour and a half or so for the delight of sick and twisted individuals. For example the Hostel series, A Serbian Film, The Human Centipede Series, pretty much anything Rob Zombie makes. I like American Horror Story. I don't like the movies I just listed and I say that as an avid fan of horror.

LIGAF

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

ASF was not torture porn. It gave a very important social commentary.

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[–] lennonforeveragain 8 years ago

Please stop using the term torture porn when referring to this season,

EXACTLY!!!

I never drink, wine.

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[–] lennonforeveragain 8 years ago

ON THE HORROR BOARD, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THAT

I never drink, wine.

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

And those saying it on the horror board are correct, as critics discussing the term have said. Thee is no such thing as 'horror porn'. It was a term made up by a guy who didnt like Hostel and has since been misused and abused by people who dont like screen gore.

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[–] CookieNCreams 8 years ago

I've grown to despise that term a bit to be honest. I've never understood how that whole adage got started either just to describe heavy gore content, or even became a popular phrase to abuse. Same with any other coined '____ porn' nonsense for that matter. In film making, hyperbolic gore and violence would automatically fall into exploitation. The old subgenre of that was called 'splatter film'.

I feel that adage really needs to go away, or just called it an exploitation. It seems to get thrown around for fun now just to describe something excessive. Worse, as a previous poster puts it, it just normalized the word 'porn' and felt ironically gratuitous within itself.

Happy Halloween!
🍭🎃👻🍬

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[–] yasna_1079 8 years ago

Please stop using the term torture porn when referring to this season,

what dose torture porn really means ? as someone who English is not her first language i am bit confuse a bout it .

Ryan Murphy and company, if you are listening, this is one of the best seasons this show has had in years, please keep up the good work...And now, back to your regularly scheduled program.

☝☝👏👏

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[–] CookieNCreams 8 years ago

So ‘torture porn’ is a silly expression used to describe a lot of graphic violence, gore, and brutality depicted in movies or shows more than necessary. It is a form of exploitation genre in an entertainment work. In western films, that genre is technically known as ‘splatter films’. Here’s more information about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splatter_film. Apparently the label was first coined by a film critic, David Edelstein, to describe the contents of movies like Host and Saw in 2006: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Edelstein.

Contrary to the phrase itself, it has NOTHING to do with pornography. That’s what kind of bugs me about the label. And it is getting misused by those who truly don’t understand the expression properly (lazy journalists, bloggers, and such). I supposed the label seems to be invented to liken the depiction of graphic torture to porn. That is to say, less plot = more simplistic and thrilling exploitation. In this case, the ‘torture’ themes are getting more depicted graphically and simplistically over the plot. Hence the phrase ‘torture porn.’

Liken exploitation content as pornograpic doesn’t make it sound proper, mature, or intellectual in the long run imo. It even sounds misleading to believe that heavy content in anything has something to do with porn (and that almost seemed to be the Original Poster’s mistake too).

🍭🎃👻🍬

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

what dose torture porn really means

It means the critic who coined the phrase hates Eli Roth. I very much doubt Eli is crying himself to sleep about it.

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[–] its_Zoe_skanks 8 years ago

Lol op has spivey in his name, which is my last name.. are we related ?haha

Burn the witch

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[–] danloki 8 years ago

I love Spivey. He's always been a gent.

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