The Attention Economy

Films can have a great impact on people views and actions, sometimes influencing them to do things they normally would or would not do. One of the issues which struck my interest is the Delhi gang rape which led to a death sentence for the four rapists. The whole issue and the articles that came out after the gang rape reminded me of the movie “I Spit on Your Grave.”

In this movie an innocent, young girl is raped by five disgusting men. She is then left for dead in a forest. Unfortunately for the men, she is still alive and comes back for revenge.  The common link between the two here is obviously the issue of rape.  Yet what’s really interesting here is how such movies may impact on our society.

Movies like “I Spit on Your Grave” provide two sides which can provoke two different types of emotions. Firstly it can influence people to commit crimes or acts as violent as those seen in the movies. But in contrast, it can also prevent people from doing those acts depending on how the acts are punished in the movie. Those who are naive will tend to commit crimes like that but for the clever ones, they will realize that those who show no mercy get no mercy.

It is said in an article that even if the four Delhi men were illiterate, they would have understood the messages in Bollywood movies. So, we can see that movies can communicate a lot of meaning to its viewers and in the case of “I Spit on Your Grave” it can send negative messages as well as warning to rapists.

It was interesting to see how the same emotions that resulted after the rape in the movie are the same as the one in Delhi. There are feelings of resentment and a demand for violence against the criminals. Ironically the same thing that happened in the film which is death for the culprits will happen in Delhi as well.  Even if in the film, it is the victim who takes revenge after a short while, in the Delhi case it is the justice system that gives the death sentence.

Horror films are usually only watched for the thrill they provide but in this case upon analyzing this movie, we can see that movies, even horror ones communicate much more than we think.

Here is the link to the online article where I got my idea from http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114939/delhi-gang-rape-sentences

The video of the trailer can be seen on YouTube.